On June 19, Cynthia Haddad and her husband, Bill, walked across Wendell Avenue from the Berkshire Superior Court to the public library in Pittsfield, Mass., to talk. There they waited as a jury in the Park Square courthouse deliberated over the lawsuit Haddad had filed against her former employer Wal-Mart Stores for gender discrimination and defamation. As they exited the library hand-in-hand, the sun shone, filling Haddad with an impending sense of closure. "It was the first day of the rest of our lives no matter what the verdict," says the 45-year-old mother of four. "My story was told and I did the fight. My life would go on after that."
Shortly thereafter, Haddad was in tears. The jury awarded her nearly $2 million in punitive and compensatory damages. "It vindicated me," says Haddad. "It started to bring life back into me. Someone listened."
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