Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56659/USCOURTS-ca9-13-56659-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Riverside Sheriffs Association
Appellant
Scott Teutscher
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SCOTT TEUTSCHER, an individual,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION,

Defendant-Appellee,

and

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION 

LEGAL DEFENSE TRUST; TANYA 

CONRAD, individually and as an 

Agent of the Riverside Sheriffs 

Association,

Defendants,

v.

WILLIAM NATHANIEL WOODSON, III,

Intervenor-Appellant.

No. 13-56411

D.C. No.

5:06-cv-01208-

RHW-OP

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2 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

SCOTT TEUTSCHER, an individual,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 13-56659

D.C. No.

5:06-cv-01208-

RHW-OP

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Robert H. Whaley, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 5, 2016

Pasadena, California

Filed August 26, 2016

Before: Milan D. Smith, Jr., Paul J. Watford,

and Michelle T. Friedland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Friedland

Concurrence by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 3

SUMMARY*

Labor Law

The panel reversed the district court’s award of front pay 

and reinstatement as equitable remedies under the Employee 

Retirement Income Security Act for a retaliatory discharge 

after the plaintiff had already sought and been awarded by a 

jury front pay damages to compensate for the same harm.

The plaintiff went to trial against his former employer on 

retaliatory discharge claims under both state law and ERISA. 

The jury awarded him lump-sum damages on his state law 

claims, and the district court then entered judgment on his 

ERISA claim. Even though the jury had been instructed to 

include front pay in its damages award, the district court 

granted the plaintiff additional equitable remedies consisting 

of reinstatement as well as front pay until reinstatement 

occurred.

The panel held that the equitable front pay award 

conflicted with the jury’s front pay award in violation of the

Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. In addition, 

although the reinstatement remedy did not necessarily 

conflict with the fact findings implicit in the jury’s verdict, 

it nevertheless was improper because the plaintiff waived 

that relief when he elected to seek the duplicative front pay 

remedy from the jury.

 

 * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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4 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

Judge M. Smith concurred in the judgment. However, 

he disagreed with the majority’s Seventh Amendment 

analysis. Judge M. Smith would hold instead that the district 

court’s equitable remedy was an abuse of discretion because 

the district court did not give reasons why additional 

equitable relief was appropriate after the jury had already 

compensated the plaintiff for the monetary harm he suffered.

COUNSEL

Daniel P. Stevens (argued) and Heather K. McMillan, 

Stevens & McMillan, Tustin, California, for PlaintiffAppellee.

Jon R. Williams (argued), Williams Iagmin LLP, San Diego, 

California, for Defendant-Appellee.

William N. Woodson, III (argued), Law Offices of Wm. N. 

Woodson, III APC, Fallbrook, California, pro se IntervenorAppellant.

OPINION

FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to examine the limits on a district 

court’s authority to award front pay and reinstatement as 

equitable remedies for a retaliatory discharge after a plaintiff 

has already sought and been awarded by a jury front pay 

damages to compensate for the same harm. PlaintiffAppellee Scott Teutscher went to trial against his former 

employer, Riverside Sheriffs’ Association (“RSA”), on

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 5

retaliatory discharge claims under both state law and the 

Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. 

§§ 1001–1461 (“ERISA”). A jury awarded him lump-sum 

damages on his state law claims, and the district court then 

entered judgment in his favor on his ERISA claim. Even 

though, at Teutscher’s request, the jury had been instructed 

to include front pay in its damages award, the district court 

granted Teutscher additional equitable remedies consisting 

of reinstatement as well as front pay until reinstatement 

occurred. RSA appeals these equitable remedies, arguing 

that they conflict with the jury’s front pay award in violation 

of the Seventh Amendment and improperly duplicate 

Teutscher’s recovery from the jury.

Given the way in which the jury was instructed and the 

evidence presented at trial, the jury’s verdict encompassed 

an implicit factual determination as to the entire amount of 

front pay to which Teutscher was entitled on account of his 

retaliatory discharge. We hold that the district court’s grant 

of an additional front pay remedy for the same harm 

disregarded that determination in violation of the Seventh 

Amendment right to a jury trial. In addition, although the 

reinstatement remedy does not necessarily conflict with 

factual findings implicit in the jury’s verdict, we hold that it 

is nevertheless improper because Teutscher waived that 

relief when he elected to seek the duplicative front pay 

remedy from the jury. We accordingly reverse the district 

court’s equitable awards.

I.

Defendant-Appellant RSA is an organization that 

represents law enforcement employees in Riverside County, 

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6 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

California for collective bargaining purposes. RSA also 

administers the RSA Legal Defense Trust (the “Trust”), an 

ERISA-governed plan. The Trust provides legal defense 

services to RSA members in civil and criminal actions 

arising from incidents in the course of their employment. 

From 2002 until his termination in 2005, Plaintiff-Appellee 

Scott Teutscher worked on an at-will basis for RSA as the 

Trust’s Legal Operations Manager. In that position, 

Teutscher was responsible for the Trust’s day-to-day 

operations, including directing the work of staff members 

and investigating disciplinary violation claims against RSA 

members.

During Teutscher’s tenure as Legal Operations Manager, 

the Trust began covering legal expenses for Deputy Sheriff 

Duane Winchell’s defense in criminal and civil proceedings 

unrelated to Winchell’s employment. Teutscher eventually 

started expressing concerns that the Trust’s coverage of 

Winchell’s defense costs was unlawful because it was 

disallowed by the Trust’s governing plan documents. 

Teutscher later met with an officer in the Riverside Sheriff’s 

Department and accused RSA’s president and its executive 

director of improper coverage approvals. Shortly after 

Teutscher revealed that he had contacted law enforcement 

about the coverage issues, RSA’s executive director 

terminated Teutscher’s employment.

Teutscher filed the instant lawsuit alleging that RSA 

terminated him in retaliation for reporting his suspicions that 

the Trust’s coverage of Winchell was illegal. In the 

operative complaint, Teutscher asserted claims against RSA 

under federal and California law arising out of his 

termination, including retaliatory discharge in violation of 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 7

section 510 of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1140; wrongful 

discharge in violation of public policy under California 

common law; and retaliatory discharge in violation of 

California Labor Code §§ 98.6 and 1102.5. After this court 

partially reversed an earlier grant of summary judgment in 

favor of RSA, the case proceeded to a jury trial on the three 

state law claims pursuant to Teutscher’s timely jury demand, 

and to a simultaneous bench trial on his ERISA claim.

During trial, Teutscher presented evidence that RSA’s 

executives threatened to terminate him if he “didn’t keep 

[his] mouth shut” about the Winchell coverage issues. He 

argued to the jury that the executives acted on that threat by 

firing him after he reported to outside authorities his 

suspicions that the coverage was illegal. RSA in turn 

presented evidence that Teutscher had made repeated 

mistakes in his job, which had led the Trust’s Board to assign 

RSA’s executive director to supervise Teutscher’s work. 

RSA also introduced evidence that Teutscher had been 

investigated and disciplined for failing to follow Trust policy 

in responding to an officer-involved shooting incident, and 

that he was placed on administrative leave shortly before his 

termination for, among other things, angrily throwing a work

file. Teutscher argued that these performance-related 

grievances were merely pretext for retaliation, and that they 

were belied by his consistently satisfactory job performance 

ratings and by a raise he received shortly before his 

termination.

Teutscher also put on testimony about wages he had lost 

since his termination and wages he would have earned for 

the remainder of his anticipated working life at RSA. 

Teutscher testified that, at the time of his termination, he had 

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8 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

been earning an $86,000 annual salary plus annual bonuses 

and the value of a company car. During closing arguments, 

his counsel placed the total value of compensation at 

$98,236 per year. Teutscher, who was 55 years old at the 

time of trial, testified that had he not been wrongfully 

terminated, he would have continued working at RSA until 

his Social Security “would kick in, probably 65, 67.” 

Teutscher testified that he was instead forced to look 

elsewhere for work. After about six months, he found his 

first replacement job working at an auto business, earning 

roughly $8,000 per year in 2006 and 2007. In 2008, 

Teutscher began working at the San Bernardino County 

Sheriff’s Department for an annual salary of roughly 

$42,000, which had increased to $52,000 by 2012.

The district court adopted Teutscher’s proposed jury 

instruction on damages, and, without objection, instructed 

the jury on how to calculate Teutscher’s damages should it 

find that he was wrongfully discharged. This instruction 

provided:

If you decide that Plaintiff has proved that 

Defendant wrongfully terminated him, then 

you must decide the amount of damages that 

Plaintiff has proven he is entitled to recover, 

if any. To make that decision, you must:

1. Decide the amount that Plaintiff would 

have earned up to today, including any 

benefits and pay increases; and

2. Add the present cash value of any future 

wages and benefits that he would have 

earned for the length of time the 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 9

employment with Defendant was 

reasonably certain to continue; and

3. Add damages for pain, suffering and 

emotional distress if you find that 

Defendant’s conduct was a substantial 

factor in causing that harm.

In determining the period that Plaintiff’s 

employment was reasonably certain to have 

continued, you should consider such things 

as:

(a) Plaintiff’s age, work performance, 

and intent regarding continuing 

employment with Defendant;

(b) Defendant’s prospects for continuing 

the operations involving Plaintiff; and

(c) Any other factor that bears on how 

long Plaintiff would have continued 

to work.

The court also instructed the jury that “Plaintiff has a duty to 

use reasonable efforts to mitigate damages” and that the 

burden was on RSA to show that Teutscher had failed to do 

so.

Following deliberations, the jury returned a verdict in 

favor of Teutscher on his state law claims for wrongful and 

retaliatory discharge. Using a general verdict form to which 

neither party had objected, the jury awarded Teutscher lump-

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10 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

sum damages of $457,250 and separately awarded punitive 

damages of $357,500.

Based on the evidence presented at trial, the district court 

adjudicated Teutscher’s ERISA claim, holding RSA liable 

for retaliating against Teutscher in violation of section 510. 

The district court then heard argument on an appropriate 

ERISA remedy. Teutscher asked that his ERISA remedy 

include back pay and reinstatement. RSA objected that back 

pay was unavailable under ERISA as a form of 

compensatory relief. RSA also objected that reinstatement 

would conflict with the jury’s award of lost future earnings 

and would constitute impermissible double recovery 

because Teutscher was already made whole by the remedy 

he elected to pursue from the jury. RSA further contended 

that reinstatement was impossible because of continuing

acrimony between the parties.

The court issued a ruling denying back pay but ordering 

RSA to reinstate Teutscher and to provide him interim front 

pay at the rate of $98,235 per year until such reinstatement 

occurred. RSA filed objections to the court’s ruling, 

protesting that it would be impossible to reinstate Teutscher 

because his position had by then been eliminated, and again 

arguing that the equitable front pay and reinstatement awards 

duplicated the relief Teutscher had obtained from the jury 

and that Teutscher waived his right to those equitable awards 

when he elected a make-whole remedy on his legal claims. 

The district court nevertheless entered judgment in 

accordance with its earlier ruling. RSA timely appealed the 

district court’s remedy on the ERISA claim, arguing that it 

violated both the Seventh Amendment and the prohibition 

on double recovery.

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 11

II.

We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s 

award of equitable relief, including its grant of reinstatement 

and front pay. See Gotthardt v. Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp., 

191 F.3d 1148, 1156 (9th Cir. 1999). Under this framework, 

we must determine whether the district court based its ruling 

on an erroneous view of the law, United States v. Hinkson, 

585 F.3d 1247, 1261–62 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc), or on a 

factual finding that was “illogical, implausible, or without 

support in inferences that may be drawn from the record,” 

id. at 1262–63. See United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 

1195, 1200–01 (9th Cir. 1984) (en banc), recognized as 

abrogated on other grounds by Estate of Merchant v. 

Comm’r, 947 F.2d 1390, 1392–93 (9th Cir. 1991).

III.

RSA’s central argument in this appeal is that the Seventh 

Amendment barred the district court from granting 

Teutscher equitable relief of reinstatement and interim front 

pay on his ERISA claim once the jury had determined the 

amount of front pay to which Teutscher was entitled on his 

state law claims. We accordingly begin by examining the 

strictures the Seventh Amendment imposes in cases tried 

both to a jury and to the court.

The Seventh Amendment provides that “[i]n Suits at 

common law, . . . the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, 

and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in 

any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of 

the common law.” U.S. Const. amend. VII. The Supreme 

Court “has construed this language to require a jury trial on 

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12 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

the merits in those actions that are analogous to ‘Suits at 

common law’” at the time of the Amendment’s ratification. 

Tull v. United States, 481 U.S. 412, 417 (1987); see also

Fleming James, Jr., Right to a Jury Trial in Civil Actions, 

72 Yale L.J. 655, 655 (1963) (explaining that the 

Constitution “do[es] not extend but preserve[s] the right of 

jury trial as it existed . . . in 1791 when the seventh 

amendment was adopted”). Prior to 1791, “a jury trial was 

customary in suits brought in the English law courts” but not 

in the courts of equity, Tull, 481 U.S. at 417, “unless the 

chancellor in his discretion sent an issue to a jury for an 

advisory verdict,” James, 72 Yale L.J. at 655. The Seventh 

Amendment thus secures the right to a jury trial for “suits in 

which legal rights [are] to be ascertained and determined, in 

contradistinction to those where equitable rights alone [are] 

recognized, and equitable remedies [are] administered.” 

Chauffeurs, Local 391 v. Terry, 494 U.S. 558, 564 (1990) 

(alterations in original) (quoting Parsons v. Bedford, 28 U.S. 

433, 447 (1830)).

Teutscher went to trial claiming that RSA had discharged 

him in retaliation for protected activity, in violation of 

California law and in violation of section 510 of ERISA. To 

determine whether a jury right exists on each of these causes 

of action, we look first to whether that action is analogous to 

one that was heard in English law courts “prior to the merger 

of the courts of law and equity,” and second we “examine 

the remedy sought and determine whether it is legal or 

equitable in nature.” Tull, 481 U.S. at 417–18. “The second 

inquiry is the more important in our analysis.” Chauffeurs, 

494 U.S. at 565; see also Granfinanciera, S.A. v. Nordberg, 

492 U.S. 33, 42 (1989).

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 13

Teutscher’s state law claims and his ERISA claim are 

legal in nature with respect to the right they protect. See 

Spinelli v. Gaughan, 12 F.3d 853, 857 (9th Cir. 1993) 

(categorizing retaliatory discharge—“a tort so widely 

accepted in American jurisdictions today . . . that it has 

become part of our evolving common law”—as legal in 

nature and analogizing an ERISA section 510 claim to that 

common law tort).

As to the more important factor—the nature of the 

remedies—the state law claims are legal and the ERISA 

claim is equitable. The actual and punitive damages 

Teutscher seeks for his state law claims are indisputably 

legal remedies because such damages are “the traditional 

form[s] of relief offered in the courts of law.” Curtis v. 

Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 196 (1974). The remedies Teutscher 

seeks under section 510 of ERISA, in contrast, are 

exclusively equitable in nature. Section 510 is enforced 

solely through the remedies provided under section 

502(a)(3), which authorizes an aggrieved plan participant or 

beneficiary to bring a civil action to enjoin an ERISA 

violation or “to obtain other appropriate equitable relief,” 

29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3). See 29 U.S.C. § 1140; Spinelli, 

12 F.3d at 856; see also Mertens v. Hewitt Assocs., 508 U.S. 

248, 256–58 (1993) (holding that relief under section 

502(a)(3) is limited to remedies traditionally available in 

equity, such as injunctions, mandamus, and restitution).

Because both the right in question and the remedies 

sought make Teutscher’s state law claims legal in nature, and 

because Teutscher made a timely jury demand on those 

claims, he was entitled to have those claims tried to a jury. 

See Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 345 (1979)

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14 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

(Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (“If a jury would have been 

impaneled in a particular kind of case in 1791, then the 

Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial today, if either 

party so desires.”). But because of the wholly equitable 

nature of the available ERISA remedies, Teutscher’s ERISA 

claim is categorized as equitable—meaning that he had no 

right to a jury trial on that claim. See Spinelli, 12 F.3d at 

858.

The Supreme Court has explained how to comport with 

the Seventh Amendment when trying legal and equitable 

claims in the same action. In Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 

369 U.S. 469 (1962), the Court held that in cases in which 

legal and equitable claims turn on common issues of fact, 

“any legal issues for which a trial by jury is timely and 

properly demanded [must] be submitted to a jury,” id. at 473 

(citing Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 

510–11 (1959)), and the jury’s determination of the legal 

claims must occur “prior to any final court determination of 

[the] equitable claims,” id. at 479. Because the Seventh 

Amendment’s second clause “prohibit[s] . . . the courts of 

the United States to re-examine any facts tried by a jury” 

except as permitted under the narrow “modes known to the 

common law,” Parsons, 28 U.S. at 447–48, the court then 

must abide by the jury’s findings of fact in making any 

subsequent rulings. See Floyd v. Laws, 929 F.2d 1390, 1397 

(9th Cir. 1991) (holding that “it would be a violation of the 

seventh amendment right to jury trial for the court to 

disregard a jury’s finding of fact”).

It follows that “in a case where legal claims are tried by 

a jury and equitable claims are tried by a judge, and [those] 

claims are ‘based on the same facts,’” the trial judge must 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 15

“follow the jury’s implicit or explicit factual determinations” 

“in deciding the equitable claims.” L.A. Police Protective 

League v. Gates, 995 F.2d 1469, 1473 (9th Cir. 1993) 

(quoting Miller v. Fairchild Indus., 885 F.2d 498, 507 (9th 

Cir. 1989)). The trial court must do so in determining both 

liability and relief on the equitable claims. See Miller, 

885 F.2d at 506–07 (holding that “the district court in 

deciding the Title VII [equitable] claim will be bound by all 

factual determinations made by the jury in deciding” the 

plaintiff’s legal claims); see also Smith v. Diffee FordLincoln-Mercury, Inc., 298 F.3d 955, 966 (10th Cir. 2002) 

(holding that the trial judge impermissibly “disregarded the 

jury’s implicit finding[s]” when the judge denied the 

wrongfully discharged plaintiff equitable relief of front pay 

for reasons inconsistent with the jury’s findings); EEOC v. 

Century Broad. Corp., 957 F.2d 1446, 1463 (7th Cir. 1992) 

(“[I]n deciding whether to grant equitable relief under Title 

VII, the district court [is] prohibited from reconsidering any 

issues necessarily and actually decided by the jury.” (second 

alteration in original) (quoting Hussein v. Oshkosh Motor 

Truck Co., 816 F.2d 348, 355 (7th Cir. 1987))). These 

constraints are “consistent with . . . the respect that properly 

is accorded to a jury verdict in our system of jurisprudence.” 

Miller, 885 F.2d at 507.

IV.

To determine whether the district court contravened 

these constitutional constraints, we evaluate whether 

Teutscher’s state law and ERISA claims turn on common 

questions of fact, and, if they do, whether the court 

disregarded any factual determinations implicit in the jury’s 

verdict when it awarded the equitable remedies.

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16 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

A.

The parties do not dispute that common questions of fact 

underlie the determination of liability on the state law and 

ERISA claims.1 Teutscher’s state law claims turn on his 

proving that RSA terminated his employment for disclosing 

suspected legal violations. See, e.g., Hager v. County of Los 

Angeles, 176 Cal. Rptr. 3d 268, 275 (Cal. Ct. App. 2014) 

(“[S]ection 1102.5(b) protects an employee from retaliation 

by his employer for making a good faith disclosure of a 

violation of federal or state law.”); McVeigh v. Recology 

S.F., 152 Cal. Rptr. 3d 595, 619 (Cal. Ct. App. 2013) 

(recognizing a viable common law tort claim against an 

employer who violates the fundamental public policy 

prohibiting retaliatory discharge of an employee for 

whistleblowing). To establish a claim of retaliation under 

section 510, Teutscher likewise had to show that: (1) he 

 

 1 The problem of conflicting legal and equitable awards (such as the 

legal front pay award and equitable reinstatement and front pay awards 

here) appears to arise rarely in the ERISA context because of ERISA’s 

broad preemption provision. See 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a) (providing that 

ERISA “shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now 

or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan”); Spinelli v. Gaughan, 

12 F.3d 853, 857 n.4 (9th Cir. 1993) (recognizing that ERISA preempts 

a claim for retaliatory discharge under Nevada law). RSA waived any 

preemption defense in this case by failing to assert preemption in the 

district court or in this court, and we decline to consider the issue sua 

sponte. See Gilchrist v. Jim Slemons Imps., Inc., 803 F.2d 1488, 1497 

(9th Cir. 1986) (explaining that an ERISA preemption defense “does not 

generally affect jurisdiction” and refusing to reach it for the first time on 

appeal); see also Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co. v. Hollander, 705 F.3d 339, 

354 (8th Cir. 2013) (declining to consider ERISA preemption sua sponte 

on appeal).

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 17

engaged in an activity protected under ERISA, (2) he 

suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal link 

existed between his protected activity and RSA’s adverse 

action. Kimbro v. Atl. Richfield Co., 889 F.2d 869, 881 (9th 

Cir. 1989). One such ERISA-protected activity is protesting 

a legal violation in connection with an ERISA-governed 

plan. Hashimoto v. Bank of Haw., 999 F.2d 408, 411 (9th 

Cir. 1993); see also 29 U.S.C. § 1140 (making it unlawful to 

“discharge . . . any person because he has given information 

or has testified or is about to testify in any inquiry or 

proceeding relating to [ERISA]”). With respect to both the 

state law and ERISA claims, Teutscher endeavored at trial 

to show that his reporting the allegedly improper coverage 

of Winchell’s legal expenses motivated his termination. By 

finding RSA liable on the state law claims, the jury 

implicitly found that Teutscher’s protected activity 

motivated his discharge. Consistent with this finding, it was 

appropriate for the district court to enter judgment for 

Teutscher on his ERISA claim as well. Neither party 

suggests otherwise.

The more difficult question—and the one at issue in this 

case—is whether the court’s ERISA remedy shares common 

questions of fact with the jury’s damages calculation. To 

answer that question, we begin by evaluating the forms of 

relief available for violations of Teutscher’s state law and 

ERISA claims.

Under California law, “[a] wrongfully discharged 

employee . . . is entitled to damages [that] tend to make him 

whole” and that “represent just compensation for the loss . . . 

sustained by the plaintiff.” Currieri v. City of Roseville, 

123 Cal. Rptr. 314, 319 (Cal. Ct. App. 1975); see also Cal. 

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18 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

Civ. Code § 3333 (“For the breach of an obligation not 

arising from contract, the measure of damages . . . is the 

amount which will compensate for all the detriment 

proximately caused thereby, whether it could have been 

anticipated or not.”). One key component of economic loss 

is the income that the employee would have earned had she 

not been wrongfully discharged. See Horsford v. Bd. of Trs. 

of Cal. State Univ., 33 Cal. Rptr. 3d 644, 666 (Cal. Ct. App. 

2005). Compensatory damages under California law thus 

may include as “backpay” an award of “lost-wages damages 

through the time of trial,” id., and “as ‘front pay’ an award 

of the salary and benefits a wrongfully demoted or 

discharged plaintiff would have earned from employment 

after the trial,” Mize-Kurzman v. Marin Cmty. Coll. Dist., 

136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 259, 294 n.17 (Cal. Ct. App. 2012).2 

Because “California courts . . . treat[] front pay as a damage 

issue for the trier of fact,” id., a wrongfully discharged 

plaintiff is entitled to seek a front pay award from the jury to 

compensate for future lost earnings. Pursuant to California’s 

pattern jury instructions, this front pay award should consist 

of “the present cash value of any future wages and benefits 

that [the plaintiff] would have earned for the length of time 

the employment with [the defendant] was reasonably certain 

 

 2 In their briefs, the parties use terms like “lost future earnings” and 

“future lost earnings” interchangeably with “front pay.” This is 

consistent with how front pay is defined by the California courts. See, 

e.g., Horsford, 33 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 665–66 (defining “front pay” as “a 

measure of damages for loss of future income” and classifying “loss or 

future loss of earnings” as a form of “economic damages”).

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 19

to continue.” CACI No. 2433 (“Wrongful Discharge in 

Violation of Public Policy—Damages”).

Although ERISA section 510 does not provide 

compensatory damages, Concha v. London, 62 F.3d 1493, 

1504 (9th Cir. 1995), it does provide prospective relief for 

an employee who suffered retaliatory discharge by giving 

courts the equitable authority to reinstate the employee to her 

former position. See McBride v. PLM Int’l, Inc., 179 F.3d 

737, 744 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding that an ERISA-plan 

participant had standing to sue under section 510 for 

reinstatement to his former position); see also McLeod v. Or. 

Lithoprint Inc., 102 F.3d 376, 379 (9th Cir. 1996) (providing 

that reinstatement is “equitable, not compensatory, relief” 

for purposes of ERISA section 502(a)(3)).3 There will be 

times, however, when reinstatement, though deserved, is not 

feasible, either because “it is impossible to reinstate the 

plaintiff or [because] it would be inappropriate due to 

excessive hostility or antagonism between the parties.” 

Thorne v. City of El Segundo, 802 F.2d 1131, 1137 (9th Cir. 

 

 3 There is a circuit split on whether “back pay” is also available as an

equitable remedy under section 502(a)(3) of ERISA to restore a plaintiff 

to the position she would have enjoyed but for the employer’s illegal 

retaliation. Compare Millsap v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 368 F.3d 

1246, 1259–60 (10th Cir. 2004) (holding that back pay is unavailable for 

employees discharged in violation of section 510 because it is legal 

rather than equitable in nature), with Schwartz v. Gregori, 45 F.3d 1017, 

1022–23 (6th Cir. 1995) (holding that back pay is a restitutionary award 

available under section 502(a)(3)). The district court in this case held 

that back pay is unavailable under ERISA. Because Teutscher has not 

appealed that decision, we do not reach that issue here.

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20 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

1986). To account for such situations, we have held in other 

employment-related statutory contexts that “front pay” may 

be awarded in equity as a substitute when the preferred 

remedy of reinstatement is unavailable or imprudent.4 See, 

e.g., Traxler v. Multnomah County, 596 F.3d 1007, 1011–12 

(9th Cir. 2010) (providing in a Family Medical Leave Act 

case that front pay is available only when “reinstatement is 

inappropriate, such as where no position is available or the 

employer-employee relationship has been so damaged by 

animosity that reinstatement is impracticable”); Thorne, 

802 F.2d at 1137 (recognizing that front pay may be 

available as a remedy under Title VII in lieu of 

reinstatement).5

 

 4 At least one of our sister circuits has held that section 502(a)(3) of 

ERISA permits an award of front pay “when the preferred remedy of 

reinstatement . . . is not appropriate or feasible.” Schwartz, 45 F.3d at 

1023. Neither party to this action contests that front pay is an available 

remedy for a violation of section 510 in a case asserting only such a 

violation, and we therefore assume without deciding that front pay is an 

equitable remedy authorized under section 502(a)(3).

 5 Federal court decisions characterizing front pay as an equitable 

remedy under several federal employment statutes have not altered its 

characterization as a legal remedy under state law. California courts 

have continued to classify front pay as a “damage issue for the trier of 

fact” even while recognizing that front pay is treated as an equitable 

remedy under certain federal statutes. Mize-Kurzman, 136 Cal. Rptr. 3d 

at 294 n.17. And we have upheld jury awards of front pay where state 

law provides for that remedy as a form of legal relief. See Passantino v.

Johnson & Johnson Consumer Prods., Inc., 212 F.3d 493, 512 (9th Cir. 

2000) (explaining that “[u]nder Washington law the jury has substantial 

autonomy when awarding front pay”); Boehm v. Am. Broad. Co., 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 21

The district court in this case crafted a hybrid remedy for 

Teutscher’s section 510 claim, awarding reinstatement as 

well as interim front pay at Teutscher’s full former salary 

until reinstatement occurred. We must determine whether, 

in granting either front pay or reinstatement, the district court 

contravened the findings of fact implicit in the jury’s 

damages verdict. We consider each remedy in turn.

B.

RSA argues that the jury’s determination of Teutscher’s 

entitlement to front pay as a remedy for his state law claims 

foreclosed the district court from granting front pay on 

Teutscher’s ERISA claim. We agree.

Not only is front pay available both in law under 

Teutscher’s state law claims and in equity under section 510 

of ERISA, as explained above, but in order to obtain either 

remedy, Teutscher needed to make the same factual showing 

and to meet the same defenses. The district court 

consequently should have viewed itself as bound under the 

Seventh Amendment to respect the jury’s findings on front 

pay when considering Teutscher’s request for a front pay 

award under ERISA.

California law and federal law both treat “front pay [a]s 

an award of future lost earnings to make a victim of 

discrimination whole.” Cassino v. Reichhold Chems., Inc., 

817 F.2d 1338, 1346 (9th Cir. 1987); see also Horsford, 

 

929 F.2d 482, 488 (9th Cir. 1991) (affirming jury’s front pay award 

under California wrongful discharge claims).

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33 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 666 (defining front pay as “a measure of 

damages for loss of future income”). And both require a 

wrongfully discharged plaintiff to make reasonable efforts to 

mitigate an employer’s damages by seeking suitable 

alternative employment. See, e.g., Cassino, 817 F.2d at 1345 

(“An [Age Discrimination in Employment Act] plaintiff 

must attempt to mitigate damages by exercising reasonable 

care and diligence in seeking reemployment after 

termination.”); Cal. Sch. Emps. Ass’n v. Pers. Comm’n,

106 Cal. Rptr. 283, 286 (Cal. Ct. App. 1973) (“The 

discharged employee . . . generally has a duty to mitigate his 

damage[s] by seeking other employment through the 

exercise of reasonable diligence.”). Thus, under both federal 

and California law, front pay awards must be reduced by the 

amount that the defendant shows the wrongfully discharged 

employee “could earn using reasonable mitigation efforts.” 

Cassino, 817 F.2d at 1347; see Parker v. Twentieth CenturyFox Film Corp., 474 P.2d 689, 692 (Cal. 1970) (in bank)

(setting forth the “general rule” under California law that a 

wrongfully discharged plaintiff’s recovery is subject to 

mitigation).6

 

 6 In Cassino, the district court submitted the front pay issue to a jury. 

817 F.2d at 1347. Discussing why this had occurred in Cassino, we 

clarified in Traxler that “[a] trial court, sitting in equity, may . . . employ 

an advisory jury” to determine the amount of front pay even though there 

is no right to have a jury determine the issue. Traxler, 596 F.3d at 1013. 

Neither Cassino nor Traxler addressed the limitations on a district 

court’s discretion to award equitable relief where front pay is submitted 

to the jury as of right, rather than in an advisory capacity.

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It is clear then that a legal front pay award under 

California law turns on the same issues of fact as an equitable 

front pay award under section 510 of ERISA: the salary an 

employee was reasonably certain to have earned but for his 

wrongful discharge, the period over which he would have 

earned that salary, and the amount by which the defendant 

showed the employee could mitigate his losses by securing 

suitable alternative employment.7

Accordingly, the jury instruction on damages given in 

this case directed the jury to determine the exact issues that 

also would be relevant to the district court’s determination 

of any equitable front pay award. Specifically, the district 

court instructed the jury to include in its award “the present 

cash value of any future wages and benefits that [Teutscher] 

would have earned for the length of time the employment 

 

 7 The concurrence suggests that the Supreme Court in Pollard v. E.I. 

du Pont de Nemours & Co., 532 U.S. 843 (2001), set forth a “technical 

distinction” between legal and equitable front pay, which governs here. 

We disagree. Pollard answered the narrow question whether an award 

of front pay in lieu of reinstatement was authorized under section 706(g) 

of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(1), or whether it “constitute[d] an 

element of ‘compensatory damages’ under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a and thus 

[was] subject to the statutory damages cap imposed by that section.” 

532 U.S. at 846. The Court’s holding that front pay was excluded from 

the statutory cap turned on the specific statutory language at issue and its 

legislative history. Id. at 852–54. Nowhere in Pollard did the Supreme 

Court hold that front pay cannot be awarded by a jury as a legal remedy 

for a state-law cause of action. Nor did Pollard address Seventh 

Amendment constraints on a district court’s award of front pay in equity 

when a jury has determined the factual issues relevant to such an award.

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with [RSA] was reasonably certain to continue,” discounted 

by any amount that RSA affirmatively proved Teutscher 

could earn through reasonable efforts.8 This is precisely the 

inquiry that a district court would conduct to determine an 

appropriate award of front pay in equity under a federal 

employment statute.9

The district court also instructed the jury on the factors it 

should take into account to determine the “period that 

[Teutscher’s] employment was reasonably certain to have 

continued,” such as his “age, work performance, and intent 

regarding continuing employment with [RSA];” “[RSA’s] 

prospects for continuing the operations involving 

[Teutscher];” and “[a]ny other factor that bears on how long 

[Teutscher] would have continued to work.” These are the 

same factors considered by district courts acting in equity. 

See Downey v. Strain, 510 F.3d 534, 544 (5th Cir. 2007) 

(identifying factors to consider for determining an equitable 

 

 8 Although the district court’s mitigation instruction was not a model 

of clarity, Teutscher concedes that it made sufficiently clear to the jury 

that front pay was subject to mitigation such that the jury could have 

awarded zero front pay on that basis alone.

 9 The concurrence suggests that the qualifier “appropriate” in the 

phrase “appropriate equitable relief” in ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(3), 

gives courts leeway to consider additional factors in determining whether 

to grant an equitable front pay award and the size of any such award. But 

the concurrence does not identify any factors that the district court here 

would have considered beyond those it instructed the jury to consider. 

Of course, neither the jury—which must follow its instructions on the 

law in determining liability and damages, see Opper v. United States, 

348 U.S. 84, 95 (1954)—nor the district court may award inappropriate 

relief.

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 25

award of front pay as “(1) the length of prior employment, 

(2) the permanency of the position held, (3) the nature of the 

work, (4) the age and physical condition of the employee, 

(5) possible consolidation of jobs, and (6) the myriad other 

non-discriminatory factors which could validly affect the 

employer/employee relationship”); see also Traxler, 

596 F.3d at 1014 (approving of the district court’s 

consideration of the plaintiff’s age, job skills, and work-life 

expectancy to determine a front pay award); Schwartz, 

45 F.3d at 1023 (“In determining the amount of front pay, a 

district court is to consider a number of factors, including the 

employee’s work life expectancy,” and it may also take into 

account whether the employee was at-will.).

To prove up his front pay damages as required by the 

jury instruction, Teutscher testified that he would have 

continued working at RSA at his 2005 salary until retiring at 

around age sixty-seven. Teutscher also presented mitigation 

evidence about his efforts to obtain a replacement job after 

his discharge (including that he “[w]ent on the Internet” to 

find work), and about the salary that he earned through his 

post-termination employment at an auto shop and at the San 

Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The jury 

additionally heard evidence that, almost a year before 

Teutscher was discharged, RSA assigned an administrator to 

“t[ake] over the legal operations” formerly handled by 

Teutscher. The jury thus had all the tools it needed to 

determine Teutscher’s entitlement to front pay, and it must 

be presumed that the jury followed its instructions and 

awarded Teutscher all the lost future income supported by 

the evidence. See Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225, 234 

(2000) (“A jury is presumed to follow its instructions.”). 

The jury’s finding as to Teutscher’s entire entitlement to 

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26 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

front pay—taking into account his age, his work-life 

expectancy, the likelihood of RSA’s maintaining his former 

position, his reasonable mitigation ability, etc.—is implicit 

in its award of $457,250 in compensatory damages. And the 

district court was bound by this determination in crafting any 

subsequent equitable relief.10

It appears that the district court failed to consider, 

however, the factual determinations implicit in the jury’s 

verdict in awarding equitable front pay. When it ordered 

RSA to pay Teutscher $98,235 per year in front pay until 

reinstating him, the district court impermissibly concluded 

that Teutscher was entitled to $98,235 per year more in front 

pay than the jury had found and awarded. The Seventh 

 

 10 We agree with the concurrence that the jury’s award of other noneconomic damages—such as those compensating for injury to 

Teutscher’s character and reputation—would not preclude the district 

court from awarding equitable front pay. This occurred in Williams v. 

Pharmacia, Inc., 137 F.3d 944 (7th Cir. 1998), in which, as we discuss 

in Part VI infra, the Seventh Circuit determined that the jury’s award of 

“lost future earnings” to compensate for injury to a discharged 

employee’s “professional standing,” “character[,] and reputation” did 

not overlap with the district court’s award of front pay in equity under 

Title VII. Id. at 952–54. If the jury here had been instructed to award 

only the sort of “lost future earnings” at issue in Williams, we would 

agree that there would be no Seventh Amendment obstacle to an award 

of front pay in equity. But that is not what happened in this case. The 

jury instead was instructed to award exactly the same relief that the 

district court sought to award in equity: wages and benefits that 

Teutscher would have earned at RSA during the time that he was 

reasonably certain to have remained at RSA but for the retaliatory 

termination, subject to mitigation. Once the jury made those factual 

determinations, the district court could not disregard them by making 

contrary determinations in equity.

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Amendment does not permit the jury’s findings to be cast 

aside in this manner. See L.A. Police Protective League v. 

Gates, 995 F.2d 1469, 1475 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that 

“the district court erred in engaging in factfinding contrary 

to the implicit findings of the jury verdict” and reversing the 

district court’s order on equitable relief for that reason).

Teutscher endeavors to overcome Seventh Amendment 

barriers by attempting to parse the jury’s lump-sum award to 

show that the jury did not actually grant him any front pay 

damages, and then to argue based on this parsing that the 

district court remained free to order those damages in equity. 

Teutscher rests this argument on the fact that the $457,250 

in total damages awarded by the jury was less than the 

$491,339 in back pay damages that Teutscher sought. As 

such, he contends that because the jury did not even award 

him the entirety of his back pay demand, it could not 

possibly have awarded him any amount in front pay.

We reject this argument for several reasons. First, the 

lump-sum format of the jury’s verdict prevents us from 

ascertaining the relative amounts of back pay and front pay 

that the jury awarded. See Squires v. Bonser, 54 F.3d 168, 

176 (3d Cir. 1995) (recognizing that “it may not be possible 

. . . to isolate the front-pay award since the jury awarded a 

lump-sum amount for compensatory damages”). Teutscher 

asked the jury to award him back pay, front pay, and 

emotional distress damages, and Teutscher did not object to 

the lump-sum verdict form for doing so. The jury ruled in 

his favor, and because the lump-sum format does not enable 

us to parse which portion was front pay, we must assume that 

the jury awarded all of the front pay to which it believed 

Teutscher was entitled. Indeed, because he agreed to the 

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lump-sum verdict form, Teutscher waived any argument that 

the jury’s verdict should or could be parsed between its 

compensatory components, and because he did not appeal 

the jury’s damages award, Teutscher waived any argument 

that the verdict was flawed because it did not include front 

pay. He also fails to provide any authority for the 

proposition that the jury must award the entire amount of 

back pay requested before it can grant front pay, and, 

critically, the jury was not instructed here that it had to do 

so. It is thus entirely possible that the damages award 

included a substantial front pay component.

Moreover, even if we could parse the jury award—which 

we cannot—it is irrelevant whether the jury actually 

included any front pay within its damages award, because an 

award of zero front pay would also bind the district court in 

its determination of equitable relief. Whether the jury 

awarded some amount in front pay or no front pay, it 

necessarily made a finding, at Teutscher’s request, on the 

total amount of front pay to which Teutscher was entitled. 

Because “the verdict in [this] suit could not have been 

rendered without deciding [this] matter,” the jury’s verdict 

on Teutscher’s entire entitlement to front pay over the course 

of his remaining working years was “conclusive.” Russell v. 

Place, 94 U.S. 606, 608–09 (1876). The district court’s 

decision to then award an additional front pay remedy 

disregarded the jury’s finding as to the entire amount of 

future compensation that would make Teutscher whole.

C.

The Seventh Amendment analysis leads to a different 

conclusion with respect to the reinstatement award. Even 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 29

though reinstatement compensates for the same harm as 

front pay, some of the factors that underlie an equitable 

reinstatement determination differ from those that underlie a 

legal front pay determination. Because these factors are only 

partially overlapping, some interpretations of the jury’s 

award here would conflict with a reinstatement award but 

others would not. And because Seventh Amendment 

doctrine allows a court to interpret a jury’s award in deciding 

whether it would conflict with an equitable award, the 

possibility of a non-conflicting interpretation means the 

Seventh Amendment does not necessarily bar the 

reinstatement award.

The factors that determine whether a reinstatement 

award is appropriate include whether “excessive hostility or 

antagonism between the parties” renders reinstatement 

practically infeasible, Thorne, 802 F.2d at 1137, and whether 

there is a position available to reinstate the employee to 

without unfairly causing the displacement of another 

employee. Cassino, 817 F.2d at 1346 (“Although 

reinstatement is the preferred remedy [for discriminatory 

discharge], it may not be feasible where the relationship is 

hostile or no position is available due to a reduction in 

force.”); see also Palasota v. Haggar Clothing Co., 499 F.3d 

474, 489 (5th Cir. 2007) (Factors to be considered in 

deciding the propriety of reinstatement include “whether 

positions now exist comparable to the plaintiff’s former 

position and whether reinstatement would require an 

employer to displace an existing employee.”). The second 

of these factors has a clear analog in the front pay calculus, 

which turns in part on the permanency of the position that 

was held by the plaintiff and the possibility that his position 

would have been eliminated through consolidation for a non-

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retaliatory reason. See Downey, 510 F.3d at 544. The jury 

in this case was told to consider RSA’s “prospects for 

continuing the operations involving [Teutscher].” And it 

could have inferred from the increasing supervision and 

reassignment of Teutscher’s work that his position would 

eventually have been eliminated irrespective of his protected 

activity, such as through consolidation or a reduction in the 

work force, or through the reassignment of his duties to a 

lawyer.11 Had the jury expressly found that a position for 

Teutscher would no longer exist at RSA by the time the trial 

concluded, and therefore awarded zero front pay on that 

basis, that finding could preclude the district court from 

ordering reinstatement.

By contrast, other factors considered by the jury in 

determining front pay have no bearing on the 

appropriateness of reinstatement. For instance, in awarding 

front pay, the jury was instructed to consider Teutscher’s 

ability to mitigate his losses. But ability-to-mitigate is not a 

defense to reinstatement. Thus, if the jury decided to award 

no front pay on the basis that it believed Teutscher could 

obtain a job that paid as much as his job at RSA, that finding 

 

 11 RSA’s executive director testified that Teutscher’s work needed to 

be performed “by a lawyer” who could better understand the issues and 

“make informed decision[s].” Teutscher is not a lawyer, and, indeed, 

according to evidence submitted by RSA after trial, Teutscher’s position 

was eliminated in 2009, with the duties formerly assigned to Teutscher 

being transferred to outside counsel.

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 31

would not be incompatible with any finding necessary to 

award equitable reinstatement.

Nothing in the evidence presented at trial allows us to 

definitively rule out the possibility that the jury denied 

Teutscher front pay because it believed Teutscher could have 

obtained a job in the future that paid the same as his former 

position at RSA.12 As a consequence, it is unclear in this 

case whether the jury’s front pay decision turned on a 

factor—such as the expected elimination of any position 

Teutscher might fill—that would preclude a reinstatement 

remedy, or instead on a factor—such as Teutscher’s failure 

to fully mitigate—that would not. When, as in this case, the 

basis for the jury’s verdict is open to multiple interpretations, 

the Seventh Amendment permits the district court to reach 

 

 12 Although we cannot definitively rule it out, it seems highly unlikely 

that the jury awarded Teutscher nothing in front pay due solely to his 

failure to mitigate future losses. Failure to mitigate is also a defense to 

a back pay claim. See Cordero-Sacks v. Hous. Auth. of City of L.A., 

134 Cal. Rptr. 3d 883, 896–98 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011) (affirming jury 

instruction on plaintiff’s duty to mitigate her back pay damages). If the 

jury believed Teutscher had the ability to mitigate by finding a job that 

paid the same as his job at RSA, that should have caused the jury to 

award zero back pay (or zero back pay from the time such a job was 

available) as well as zero front pay. But of course the jury awarded 

$457,250 in compensatory damages—not zero. Perhaps the jury did 

award zero back pay and zero front pay because of failure to mitigate, 

and the entire $457,250 was intended to compensate for emotional 

distress. Even though this situation seems highly unlikely given that 

Teutscher’s counsel argued to the jury that emotional distress damages 

are ordinarily tethered to monetary loss, the fact that we cannot rule it 

out precludes us from holding that the jury’s verdict necessarily conflicts 

with a reinstatement award.

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any interpretation that is supported by the evidence. See 

Miles v. Indiana, 387 F.3d 591, 600 (7th Cir. 2004) 

(explaining that “when several issues have been litigated, 

and the jury may have supported its verdict by finding in the 

plaintiff’s favor on any one of the issues but which one is not 

clear, the court is free to determine the basis of the jury’s 

verdict unless extrinsic evidence clearly resolves the issue”). 

The district court must then, of course, avoid contradicting 

the findings implicit in its interpretation of the verdict when 

it acts in equity, but it need not avoid conflicting with other 

interpretations of the verdict.

The Seventh Circuit’s decision in Miles is instructive on 

the leeway that the Seventh Amendment provides a district 

court when the jury’s verdict is ambiguous. In Miles, the 

plaintiff filed suit alleging that the defendants retaliated 

against him by transferring him to a position without 

supervisory responsibilities and by refusing to promote him 

to a managerial role. See 387 F.3d at 595–96. After the jury 

returned a verdict in the plaintiff’s favor on the retaliation 

claim generally, the plaintiff requested equitable relief of 

promotion or front pay from the district court but was denied 

both. See id. at 597–98. In considering on appeal whether 

the denial of that equitable relief conflicted with the jury’s 

verdict, the Seventh Circuit was faced with a situation, much 

like that presented here, in which the jury’s verdict could be 

interpreted in multiple fashions. Specifically, the jury had 

answered in the affirmative a special verdict inquiry that 

asked whether the plaintiff had “proven that his complaints 

of discrimination were . . . a motivating factor in the decision 

of the defendant . . . to transfer him . . . or fail to promote 

him.” Id. at 600. In light of the phrasing of the inquiry, the 

verdict could be read in one of three ways: the jury could 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 33

have found retaliation in the transfer, retaliation in the failure 

to promote, or retaliation in both. Id. “Acknowledging the 

ambiguity in the jury’s verdict,” the district court 

determined, based on the evidence presented at trial, that the 

retaliation suffered by the plaintiff was with respect to the 

transfer and not the failure to promote. Id. at 600–01; see 

also id. at 597–98. It then awarded equitable relief 

consistent with that interpretation, ordering the defendants 

to reassign the plaintiff to a position with supervisory duties 

similar to what he held before the retaliatory transfer. Id. at 

598.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that the district 

court did not contravene the jury’s findings of fact. Rather, 

because “each of the potential theories supporting the verdict 

[was] open to contention,” id. at 600, the district court was 

free to select the one that it found to be best supported by the 

evidence and to determine equitable relief in accord with that 

theory. The Seventh Circuit explained that “if the jury had 

found retaliation in failing to promote . . . , then the 

provision of supervisory duties alone would not make [the 

plaintiff] whole” and the district court’s denial of promotion 

or front pay would have contravened the jury’s findings. Id. 

But because retaliatory transfer was a permissible 

interpretation of the jury’s verdict, the denial of these 

remedies and the award of supervisory duties instead was 

entirely in keeping with the jury’s factual findings. See id. 

(“If the jury only found retaliation in the reassignment to a 

position that lacked any supervisory responsibility then 

providing equitable relief of supervisory responsibility 

would make [the plaintiff] whole without the need for either 

a promotion or front pay.”).

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34 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

The district court in this case likewise could have 

determined the basis of the jury’s verdict in order to shape 

corresponding equitable relief. Had the district court 

permissibly discerned that the jury’s verdict reflected a 

finding that Teutscher failed to mitigate his future losses in 

that Teutscher should have been able to obtain a job as 

remunerative as his position at RSA by the time trial took 

place, the district court would have committed no Seventh 

Amendment error in proceeding to grant reinstatement. 

However, unlike in Miles, 387 F.3d at 600–01, the district 

court here did not explicitly determine the basis for the jury’s 

verdict or how it comported with the equitable awards. 

Instead, the district court cursorily awarded reinstatement, 

stating only that it would “not assume an antagonistic 

relationship between [Teutscher] and RSA merely because 

of the protracted litigation.”

Because of this lack of explanation, a remand would 

ordinarily be required to permit the district court to evaluate 

the jury’s verdict in the first instance and to award 

reinstatement only if it could explain why doing so did not 

conflict with the district court’s interpretation of the theory 

underlying the jury’s verdict. Cf. Bartee v. Michelin N. Am., 

Inc., 374 F.3d 906, 913 (10th Cir. 2004) (reversing and 

remanding equitable award because the district court’s 

“findings [we]re insufficient to enable . . . evaluat[ion] [of] 

whether the [court] abused its discretion by basing its 

equitable remedy on findings of fact that conflict with those 

implied by [the] jury verdicts”). We decline to remand here, 

however, because we conclude, as explained below, that 

even if reinstatement does not strictly speaking conflict with 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 35

the jury’s implicit findings, the reinstatement remedy was 

improper for other reasons.13

V.

RSA argues that the district court erred in ordering 

reinstatement because of its potential overlap with 

Teutscher’s damages award and because Teutscher waived 

reinstatement when he elected to seek front pay from the 

jury. We agree.

The Seventh Amendment is not the only limit on a 

district court’s discretion to shape appropriate equitable 

relief: a district court must also avoid awarding a litigant 

double recovery for the same harm. See Selgas v. Am. 

Airlines, Inc., 104 F.3d 9, 13 (1st Cir. 1997) (explaining that 

a district court’s discretion to craft an equitable remedy is 

limited by the need “to avoid duplication”). That is, even if 

a district court when acting in equity avoids any direct 

conflict with a jury’s factual findings, its award may still 

overlap with the damages granted by the jury and so provide 

the plaintiff a windfall. The doctrine of double recovery is 

concerned with this latter problem. This doctrine “dictates 

that ‘in the absence of punitive damages a plaintiff can 

recover no more than the loss actually suffered.’ The 

 

 13 The concurrence suggests that we are reversing the reinstatement 

remedy under the Seventh Amendment. We are not doing so. Rather, 

after identifying an ambiguity that would require a remand to determine 

whether there is a Seventh Amendment violation as to reinstatement, we 

are reversing instead of remanding in order to avoid the double recovery

and election-of-remedies problems explained in the next Part of this 

opinion.

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animating principle is simple: when a plaintiff seeks 

compensation for wrongs committed against him, he should 

be made whole for his injuries, not enriched.” Medina v. 

District of Columbia, 643 F.3d 323, 326 (D.C. Cir. 2011) 

(citation omitted) (quoting Kassman v. Am. Univ., 546 F.2d 

1029, 1033 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (per curiam)); see Dopp v. HTP 

Corp., 947 F.2d 506, 517 (1st Cir. 1991) (“[T]he law abhors 

duplicative recoveries. That is to say, a plaintiff who is 

injured by reason of a defendant’s behavior is . . . entitled to 

be made whole—not to be enriched.”). Thus, if a plaintiff 

brings two causes of action—one state and one federal—that 

arise from the same operative facts and seek relief for the 

same harm, the trial court must assure that the plaintiff 

recovers only once. Cf. Medina, 643 F.3d at 326 (explaining 

that “a jury is not prohibited from allocating a single 

damages award between two distinct theories of liability,” 

only from awarding it twice).

The question here is whether Teutscher was unjustly 

enriched by being granted reinstatement and compensatory 

damages as relief for the same retaliatory discharge. To the 

extent that the damages award included a front pay 

component covering the same period during which 

Teutscher would be reinstated, he clearly was.

Reinstatement and front pay are alternative remedies, 

which cannot be awarded for the same period of time. See 

Pollard v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 532 U.S. 843, 846 

(2001) (defining “front pay” as “money awarded for lost 

compensation during the period between judgment and 

reinstatement or in lieu of reinstatement”); Smith v. World 

Ins. Co., 38 F.3d 1456, 1466 (8th Cir. 1994) (“Front pay may 

be awarded in lieu of, but not in addition, to reinstatement.”);

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 37

Morgan v. Ark. Gazette, 897 F.2d 945, 954 (8th Cir. 1990) 

(“Having been granted reinstatement, [the plaintiff] cannot 

also receive an award of front pay.”); cf. Rogers v. Davis, 

34 Cal. Rptr. 2d 716, 719 (Cal. Ct. App. 1994) (explaining 

that under California law, a plaintiff may request alternative 

remedies, “but may not be awarded both to the extent such 

an award would constitute a double recovery”). This is 

because front pay is the “monetary equivalent” of 

reinstatement. Traxler v. Multnomah County, 596 F.3d 

1007, 1012 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Pollard, 532 U.S. at 853 

n.3). A reinstated individual will earn the salary associated 

with the job in question, so a plaintiff granted both front pay 

(calculated based on the job’s salary) and reinstatement for 

the same time period would essentially obtain his salary 

twice over, earning an undue windfall.

Duplicative recovery is easily avoided when only 

equitable relief is at issue—the district court may craft an 

award comprising exclusively reinstatement, exclusively 

front pay, or interim front pay until reinstatement occurs. 

The same avoidance must be achieved when, as in this case, 

front pay is submitted to the jury to determine. See Squires, 

54 F.3d at 176 (“It is true that if front-pay was awarded [by 

the jury], a grant of reinstatement would raise concerns 

regarding double recovery.”); Selgas, 104 F.3d at 13–14 

(recognizing that the district court may not award 

reinstatement that overlaps with the jury’s front pay award).

Teutscher argues that there was no overlap in this case 

because it is clear from the size of the jury’s verdict that it 

did not grant him any front pay. Thus, in his view, the 

district court could order reinstatement without duplicating 

his recovery. But Teutscher again ignores the problem 

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38 TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON

created by his failure to object to the lump-sum verdict form 

used by the jury, which prevents us from parsing the award. 

As explained above, we have no way of knowing that 

Teutscher is correct in assuming the jury awarded zero front 

pay, and there are many possible explanations of the jury 

verdict that would contain a front pay component. For 

example, the jury may well have decided that, with 

reasonable effort, Teutscher should have been able to find 

more remunerative work than his two-year stint at an auto 

business, and it may have declined to award him a 

substantial portion of his back pay request, instead 

apportioning damages across both back and front pay. 

Simply stated, nothing about the jury instructions or the 

evidence presented at trial permits us to conclude that the 

jury’s damages award and the court’s reinstatement award 

do not overlap. Cf. Selgas, 104 F.3d at 13–14 & n.9 

(concluding that a reinstatement remedy did not overlap with 

front pay awarded by the jury because it was clear from the 

jury instructions and the evidence presented at trial that the 

jury was only permitted to determine front pay for an interim 

period until the point that the plaintiff could be reinstated).

The question remains what to do about this potential 

overlap. Faced with a similar problem of potentially 

duplicative legal and equitable awards, the Third and Eighth 

Circuits decided to remand for a new determination of 

remedies. See Squires, 54 F.3d at 176–77 & n.16 (vacating 

the jury’s award in favor of a new trial on compensatory 

damages with more precise instructions); Savarese v. Agriss, 

883 F.2d 1194, 1205–06 (3d Cir. 1989) (vacating potentially 

overlapping compensatory damages award and equitable 

back pay award and remanding for a new trial and 

recalculation of back pay by the district judge); Greminger 

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v. Seaborne, 584 F.2d 275, 278–79 (8th Cir. 1978) (vacating 

the jury’s monetary judgment and remanding for the district 

court to determine an award of back pay and out-of-pocket 

expenses that would not conflict with its equitable 

reinstatement remedy). We think the better course on this 

record is to simply reverse the equitable reinstatement award 

and permit Teutscher to keep the full amount of damages he 

obtained from the jury.

Teutscher’s own litigation choices are what lead us to 

this conclusion. On the record before us, it is evident that 

Teutscher waived his right to a reinstatement award when he 

affirmatively elected to seek front pay from the jury. The 

election-of-remedies doctrine, which “refers to situations 

where an individual pursues remedies that are legally or 

factually inconsistent,” operates to “prevent[] a party from 

obtaining double redress for a single wrong.” Latman v. 

Burdette, 366 F.3d 774, 781–82 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting

Alexander v. Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U.S. 36, 49 (1974)), 

abrogated on other grounds by Law v. Siegel, 134 S. Ct. 

1188 (2014). A party is bound by his election of remedies if 

three conditions are met: “(1) two or more remedies . . . 

existed at the time of the election, (2) these remedies [are] 

repugnant and inconsistent with each other, and (3) the party 

to be bound . . . affirmatively chose[], or elected, between 

the available remedies.” Id. at 782 (citing 25 Am. Jur. 2d 

Election of Remedies § 8).14

 

 14 We have in the past cautioned against overreliance on the electionof-remedies doctrine. See Haphey v. Linn County, 953 F.2d 549, 552 

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Each of these conditions is met here. As explained 

above, reinstatement and front pay are alternative remedies 

for retaliatory discharge, which cannot both be awarded for 

the same period of time. See, e.g., Pollard, 532 U.S. at 846. 

Teutscher proposed the damages instruction that required the 

jury to determine the amount of compensation he would 

have earned for the remainder of his working life at RSA, 

and he did not object when the jury was charged to include 

front pay damages in its lump-sum verdict. Teutscher 

therefore elected to seek a make-whole remedy from the 

jury, which necessarily included a front pay award for the 

entire period covered by any potential reinstatement award.

In sum, having submitted front pay to the jury in the 

manner that he did, Teutscher could not then take a second 

bite at the apple by seeking a duplicative reinstatement 

 

(9th Cir. 1992) (en banc) (explaining that, rather than relying on electionof-remedies principles, “state claim and issue preclusion rules should 

normally be employed when courts are considering whether utilization 

of state court proceedings prevents later utilization of federal 

proceedings”). While we believe the procedural history of this case 

squarely implicates the election-of-remedies doctrine, we do not intend 

to suggest anything about the applicability of the doctrine in other 

contexts. See Oubichon v. N. Am. Rockwell Corp., 482 F.2d 569, 572–

73 (9th Cir. 1973) (providing that election of remedies applies “only 

where conflicting and inconsistent remedies are sought on the basis of 

conflicting and inconsistent rights” and holding that the plaintiff’s use of 

union arbitration did not bar his Title VII claim (quoting Newman v. Avco 

Corp., 451 F.2d 743, 746 n.1 (6th Cir. 1971))).

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award from the court.15 See Starceski v. Westinghouse Elec. 

Corp., 54 F.3d 1089, 1103 & n.17 (3d Cir. 1995) (noting in 

support of its decision that reinstatement was inappropriate 

that the plaintiff “failed to object when the trial judge 

instructed the jury on front pay, even though he intended to 

make a motion for reinstatement”). We therefore conclude 

that Teutscher is entitled to keep the full amount of 

compensatory (and punitive) damages the jury awarded, but 

that the district court’s equitable reinstatement award must 

be set aside.

VI.

As a final note, we emphasize that our holding that the 

jury’s monetary award precluded the district court’s 

equitable award in this case turns on the particular way in 

which Teutscher chose to pursue his claims. As the 

“‘master’ of his complaint,” Teutscher was entitled to decide 

what law to rely on and what remedies to pursue. Ultramar 

Am. Ltd. v. Dwelle, 900 F.2d 1412, 1414 (9th Cir. 1990). 

There are several ways in which Teutscher likely could have 

pursued legal and equitable relief at the same time. Among 

them, he could have pursued only back pay from the jury and 

 

 15 RSA argues that the district court additionally erred by failing to 

consider Teutscher’s duty to mitigate when it awarded him front pay at 

Teutscher’s full former salary, and that it erred in ordering reinstatement 

and interim front pay without making the requisite finding that it was 

possible to return Teutscher to the same or a similar position. Because 

we conclude that both the equitable reinstatement and front pay awards 

must be vacated for other reasons, we do not reach these issues.

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sought a forward-looking remedy only from the court in 

equity.16 Alternatively, Teutscher could have requested that 

the jury be instructed to award only that prospective 

compensatory relief that did not overlap with an equitable 

reinstatement or front pay remedy.

Such was the case, for instance, in Williams v. 

Pharmacia, Inc., 137 F.3d 944 (7th Cir. 1998). There, the 

jury was instructed to award “lost future earnings” to 

compensate the plaintiff only for the reputational harms she 

suffered as a result of the defendant’s discrimination, which 

diminished her lifetime earnings capacity generally. Id. at 

952 (explaining that the district court “characterized the 

jury’s award for lost future earnings as ‘an intangible 

nonpecuniary loss’” and “analogized lost future earnings to 

an ‘injury to professional standing’ and to ‘injury to 

character and reputation’”). To prove up this request, the 

plaintiff presented expert testimony about the way in which 

her undeservedly poor performance evaluations diminished 

her future earnings capacity. See id. Rather than 

compensating for this diminished capacity, an equitable 

 

 16 Had Teutscher done so, the question of equitable front pay could 

perhaps have been tried to the district court with an advisory jury as long 

as that choice was clear to the parties in advance, so that the district court 

would be guided by the jury’s non-binding front pay finding should 

reinstatement prove infeasible. See Traxler v. Multnomah County, 

596 F.3d 1007, 1013 (9th Cir. 2010) (explaining that “[a] trial court, 

sitting in equity, may nevertheless employ an advisory jury” though 

“[t]he ultimate decision . . . rests with the court”); see also Pradier v. 

Elespuru, 641 F.2d 808, 811 (9th Cir. 1981) (“The parties are entitled to 

know at the outset of the trial whether the decision will be made by the 

judge or the jury.”).

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front pay award granted by the court compensated the 

plaintiff for the immediate pecuniary “effects of [the 

defendant’s] unlawful termination of her employment” in an 

amount “approximat[ing] the benefit [the plaintiff] would 

have received had she been able to return to her old job”—

an amount that was capped at a year of wages because her 

position would have been eliminated after a year due to 

merger. Id. at 953. As a consequence, the jury’s lost future 

earnings award avoided overlap with the court’s equitable 

remedy of one year of front pay, see id. at 954, and the jury’s 

finding about the plaintiff’s lost future earnings capacity thus 

did not preclude the district court from granting additional 

relief to compensate her for lost wages during her period of 

unemployment.17 See id. at 953 (explaining that even if 

 

 17 To the extent the lost future wages award in Williams may also have 

included some monetary component for the year in which the plaintiff 

received front pay, this is explainable by the particular facts of that case. 

In Williams, the plaintiff presented evidence—and the jury found—that 

her employer “had engaged in sex discrimination and unlawful 

retaliation . . . by [both] failing to promote her . . . and terminating her 

employment.” 137 F.3d at 947; see also id. at 948–49. Because, as the 

Seventh Circuit there explained, “front pay . . . affords the plaintiff the 

same benefit . . . as the plaintiff would have received had she been 

reinstated,” and because the salary the plaintiff would have received if 

reinstated to her previous position was presumably lower than it should 

have been as a result of the defendant’s unlawful failure to promote her, 

front pay would not have made the plaintiff fully whole. Id. at 952; see 

also id. at 953 (characterizing front pay as “compensat[ing] [the plaintiff] 

for the immediate effects of [her] unlawful termination”). An additional 

award of lost future earnings, which the Seventh Circuit characterized as 

a recovery “for lost earning capacity,” would have compensated her for 

being unfairly passed over for promotion. Id. at 952 (quoting McKnight 

v. Gen. Motors Corp., 973 F.2d 1366, 1370 (7th Cir. 1992)). Consistent 

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reinstatement had been awarded by the court in lieu of front 

pay, the plaintiff “would still have been entitled to 

compensation for her lost future earnings”).

The legal and equitable awards in this case, however, 

present the exact problem that Williams avoided: they were 

designed to remedy precisely the same loss. The Seventh 

Amendment instructs that it is the jury’s decision on the front 

pay question that must be respected and the court’s 

conflicting front pay award that must be set aside. Given the 

potential for a windfall and in light of Teutscher’s 

affirmative election to seek front pay from the jury, the 

court’s reinstatement award must be set aside as well.

We therefore REVERSE the district court’s equitable 

awards of reinstatement and front pay.18

 

with the non-overlapping nature of these awards, the Seventh Circuit 

explicitly recognized that, “[e]ven if [the plaintiff] had been able to 

return to her old job, the jury could find that [she] suffered injury to her 

future earning capacity even during her period of reinstatement.” Id. at 

953 (emphasis added). Here, in contrast, the jury was instructed to 

include in its award all of the “damages that [Teutscher] ha[d] proven he 

is entitled to recover,” including damages for past and future economic 

and non-economic injury.

 18 We address the cross-appeal by Teutscher’s former counsel, William 

N. Woodson, III, in which RSA and Teutscher are both appellees, in a 

concurrently filed memorandum disposition.

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 45

M. SMITH, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment:

I concur in the judgment of the majority opinion. 

However, I disagree with the majority’s Seventh 

Amendment analysis in Part IV of the opinion. I disagree 

that the district court “should have viewed itself as bound 

under the Seventh Amendment” because “Teutscher needed 

to make the same factual showing and to meet the same 

defenses” in order to obtain both future lost earnings and 

reinstatement. Maj. Op. at 21. Instead, I would hold that the 

district court’s equitable remedy was an improper abuse of 

discretion, because the district court did not give reasons 

why additional equitable relief was appropriate after the jury 

had already compensated Teutscher for the monetary harm 

he suffered.

The district court’s equitable remedy took the form of 

reinstatement, with front pay until reinstatement could 

occur. In addition, the jury awarded Teutscher a lump sum 

for compensatory damages that included future lost earnings. 

In this case, the majority’s constitutional analysis is based on 

a conclusion that the factual underpinnings of the jury’s 

award for future lost earnings is identical to those supporting 

the district court’s equitable award.

I disagree that this is necessarily the case. Future lost 

earnings and front pay are different remedies designed to 

address different wrongs, and should be analyzed using a 

different analytical framework. As such, a plaintiff can be 

awarded both without offending the Constitution.

As the majority notes, the jury was only empowered to 

grant legal relief to Teutscher in the form of compensatory 

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and punitive damages on the state law claims. Maj. Op. at 

13. The district court, in contrast, was only able to grant 

“appropriate equitable relief” on the ERISA claim. 29 U.S.C 

§ 1132(a)(3); Maj. Op. at 13. The district court was not 

authorized to grant Teutscher any form of legal relief, 

including compensatory money damages. Mertens v. Hewitt 

Assocs., 508 U.S. 248, 255 (1993); see also McLeod v. Or. 

Lithoprint Inc., 102 F.3d 376, 378 (9th Cir. 1996).

It could, however, reinstate Teutscher in his job. 

“Reinstatement is equitable, not compensatory relief.” 

McLeod, 102 F.3d at 379. Front pay is also equitable, 

because it goes hand-in-hand with reinstatement and is to be 

used “during the period between the judgment and 

reinstatement or in lieu of reinstatement.” Pollard v. E.I. du 

Pont de Nemours & Co., 532 U.S. 843, 846 (2001). Although 

front pay may look very similar to compensatory damages 

for future lost earnings, it is a distinct remedy. The Seventh 

Circuit has upheld an award of both future lost earnings and 

front pay, and concluded that such an award does not 

necessarily constitute a double recovery. Williams v. 

Pharmacia, Inc., 137 F.3d 944, 953 (7th Cir. 1998). This is 

so because front pay is the “functional equivalent” of the 

equitable remedy of reinstatement. Id. at 952. Future lost 

earnings, on the other hand, are compensatory damages 

calibrated to actual “monetary losses after the date of 

judgment.” Pollard, 532 U.S. at 852. The Supreme Court 

confirmed this distinction in Pollard, when it held that 

equitable front pay was separate from compensatory 

damages (both past and future), and was therefore not 

subject to the damages cap under Title VII. Id.

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The Williams court also noted that a jury award for future 

compensatory damages was not necessarily factually 

inconsistent with an equitable front pay award because the 

awards can “compensate the plaintiff for different injuries.” 

Williams, 137 F.3d at 953. Reinstatement (and front pay) 

puts the plaintiff back in his job, or at least pays him as if he 

had been reinstated. Future compensatory damages can be 

significantly broader than that, and encompass reputational 

harms, loss of experience, and other “forward-looking 

aspects of the injury caused by the discriminatory conduct.” 

Id. Similarly, a compensatory damages award that only gives 

the plaintiff the cash value of reasonably-certain future 

earnings at a particular place of employment might still leave 

the plaintiff suffering harms that might be appropriately 

remedied with reinstatement, such as a restored track record 

and job history, which could assist the plaintiff in future 

employment searches.

In this way, each remedy can have some unique benefits, 

even though the core of the harm (a lost paycheck) can be 

remedied by either. In addition to this practical distinction, 

the Supreme Court in Pollard made clear that there is a 

technical distinction between compensatory damages for 

future lost earnings and equitable front pay in lieu of 

reinstatement. 532 U.S. at 852. For the two awards to be a 

violation of the Seventh Amendment, moreover, the issues 

underlying each must be “common to both the legal and 

equitable claims.” Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 

472 (1962). Again, although there is significant overlap 

between the compensatory and equitable inquiries, they are 

not identical.

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The jury in this case was instructed to calculate “the 

present cash value of any future wages and benefits that 

[Teutscher] would have earned for the length of time the 

employment with Defendant was reasonably certain to 

continue,” to be awarded as a lump sum. The implied factual 

questions to be decided by the jury were how long Teutscher 

was “reasonably certain” to continue his employment with 

RSA, and his rate of pay.

When deciding reinstatement and front pay, on the other 

hand, the district court must first and foremost decide 

whether any equitable relief is “appropriate . . . to redress” 

the defendant’s ERISA violation. 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(3). 

As the majority notes, the district court should address 

factors such as work-life expectancy in making this 

determination, which is similar to the question posed to the 

jury. Maj. Op. at 24–25. Moreover, it is certainly correct that 

the jury’s monetary award is highly relevant in determining 

what additional equitable relief, if any, is “appropriate” in a 

given situation. But, in my view, the issues common to each 

inquiry are not precisely the same such that giving both 

awards would trigger a Seventh Amendment concern. The 

jury was asked to consider the narrow question of the cash 

value of the wages which Teutscher would have earned at 

RSA with reasonable certainty. The district court has much 

wider latitude when deciding whether reinstatement is 

“appropriate,” and if so, whether it is feasible, and if not, 

whether to award front pay. In Downey v. Strain, 510 F.3d 

534 (5th Cir. 2007) the Fifth Circuit noted that “front pay 

can only be calculated through intelligent guesswork, and we 

recognize its speculative character by according wide 

latitude in its determination to the district courts.” Id. at 544 

(quoting Sellers v. Delgado Coll., 781 F.2d 503, 505 (5th 

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TEUTSCHER V. WOODSON 49

Cir. 1986)). The jury, which has considerably less latitude, 

is necessarily engaging in a narrower inquiry than the one 

the district court is empowered to undertake.

In sum, Pollard instructs us that although they may look 

very similar, there is a distinction between future 

compensatory damages and front pay that we must respect. 

I believe that distinction should extend into the Seventh 

Amendment context because it may often be perfectly 

reasonable for a jury to award future compensatory damages 

and for a district court to award reinstatement (with or 

without front pay) in a way that is factually consistent with 

the jury’s verdict. This indicates that the legal and factual 

issues underpinning the awards are not the same. Here, the 

jury’s verdict was general, and the district court provided 

very little reasoning for its equitable award. Under these 

circumstances, I do not think we can confidently draw the 

implication that the district court unconstitutionally 

disregarded the jury’s factual findings.

I concur in the judgment, however, because I believe the 

district court abused its discretion in granting reinstatement 

in this context. As the majority observes, the jury had been 

asked to compensate Teutscher for the cash value of his 

future paychecks with RSA. The district court’s analysis on 

reinstatement is only a paragraph, and appears to assume that 

additional equitable relief was “appropriate” to redress the 

ERISA violation over and above the jury verdict. If the 

district court had provided reasoning to explain why it 

believed reinstatement was appropriate to redress nonmonetary wrongs inflicted on Teutscher, it might have 

articulated a basis for reinstatement that was in harmony 

with the damages award. On this thin record, however, it is 

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not apparent that is what happened. Therefore, I would 

reverse the equitable award as an abuse of discretion.

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