Jury awards $5 million to man fired after cancer surgery

TACOMA, Wash. -- A jury awarded a Pierce County man nearly $5 million after he says he was fired from Mercedes Benz of Seattle when he lost his vocal chords to cancer.

A federal district court jury on Thursday found the dealership refused to let Troy Coachman back to work because he spoke with a voice prosthesis following surgery for the cancer.

Mercedes-Benz of Seattle declined to comment when reached by phone.

Documents filed in a disability discrimination and wrongful-termination lawsuit say Coachman was a 14-year employee of the Mercedes-Benz dealership when he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent a laryngectomy at the end of 2014,

Coachman currently is working as finance director for the Larson Automotive Group of Fife, Puyallup and Tacoma.