A California jury ordered America Online (AOL) last week to pay $5 million in damages to a former executive who was wrongly terminated by the company. Ronald Arnold, 49, was national head of information systems in Netscape Communications Corporation's Mountain View, California office when AOL purchased the company in March 1999. Shortly after the acquisition, AOL fired Arnold for allegedly falsifying his administrative assistant's time cards.

Arnold filed suit against the $41 billion company for defamation saying AOL executives used the time card accusations simply as an excuse to fire him. Plaintiff attorneys claimed AOL's attitude toward Netscape employees after the acquisition was to "get rid of them one by one."