The plaintiff, who won a judgment in the lower court, challenged the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine’s refusal to retry an employment discrimination case in which the jury refused to award damages despite finding the defendants guilty. In the underlying case, the plaintiff had sued his employer under §1981 and Title VII, alleging religious and national-origin discrimination as well as harassment based on his race and religion in the form of a wide range of offensive actions and statements aimed at the plaintiff, including likening the plaintiff to Osama bin Laden, telling him to go back to his own country, and attempts to shove pork in his mouth (Islamic law prohibits the consumption of pork). The plaintiff argued that on a guilty finding, the jury was obliged to award damages as a matter of law. The appellate court, however, pointed to precedent rejecting this argument, and thus affirmed the lower court’s decision not to retry the case.