Tried to Waive the Jury, Failed. Got a Jury, It Didn’t Decide the Right Thing Either.

A supervisor approved the employee’s hairstyle at her interview, then sent her home for wearing it on day one. A federal appeals court says the case over what happened next isn’t finished, for either side.

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TL;DR: A federal appeals court vacated an $811,264 jury verdict for a former security contractor employee after finding the trial judge’s jury instructions omitted a required element of her retaliation claim. It also rejected the employer’s attempt to enforce a jury-trial waiver buried in its handbook, ruling that waiving a constitutional right takes more than a general policy signature.

📄 Read the court’s opinion here

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Hired With Her Hair Approved, Sent Home the Next Day for Wearing It

The employee interviewed for a mailroom job with a security contractor at an auto plant, wearing her hair in locs. The contractor’s grooming policy barred the style, but managers approved an alternate styling in a photo and hired her. She wore locs on day one and was sent home. The next day, a manager told her, “This is going to be a problem,” adding, “This is not about your hair.” She filed a written complaint and was told she couldn’t return to work.

A federal appeals court has now vacated the $811,264 verdict she won, ordering a new trial over a flawed jury instruction, and rejected the employer’s attempt to enforce a jury-trial waiver buried in its handbook.

The Jury Waiver She Never Actually Signed

During onboarding, the contractor gave her its employee handbook, which included a section titled a “Waiver of Trial By Jury Policy.” She signed a separate acknowledgment form confirming receipt and agreement to its policies, but never signed the waiver page itself, and testified she couldn’t recall reading it before she started work. When she later sued and demanded a jury, the employer moved to strike that demand, arguing she’d already given it up.

Two Separate Fights, Two Separate Outcomes

To win her retaliation claim, the employee had to show not just that she believed she was discriminated against, but that she’d communicated that belief to the employer. The trial judge’s instruction skipped that second half, stating as a given fact that she’d complained about race discrimination instead of letting the jury decide whether she had. The appeals court called that an abuse of discretion and ordered a new trial.

The jury waiver fight turned on a narrower distinction than “was there a contract.” The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases, and courts “must indulge every reasonable presumption against waiver,” a higher bar than ordinary contract formation. The employee’s signature agreeing to the handbook’s “rules, regulations, and policies” was never in dispute as binding for the rest of the handbook. The problem was narrower: as the court put it, “a waiver is not a rule, regulation, or policy.” A fundamental right takes its own specific, knowing waiver, and general agreement to follow workplace policies doesn’t supply one. The employer couldn’t establish she’d read the waiver language before her first day, and on that record, the appeals court agreed the waiver never took effect.

Neither the reversal nor the affirmance required a different outcome on the merits, just proof of two narrower things: that a jury decided the disputed question, and that the employee understood what she was giving up.

What This Case Actually Tests for Employers

Protected activity requires actually communicating a belief of discrimination, not just visible distress

Document the employee’s own words when a complaint comes in. What she actually says should determine whether a jury gets to consider retaliation, not an assumption baked into a jury instruction.

A jury waiver needs its own specific proof, and its enforceability still varies by state

Most handbooks state outright that they aren’t a contract, specifically to preserve at-will employment, and most courts honor that disclaimer. That makes this holding easy to underestimate: even setting the contract question aside entirely, a waiver of a constitutional right still needs its own proof that the employee knowingly gave it up, on a page she actually signed. Some states go further and restrict pre-dispute jury waivers beyond what this case required, so what works in one jurisdiction may not travel to another.

An arbitration agreement is a more reliable way to avoid a jury than a waiver clause

Jury-trial waivers get read narrowly since courts must presume against giving one up. Arbitration agreements run the opposite direction: federal law creates a strong presumption favoring their enforcement. If avoiding a jury is the goal, an arbitration agreement signed on its own is on firmer ground than a waiver buried in a handbook.

Fixing either problem doesn’t require an employer to admit discrimination occurred. A properly executed jury-trial waiver would have meant no jury, and no flawed instruction to reverse on appeal. An arbitration agreement would have kept this dispute out of a courtroom altogether, making the waiver fight and the jury instructions both beside the point.