Christine Lucarell sued her former employer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance, alleging Nationwide stopped funding her Boardman agency in April 2009 even though she was enrolled in the company's agency executive program. She also claimed the company forced her to quit in July 2009 by creating unacceptable working conditions. She says Nationwide told her she could earn more than $200,000 in annual commissions by participating in and successfully completing the program.

The civil suit alleged that Nationwide used “unsustainable” monthly production quotas to cease funding of and terminate about 90 of its agency executive agencies. Nationwide fired back, denying Lucarell's allegations and stating that she was not an agency employee but rather an independent contractor.

Lucarell filed the suit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in Ohio. She was seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and an undetermined amount of punitive damages but won a larger verdict when the court ruled in her favor in November 2012. In total, the jury awarded her $5.7 million for lost profits, $1 million in emotional damages, $100,000 for retaliation and $36 million for punitive damages, corresponding to about one-twelfth of Nationwide's annual net profits.