A Manhattan judge took the ax to an $11.175 million gay-discrimination verdict against Leona Helmsley yesterday and chopped it down to a royal pittance, finding the whopping jury award was partly motivated by brazenly “belligerent” billionaire bias.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub found Charles Bell’s award against the so-called “Queen of Mean” was “grossly excessive” and “contradictory,” and reduced it to a mere $554,000.
The jury awarded Bell the $11 million last month after finding Helmsley tormented him and then terminated him from his job as general manager of her Park Lane hotel because he is gay.
Bell lawyer Geri Krauss said she’ll appeal yesterday’s ruling.
The biggest reduction came in punitive damages, which Tolub whittled down from $10 million to $500,000.
The judge noted that Helmsley, 82, brought some of the jury’s ire on herself, particularly with her 20-minute performance on the witness stand.
“Mrs. Helmsley’s brief, belligerent, confused, agitated and insensitive presentation only resulted in inflaming the jury,” he wrote.
While she should have to pay for the way she treated Bell, “punitive damages are not a game of Lotto and . . . Mrs. Helmsley is not a $4 billion piñata for every John, Patrick or Charlie to poke a stick at,” the judge wrote.
Tolub reduced the punitive figure to keep it in line with Bell’s reduced compensatory damages of $54,000 instead of the $1,175,000 the jury awarded. He came to that number after finding the jury contradicted itself by awarding Bell past and future lost wages, even though it found he likely would have been fired anyway because of drug use and inaccuracies on his résumé – and that he turned down Helmsley’s offer to rehire him a month after he was canned.
Helmsley lawyer Steven Eckhaus said he will fight even the $554,000 award. “It’s my belief Mrs. Helmsley did nothing wrong and this entire verdict will be thrown out,” he said.
Krauss said the jury was right to assess “[Helmsley’s] demeanor.” “In essence,” the lawyer said, the judge “rewarded Mrs. Helmsley for her misconduct both in and out of the courtroom.”