A Southern California jury ordered Walmart to pay $34.7 million to a truck driver after finding that the retailer defamed the employee by claiming he violated integrity rules in exceeding medical restrictions from a workplace injury.

The San Bernardino jury awarded Jesus Fonesca $9.7 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages, according to reports by the Sacramento Bee and Bloomberg Law.

Fonesca was injured in a vehicle accident in 2017. He was given work restrictions that included no pushing, pulling or lifting more than 5 to 10 pounds and no commercial driving.

Shortly after the accident, Walmart's third-party administrator hired investigators to surveil Fonesca. They reportedly videotaped him driving an RV with his family.

Fonesca said he believed that the restrictions applied only to work and not to time spent at home with his family.

Though Walmart did not pursue criminal charges, the company determined that Fonesca had been dishonest and fired him for violating an integrity provision in the company's code of ethics.

The jury on Tuesday found that Walmart failed to use reasonable care to determine the veracity of statements it made about Fonesca, that it made statements about him with malice, that it never established whether the statements were true and that the statements caused Fonesca actual harm.

Walmart said in an emailed statement that it would "pursue all available remedies" because the "outrageous verdict simply does not reflect the straightforward and uncontested facts of this case."