Question

A jury awards a plaintiff $200,000 in damages in a sexual harassment case, a federal district court judge reduced the award to $45,000. The judge did so because at the time of the jury's verdict, the plaintiff's employer had twenty-five employees, and Title VII caps damages for employers with no more that 100 employees at a maximum of $50,000. However, three years earlier, when the harassment occurred, the employer had 235 employees. Was the judge correct in capping damages awarded to the plaintiff based on employer's size at the time of the jury's verdict rather than at the time when the discrimination occurred? Why or why not?

This scenario was taken from your textbook so pay close attention to Chapter 1.

In at least 300 words,

Answer 1

No, the judge was not right in capping the damages at the time of jury's verdict rather than at the time when the discrimination occurred.

Explanation:

Certainly, when it comes to calculation of damages and determination of number of employees an employer has, according to title VII, the number of employees an employer has should be calculated based on the "current year." This refers to year the discrimination took place.

Therefore, with reference to the above case, the judge should have determined the number of employees the employer had based on the year the harassment took place. For this reason, the judge was wrong in determining the number of employees based on the time of jury's verdict.