Discrimination damages vs.Retaliation damages

Is the defendant's economist failure to mitigate analysis under-estimating the plaintiff's losses in the employment termination case?

In employment termination cases one tactic of defense attorneys is to use labor economists and vocational experts to assess the plaintiffs ability to obtain replacement employment that pays as much or more than they recieved while employed with the defendant.

Typically, the analysis reveals that the damages for the indiviual plaintiff are cut off immediately or relatively soon after the date of trial. They will typically not go on until retirement.

In case where the plaintiff is claiming retaliation by the employer, the damage calculation by the defendant's economist may under estimate the damages. In these types of cases, the defendant's economist needs to examine not only the jobs that they can get but they also need to explore the jobs that the plaintiff may have been able to get had they not been retaliated against. In some instances, the allegations are that the defendant put the word out that the plaintiff is not a good worker and caused them to lose out on job opportunities.

As a consequence, one approriate measure of the damages may by the difference between the jobs that were foregone (as a result of the defendants actions) and current employment. These types of damages may be estimated to go further into the future.