Damages Available in a Workplace Discrimination Claim

Answer:

As a trial attorney, one of the issue that we focus on in relation to your claim is your damages. What type of damages we’ll be able to seek and ask a jury for? In California, those damages are typically classified into various buckets. There’s wages from the time of an unlawful discrimination or retaliation through time of trial. Also, there’s front wages. Let’s say you found a new job, but you’re not making as much as you used to, or you found a job making as much as you’re used to but it doesn’t have the health insurance or retirement benefits the old job offered. That has value. You would be asking the jury for all those benefits between the termination or the unlawful conduct through trial, as well as those damages going forward that the jury believes you’re reasonably calculated to have. You’re also entitled to emotional distress resulting from the employer’s unlawful conduct. We’ll ask the jury to compensate you for every minute of emotional distress that you suffered. For a lot of us, if not all of us, losing a job has an impact more than most people can contemplate until it happens. How are you going to pay for the bills? How are you going to pay for schooling or tutoring for a child? How are you going to cover medical issues that have come up now that you don’t have medical insurance? The stress of waking up at 2 o’clock in the morning and not knowing how you’re going to pay rent or how to pay that mortgage, the frustration of losing a job that you truly did love, and the uncertainty of not having a job have had for you in the past and in the future. All of that damage is called emotional distress. Some employers will also be subject to punitive damages, a damage to truly punish the employer to try and make sure that the employer never does this again to another employee. Those are the damages that would go to you. In addition, the employer, if you go to trial, would be liable for attorney’s fees and costs. Those are the typical damages that are available to employees. Now, while a lot of cases do settle, not all of them do. It’s important for you to be able to find an attorney that can tell your story, describing the job search that you endured as a result of the employer’s unlawful conduct, the damage that you will suffer in the future, and your emotional distress. It’s important for you to find an attorney to convince the jury that the employer’s conduct has to stop, and if not but for your lawsuit, that the employer will continue doing what they have done to you to other employees in the future. If I can answer any of those questions, please feel free to give me a call. I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have.