Judge doubles back pay award in high profile suit

Economic experts analyze claims of damages, but it’s not always as simple as a jury accepting one economic expert’s calculations over another. In some suits, judges dramatically increase or decrease the amount of damages awarded by a jury or sought by plaintiffs.

U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen awarded $390,000 to three women who filed a gender discrimination suit for being dismissed from their jobs as drivers after a client told a limousine company that he only wanted to be chauffeured by men.

Forty drivers were hired in 2010 to chauffeur Prince Abdul-Rahman bin Abdul-Aziz and his friends and family while he was treated at the Rochester Mayo Clinic. With normalized Saudi gender segregation in mind, the limousine hired the three women, assumed to be better suited to driving women and children in the prince’s group. However, the Saudi royal’s administrative staff followed the prince’s instructions to have the women chauffeurs dismissed.

The damages award was to compensate the plaintiffs for lost wages and mental anguish. The judge awarded $30,000 to each plaintiff for lost wages, twice as much as the $15,000 each was seeking for wage loss.

Each plaintiff was awarded $100,000 for mental anguish, aligned with the Minnesota Human Rights Act. The judge did not award punitive damages, finding that defendants did discriminate against the plaintiffs, they did not act with deliberate disregard or malice towards the plaintiffs.

A lawyer for the plaintiff’s said the main point of the case is to reaffirm that it is not legal to discriminate at the behalf of a customer.

Case Studies – Read about other cases in which judges substantially increased or decreased damages awards:

Judge awards additional damages in patent rights infringement case.

Blurred Lines lawsuit damages reduced by judge.

Damages doubled in drug pricing case.

Judge reduced damages in Jeep fire case.

Judge doubles damages against U. Minnesota in golf coach lawsuit.