A federal jury rejected a former medical device salesman’s claim his employer illegally fired him for raising questions about a prominent Lehigh Valley orthopedic surgeon’s practices.
In its decision Thursday, the jury, sitting in Easton, instead awarded $125,000 in damages to the salesman’s former employer, Indiana-based prosthetic joint maker Zimmer Biomet. The company’s lawyers told jurors it paid that amount to head off a threatened defamation lawsuit over the allegations made by the former salesman, Dominick Pistone.
“There was a conflict of interests between Zimmer’s business interest and his personal interest in this vendetta,” attorney Troy Brown told jurors in his closing argument.