Menard wins Wisconsin Supreme Court appeal

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court has sided with home improvement retailer John Menard, who sought to overturn an arbitration decision in a wrongful termination case against his former general counsel.

In a 4-3 decision released on July 21, the justices said that Menard will not have to hire back Dawn Sands, the company’s former VP and general counsel, because, “In this case, we conclude that by accepting reinstatement, Sands would be forced to violate her ethical obligations as an attorney.”

The court also nixed the idea of awarding Sands two years of “front pay” as a substitute for reinstatement. It sent the case back to circuit court to determine the appropriate amount of lost earnings for Sands.

According to court records, Sands was terminated from Menards in 2006 after asserting her rights to pay that was equal to what similarly situated  male executives received.

An arbitration panel upheld Sand’s discrimination claim and also found that company president John Menard had retaliated against Sands. It awarded her $1.5 million compensatory and punitive damages and ordered Menard to reinstate Sands to her position with a specified salary.

Menard refused to rehire Sands and appealed the arbitration panel’s decision to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. In an April 14 ruling, the appeals court upheld the arbitration panel’s findings. Although neither Sands nor Menard wanted her back working in the company’s Eau Claire, Wis., offices, the appellate judges decided not to award “front pay” (roughly two years salary)  in lieu of reinstatement.

“[It] would, in some sense, reward the company for its mistreatment of her and, moreover, would tend to send the wrong message to company employees who otherwise might be inclined to make meritorious complaints about unlawful conduct occurring within the company,” the appellate judges wrote.  

John Menard also asked the appeals court to take judicial note of the fact that Debra Sands, Dawn’s sister, has filed a civil action against him. The judges ruled this case as “irrelevant.”

Menards is the industry’s largest chain of privately owned home improvement retail warehouses, with an estimated $8.3 billion in 2009 sales, according to the Home Channel News Top 500 Scoreboard.