In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 15-3311

MARIA N. GRACIA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SIGMATRON INTERNATIONAL, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:11-cv-07604 — Edmond E. Chang, Judge.

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 8, 2016 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Maria Gracia sued her employer,

SigmaTron, International, Inc., for sexual harassment and for

terminating her in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.

A jury found in favor of SigmaTron on the claim of sexual

harassment but returned a verdict for Gracia on the retaliation

count. SigmaTron challenges both the judgment in Gracia’s

favor and the amount of damages awarded by the jury. We

affirm.
2 No. 15-3311

I.

Maria Gracia entered the workforce at the age of sixteen.

After holding jobs at Burger King, Dollar Tree and various

staffing companies, Gracia began working on the assembly line

for the defendant, SigmaTron, in 1999. SigmaTron is an

international, publicly-traded company that manufactures

printed circuit board assemblies. The company has approximately 2500 employees at manufacturing facilities in the

United States, Mexico, Taiwan and Vietnam. Its products are

used in aviation, home appliances and medical devices, among

other applications.A highly regarded employee at SigmaTron,1

Gracia was promoted multiple times over the years until she

achieved the position of assembly supervisor in 2004 or 2005. 

In her capacity as assembly supervisor, Gracia was responsible for product output and quality, for scheduling personnel

and for directing team members in their work, among other

things. Team members on the assembly line connected electronic components to circuits boards according to the customers’ requirements. Solder, the material used to attach components to circuit boards, may be made with lead or without lead.

In some instances, customers requested that a particular solder

SigmaTron’s corporate human resources manager, Sandra Miedema, 1

described Gracia as “absolutely great at her job,” “terrific,” and “excellent”

prior to the events at the core of this case. Patrick Silverman, her manager,

testified that, prior to the second half of 2008, Gracia’s attendance was

excellent, her cooperation was good, her initiative was very good, her job

knowledge was excellent, her work quality was good to excellent, and her

work quantity or output was good.
No. 15-3311 3

be employed, and it was the assembly supervisor’s job to make

sure that all customer requirements were met. 

Gracia reported to Patrick Silverman, a production manager. In late 2007, Silverman began engaging in problematic

conduct towards Gracia. He sent her a series of emails containing graphic photographs of partially nude women in degrading poses. In early 2008, he sent Gracia an email with a photo

of her younger sister on which someone had superimposed an

image of a male co-worker dressed as a baby, with the caption,

“Mother, milk please,” in Spanish. Gracia testified that the 2

unwelcome pictures made her feel embarrassed, uncomfortable and upset. But she did not object to Silverman when he

sent the photos and did not inform the company’s human

resources department because Silverman was her boss. Gracia

had noticed that Silverman and the company’s executive vicepresident, Greg Fairhead, were good friends, and she feared

Silverman conceded at trial that he sent these photographs to Gracia 2

because he found them “humorous.” After the litigation commenced and

SigmaTron became aware that Silverman had sent these photographs to a

female subordinate, he was advised in general not to use work email for

non-business reasons. As of the time of the trial, no one at the company had

mentioned these particular emails or photographs to him and no one at

SigmaTron had ever disciplined him for sending these photographs.

Miedema testified at trial that, although she found the pictures “disgusting,” she did not think they were sexual in nature. She refused to say that

a male supervisor sending these photographs to a female subordinate

violated the company’s sexual harassment policy. 
4 No. 15-3311

she would lose her job. Greg Fairhead is the brother of Gary 3

Fairhead, the CEO of SigmaTron.

In mid-2008, Silverman started writing Gracia up for

tardiness. Gracia did not deny that she had been late on

multiple occasions, sometimes as little as a minute and at times

for longerintervals. But Silverman had not previously objected

to her schedule and prior to mid-2008, Gracia‘s attendance

record had been described by Silverman as “excellent.” One

evening in the fall of 2008, Gracia received a series of late night 4

calls at home from Silverman. He asked her to join him at a

party with David Niemi, a man who had previously worked at

 Gracia testified extensively about additional harassing actions allegedly

3

taken by Silverman. For example, she testified that Silverman repeatedly

asked her out on dates. She declined each time but was afraid to say more.

She also testified that Silverman once pulled away the neck of her

turtleneck shirt in front of a co-worker and asked her if she was hiding bite

marks. According to Gracia, Silverman attempted to invite himself to her

apartment for an overnight stay, suggesting that he would rather stay with

Gracia after attending a Cubs game than drive home to Rockford, a distant

suburb. On occasion, he sent her texts or emails asking her to go out to

dinner or meet him at a bar. Each time, she declined. Gracia did not report

this conduct to her employer. Because the jury found for SigmaTron on the

sexual harassment claim, we will not credit Gracia’s testimony on this issue

unless her testimony is unopposed. We include her testimony to provide

context for her claim of retaliation.

Gracia could not recall the exact date of the late-night calls but testified

4

that they occurred approximately one month before two October 2008

meetings that she had with Sandra Miedema, the company’s human

resources manager.
No. 15-3311 5

SigmaTron. She declined the invitation. On October 15, a few 5

weeks after she declined Silverman’s late-night party invitation, several months after receiving the explicit emails, and

after years of being an exemplary employee, Gracia was

suspended for two days for tardiness. When she returned to

work after the suspension, she requested a meeting with

SigmaTron’s corporate human resources manager, Sandra

Miedema. 

At the October 20 meeting, Gracia told Miedema for the

first time about the late-night phone calls from Silverman and

that Silverman had been treating her differently. She explained

that he had begun writing her up for tardiness even though her

timeliness had not been an issue before. Miedema noticed that

Gracia’s appearance had deteriorated since she had seen her

last, that she looked dull and lacked luster. Even her clothing,

jewelry and makeup had changed. Four days later, Miedema

called Gracia in for a second meeting. Gracia again discussed

the late-night phone calls and told Miedema that Silverman

had been treating her differently and that he was sexually

harassing her. Miedema asked Gracia, “Is he sweet on you?”

6

Silverman denied making any call, saying that Niemi made one call to 5

Gracia from a party using Silverman’s phone. Niemi denied at trial that he

made any call to Gracia from a party. SigmaTron insists that any such call

took place in 2004, but the jury was entitled to believe Gracia on this point.

It was also entitled to credit Niemi and Gracia over Silverman. Neither

Fairhead nor Miedema called Niemi to check out Silverman’s story.

The defendant vehemently denies in its briefs that Gracia complained to 6

Miedema about sexual harassment. But at trial, Gracia responded affirma-

(continued...)
6 No. 15-3311

and Gracia replied, “Yes.” Miedema also asked Gracia if she

was on drugs. Gracia denied that she was taking drugs and

offered to undergo drug testing. Miedema then dropped the

subject.

At the end of that second meeting, Miedema bypassed her

own supervisor and brought Gracia to the office of Greg

Fairhead, SigmaTron’s executivevice-president. Miedema said

that she did not like the idea of Silverman “pushing at Maria.”

Gracia repeated to Fairhead that Silverman had subjected her

to multiple unwanted late-night phone calls at home. Fairhead

replied that Silverman had called her only once. Gracia tried to

tell Miedema and Fairhead more about Silverman’s inappropriate conduct but Fairhead spoke over her and gave her no

chance to interject. After a break in the meeting, during which

Miedema and Fairhead spoke privately to Silverman, Gracia

was brought back in to speak with Miedema, Silverman and

Fairhead. Ultimately, Gracia was told to shake hands with

Silverman and work together. 

Dissatisfied with the company’s response to her claim of

sexual harassment, Gracia filed a charge with the Equal

Employment OpportunityCommission (“EEOC”), alleging sex

and national origin discrimination. SigmaTron received a copy

of the EEOC charge onNovember 19, 2008. Approximately two

 (...continued) 6

tively to a question about whether she “explicitly complain[ed] about sexual

harassment” to Miedema in the October 24th meeting. As we explain in

section II.A. below, in reviewing the denial of a motion for judgment as a

matter of law, we construe the facts in favor of the party that prevailed at

trial. And so we credit Gracia’s version of the facts on the retaliation claim.
No. 15-3311 7

weeks later, on December 4, Silverman purportedly told

Fairhead that he had received a report from Eduardo Trujillo,

another SigmaTron supervisor, that Gracia had allowed an

employee to use the wrong solder on a customer’s order, using

unleaded solder on a board that called for solder with lead.

Silverman claimed that when Trujillo pointed out the problem

to Gracia, she had not taken the matter seriously. Silverman

asserted that when Trujillo told him about the problem, he

(Silverman) went to the production floor, segregated the

contaminated product and took care of the problem. After

Silverman conveyed this purported sequence of events to

Fairhead, Trujillo confirmed Silverman’s story to Fairhead. The

next day, approximately six weeks after Gracia’s first complaint to Miedema about Silverman’s sexual harassment and

two weeks after the company received Gracia’s EEOC charge,

SigmaTron terminated Gracia’s employment.7

At trial, however, Trujillo, a SigmaTron supervisor, denied

making any report to Silverman about Gracia or employees on

her assembly line, and did not recall Gracia speaking to him

about the soldering incident. Instead, Trujillo testified that he

was called into Fairhead’s office on December 5 and asked

“about the wrongdoing of boards being soldered.” He reFairhead memorialized his explanation for the termination in a memo,

7

claiming that Gracia was fired for “not following the strict standard on

solder technology.” The memo also stated that Trujillo brought the error to

Gracia’s attention and that she did nothing to stop the work, instead telling

Trujillo, “I have done this many times before and nobody ever found out.”

According to the memo, Trujillo reported the error to Silverman who then

rectified the situation. Fairhead represented in the memo that he questioned

Trujillo, who confirmed Silverman’s report.
8 No. 15-3311

sponded to Fairhead that he “was aware, as well as the whole

group of inspectors.” According to Trujillo, employees often

used the wrong solder on circuit boards at SigmaTron, and that

to the best of his knowledge, no one had ever been fired

because of the inadvertent use of the incorrect solder on a

circuit board. Trujillo also testified that, approximately one

month before Gracia was fired, Silverman advised Trujillo to

stay away from Gracia because he (Silverman) was “throwing

bombs at” her. 

Gracia testified that, on December 4, Trujillo brought to her

attention that an employee was using the wrong solder, and

that she addressed the problem immediately and appropriately. She removed the products from the employee applying

the wrong solder and delivered them to the correct area. She

also determined which employee had made the mistake, a

groupleader who accepted responsibility. According to Gracia,

Silverman never came to the production floor and was not

involved in rectifying the problem. As we discuss below,

because Gracia prevailed at trial on her retaliation claim, we

credit the version of the facts that support the jury’s verdict.

The jury was free to believe Gracia and Trujillo, and correspondingly free to determine that Silverman and Fairhead had

lied about the incident.8

In response to the retaliation claim, SigmaTron asserted at

trial that the company terminated Gracia’s employment

because she had allowed an assembly line worker to use the

As we will discuss below, Gracia presented additional evidence that the 8

company’s stated reason for her termination was a pretext. 
No. 15-3311 9

wrong solder, did not resolve the problem and did not take the

matter seriously. As for the harassment claim, the company

argued that Silverman’s alleged conduct did not meet the

standard for hostile work environment, that Gracia had little

evidence corroborating her claims, and that Gracia did not

avail herself of the company’s sexual harassment policy

because she never informed her employer that Silverman had

done anything other than invite her to a party and treat her

differently by writing her up for tardiness. The jury found in

favor of SigmaTron on the sexual harassment claim and in

favor of Gracia on the retaliation claim. The jury awarded

Gracia $57,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in

punitive damages. SigmaTron appeals. 9

II.

On appeal, SigmaTron contends that it is entitled to

judgment as a matter of law on the retaliation claim because

the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict.

SigmaTron also maintains that the compensatory and punitive

damages awards are unsupported by the evidence, and that

the punitive damages are both disproportionate to the harm

suffered by Gracia and out of line with damages awarded in

similar cases. Finally, in the alternative, SigmaTron argues that

it is entitled to a new trial.

A.

We review de novo the denial of a motion for judgment as

a matter of law. Empress Casino Joliet Corp. v. Balmoral Racing

In keeping with the statutory cap, the compensatory damages award was

9

remitted to $50,000. The total amount of damages awarded was $300,000.
10 No. 15-3311

Club, Inc., 831 F.3d 815, 822 (7th Cir. 2016); Fed. R. Civ. P. 50. In

its opening brief, SigmaTron asserted that we must review the

evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom

judgment was granted, in this instance, SigmaTron. The

company’s statement of the standard is incorrect and in fact

inverts the true standard. Once a jury has spoken, reviewing

the record as a whole, “the court must draw all reasonable

inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, and it may not

make credibilitydeterminations or weigh the evidence.” Reeves

v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150 (2000).

Moreover:

the court must disregard all evidence favorable to

the moving party that the jury is not required to

believe. ... That is, the court should give credence to

the evidence favoring the nonmovant as well as that

evidence supporting the moving party that is uncontradicted and unimpeached, at least to the extent

that that evidence comes from disinterested witnesses.

Reeves, 530 U.S. at 151 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted); Empress Casino, 831 F.3d at 822 (in reviewing the denial of

a motion for judgment as a matter of law, we construe the trial

evidence strictly in favor of the party who prevailed before the

jury); Tart v. Illinois Power Co., 366 F.3d 461, 464 (7th Cir. 2004)

(once a jury has spoken, the court is obliged to construe the

facts in favor of the parties who prevailed under the verdict).

We will affirm if a reasonable jury would have a legally

sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on a particular

issue. Empress Casino, 831 F.3d at 822. See also Lust v. Sealy, Inc.,
No. 15-3311 11

383 F.3d 580, 583 (7th Cir. 2004) (noting that we will affirm a

jury’s finding on causation when that finding cannot be said to

be unreasonable).

On the retaliation count, Gracia prevailed at trial and so we

must credit the evidence in her favor on that claim and

disregard all evidence favoring SigmaTron that the jury was

not required to believe. Employing that standard, Gracia easily

prevails on her retaliation claim, and the district court was

right to deny SigmaTron’s motion for judgment as a matter of

law. In order to make out a claim for retaliation, Gracia was

required to prove (1) that she engaged in statutorily protected

activity; (2) that her employer took an adverse employment

action against her; and (3) that the protected activity and the

adverse employment action are causally connected. Ripberger

v. Corizon, Inc., 773 F.3d 871, 881 (7th Cir. 2014); 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000e-3(a). For the causation factor, Gracia was required to

demonstrate that “the desire to retaliate was the but-for cause

of the challenged employment action.” University of Texas Sw.

Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 133 S. Ct. 2517, 2528 (2013). “This requires

proof that the unlawful retaliation would not have occurred in

the absence of the alleged wrongful action or actions of the

employer.” Id. at 2533.

There is no doubt that Gracia engaged in statutorily

protectedactivitywhenshe complained to SigmaTron’s human

resources manager that her supervisor was sexually harassing

her and when she filed her charge with the EEOC. Nor is there

any question that SigmaTron took an adverse employment

action against her when it terminated her employment. The

company concedes these first two factors. Instead, SigmaTron

argues that Gracia failed to demonstrate that she was fired
12 No. 15-3311

because she engaged in protected activity. The company

contends instead that she was terminated because of her record

of tardiness and because she allowed an employee to use

unleaded solder on a leaded circuit board. 

“[R]etaliatory motive may be established through circumstantial evidence such as suspicious timing, ambiguous

statements, evidence that the statedreasonforthe employment

decision is pretextual and” other evidence from which an

inference of discriminatory intent might be drawn. Ripberger,

773 F.3d at 881. See also Castro v. DeVry University, Inc., 786 F.3d

559, 565 (7th Cir. 2015) (same). We may dispense with

SigmaTron’s first explanation for the termination easily.

SigmaTron did not rely on tardiness as a reason for the

termination at trial. In fact, Fairhead, the person who decided

to terminate Gracia, conceded at trial that he did not fire her on

account of tardiness or attendance problems. R. 190, at 364 (“Q:

You did not fire Maria on account of tardiness or attendance

problems, did you? A: I did not.”). In pre-trial proceedings, the

company assured the court that it was not relying on tardiness

as a cause of the termination but was instead focusing solely on

the “soldering incident.” In light of the company’s pre-trial

concession and the unequivocal admission by the decisionmaker at trial, SigmaTron’s repeated argument on appeal that

tardiness was a cause for the termination is puzzling. With

SigmaTron having conceded the point to the jury at trial, we

may ignore the purported tardiness rationale on appeal.

We turn to SigmaTron’s claim that Fairhead terminated

Gracia because she allowed an employee to use the wrong

solder and failed to respond appropriately when the problem

was pointed out to her. We detailed SigmaTron’s version of
No. 15-3311 13

events above, namely, that Trujillo approached Silverman and

reported that Gracia had refused to fix a soldering error, that

Silverman then fixed the problem and reported the situation to

Fairhead, who then interviewed Trujillo and decided to fire

Gracia. But Gracia testified that when Trujillo told her an

employee was using lead-free solder on a leaded board, she

stopped the employee, segregated the product, redirected

employees and sought out the source of the problem. She

confirmed that Silverman never came to the production floor

to address the incident. Trujillo denied that he ever spoke to

Silverman about the incident and denied telling Fairhead that

Gracia made the error. Both Trujillo and Gracia denied that

Gracia ever took the matter lightly or said it was “no big deal”

(as Silverman claimed she said to Trujillo) or that it “doesn’t

matter” (as Fairhead claimed Silverman reported to him). The

jury was free to credit the testimony of Trujillo and Gracia and

conclude that Gracia did not mishandle the incident and that

no one had reported that Gracia mishandled it.

Moreover, even if Gracia had allowed the use of unleaded

solder on a leaded circuit board, she presented evidence that

such an error occurred with regularity at SigmaTron, at times

with the tacit approval ofthe company’s management. She also

presented evidence that the company had never terminated an

employee on that ground. Michael Murphy, a former engineering manager at SigmaTron, testified that, although the company strived to use materials according to customer specifications, leaded parts were sometimes used on unleaded circuit

boards or vice versa. Inadvertent substitutions occurred on the

assembly line and, at times, the wrong parts were used because

of supply issues. He explained that, when the company had a
14 No. 15-3311

supply of leaded parts and that lead-free versions had not yet

come in, they would simply use the leaded parts in order to

avoid wasting an expensive supply of leaded parts. Nevertheless,during Murphy’s tenure, which overlapped with Gracia’s,

incorrect parts were sometimes used and customers received

fudged certifications representing that the correct parts had

been used. Murphy testified that it was not a “big deal” to use

unleaded solder on leaded boards but that it might present an

ethical problem for the reverse to occur, i.e., to use leaded

solder on an unleaded board. To his knowledge, no one had

ever been fired for using the wrong solder. This was consistent

with testimony from Trujillo and Gracia that no one had ever

been fired for using the wrong solder. 

The jury was free to believe Gracia, Trujillo and Murphy,

and it is apparent from the verdict that the jury credited their

testimony on the retaliation claim. Equally importantly, the

jurors were free to disbelieve Silverman, Fairhead and

Miedema and conclude that their explanation for the termination was a pretext. Gracia presented substantial evidence that

she did not engage in the misconduct of which she was accused

and that, even if she did, that conduct was not generally seen

as cause for termination at the company. When a jury concludes that the employer’s stated reason for the termination is

a pretext, the jury may consider that pretextual explanation as

evidence of retaliatory motive. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147 (“Proof

that the defendant’s explanation is unworthy of credence is

simply one form of circumstantial evidence that is probative of

intentional discrimination, and it may be quite persuasive.”). 

In appropriate circumstances, the trier of fact can

reasonably infer from the falsity of the explanation
No. 15-3311 15

that the employer is dissembling to cover up a

discriminatory purpose. Such an inference is consistent with the general principle of evidence law that

the factfinder is entitled to consider a party's dishonesty about a material fact as “affirmative evidence of

guilt.” ... Moreover, once the employer’s justification has been eliminated, discrimination may wellbe

the most likely alternative explanation, especially

since the employer is in the best position to put forth

the actual reason for its decision.

Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147-48 (internal citations omitted). The jury

could reasonably conclude that SigmaTron’s stated reason for

the termination was a pretext, and it was then free to infer that

the company gave a false reason in order to cover up a

discriminatory purpose.

Gracia also provided circumstantial evidence of the company’s retaliatory motive through the timing of her discharge.

Although suspicious timing alone is rarely enough to create an

inference of retaliatory motive, it can sometimes raise an

inference of a causal connection, especially in combinationwith

other evidence. Magyar v. St. Joseph Reg’l Med. Ctr., 544 F.3d

766, 772 (7th Cir. 2008); O'Leary v. Accretive Health, Inc.,

657 F.3d 625, 635 (7th Cir. 2011). “We have rejected any

bright-line rule about how close the events must be to establish

causation, but in cases where there is ‘corroborating evidence

of retaliatory motive,’ an ‘interval of a few weeks or even

months may provide probative evidence of the required causal

nexus.’” Castro, 786 F.3d at 565. In this instance, only two

weeks after SigmaTron received Gracia’s EEOC charge, the

company terminatedher, claiming falsely that she had engaged
16 No. 15-3311

in misconduct. Additionally, Murphy testified that others had

engaged in similar conduct (using incorrect parts) or worse

(certifying falsely to customers that correct parts had been

used) and had not been fired. Gracia thus presented all three

kinds of circumstantial evidence of retaliatory motive mentioned in the case law: suspicious timing, a pretextual explanation for the termination, and evidence that similarly situated

employees were treated differently. Castro, 786 F.3d at 565.

That was a legally sufficient evidentiary basis upon which a

reasonable jury could find retaliatory motive. Empress Casino,

831 F.3d at 822. 

For the sake of completeness, we add that the person who

brought Gracia’s supposed infraction to Fairhead’s attention

was none otherthan the manager Gracia had accused of sexual

harassment only weeks earlier in her EEOC charge and in her

conversations with Miedema and Fairhead. Although the

company was aware that Gracia had accused Silverman of

sexual harassment, Fairhead conducted a perfunctory investigation into Silverman’s claim that Gracia had allowed the use

of the wrong solder and had refused to take the incident

seriously. Although Trujillo did not confirm Silverman’s story,

Fairhead terminated the highly regarded employee almost

immediately. All of this evidence was more than sufficient to

prove the causal link between Gracia’s protected conduct and

the company’s decision to terminate her employment.

B.

The jury awardedGracia $57,000 in compensatory damages

and $250,000 in punitive damages. Because the statute caps

total damages at $300,000 for a defendant with more than 500
No. 15-3311 17

employees, and because the parties agreed that any reduction

should be made to the compensatory part of the award, the

district court remitted the compensatory damages to $50,000.

See 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3). SigmaTron argues that the district

court erred when it failed to order a further remittitur of both

the compensatory and punitive damages awards, which the

company characterizes as excessive, unjustified by the evidence

and inconsistent with awards in similar cases. We review for

abuse of discretion the district court's decision not to grant a

motion for remittitur of compensatory damages. E.E.O.C. v.

AutoZone, Inc., 707 F.3d 824, 833 (7th Cir. 2013); Thompson v.

Memorial Hosp. of Carbondale, 625 F.3d 394, 408 (7th Cir. 2010);

Houskins v. Sheahan, 549 F.3d 480, 496 (7th Cir. 2008). We

review challenges to punitive damages de novo when constitutional issues are raised. Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool

Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 435 (2001); Kapelanski v. Johnson,

390 F.3d 525, 534 (7th Cir. 2004). If no constitutional issue is

raised, our review of punitive damages is for abuse of discretion. Cooper, 532 U.S. at 433. It is unclear whether SigmaTron’s

challenge to the punitive damages award is based on constitutional or non-constitutional grounds.Inthis instance, however,

the standard of review does not affect the outcome.

We begin with the challenge to the compensatory damages

award. In reviewing the district court’s refusal to remit

compensatory damages, we consider, among other things,

whether the award is “monstrously excessive,” whether there

is a rational connection between the award and the evidence,

and whether the award is roughly comparable to awards made

in similar cases. AutoZone, 707 F.3d at 833; Thompson, 625 F.3d

at 408; Marion Cty. Coroner's Office v. E.E.O.C., 612 F.3d 924,
18 No. 15-3311

930-31 (7th Cir. 2010). See also Farfaras v. Citizens Bank & Trust

of Chicago, 433 F.3d 558, 566 (7th Cir. 2006). SigmaTron asserts

that Gracia’s only evidence of non-economic damages was her

statement to the jury, “It was hard. I was just depressed. I have

always been used to working.” SigmaTron suggests that the

award be remitted to $0 or at least be reduced significantly.

“An award for nonpecuniary loss can be supported, in

certain circumstances, solely by a plaintiff’s testimony about

his or her emotional distress.” Tullis v. Townley Engineering &

Manufacturing Co., 243 F.3d 1058, 1068 (7th Cir. 2001);

Merriweather v. Family Dollar Stores of Ind., Inc., 103 F.3d 576,

580 (7th Cir. 1996). Juries are responsible for evaluating the

credibility of witnesses who testify to emotional distress, and

we do not disturb those credibility determinations on appeal.

Tullis, 243 F.3d at 1068; Bruso v. United Airlines, Inc., 239 F.3d

848, 857 (7th Cir. 2001). The jurors here were able to observe

Gracia as she testified and they apparently found her testimony to be sincere and sufficient to convince them that she

merited the award they gave her. Tullis, 243 F.3d at 1068.

Moreover, as the district court noted, the jury considered her

testimony in the context of other evidence presented at trial:

Gracia testified that she had worked continuously from the age

of sixteen; SigmaTron’s own witnesses conceded that, prior to

her termination, Gracia had been a spectacular employee at the

company; and after her termination, at the height of the

recession, Gracia remained unemployed for sixteen months

despite her extensive efforts to find another job. Even if

Gracia’s testimony regarding her distress was succinct and to

the point, “brevity and self-control in a judicial proceeding

need not be interpreted as a weak case, and the jury and trial
No. 15-3311 19

judge were entitled to take that view.” Deloughery v. City of

Chicago, 422 F.3d 611, 620 (7th Cir. 2005). It was the jury’s job

to gauge Gracia’s distress and determine an appropriate

amount to compensate her. SigmaTron has given us no reason

to disturb the jury’s determination.

The district court also correctly concluded that the compensatory damages awarded to Gracia were roughly comparable

to other Title VII awards. In making the comparison, courts are

not required to “completely analogize the damage award in

this case to an identical case with either a similar or dissimilar

verdict.” Farfaras, 433 F.3d at 566. 

Awards in other cases provide a reference point that

assists the court in assessing reasonableness; they do

not establish a range beyond which awards are

necessarily excessive. Due to the highly fact-specific

nature of Title VII cases, suchcomparisons are rarely

dispositive.

Farfaras, 433 F.3d at 566. Both the plaintiff and the defendant

proposed cases to the court that theycontendedwere comparable, as they did on appeal. The district court concluded that the

damages awarded here were in line with those awarded in

Tullis, 243 F.3d at 1067-68 (affirming an award in excess of

$80,000 for retaliatory discharge that caused a dedicated

employee who remained out of work for ten months to feel

“low” and “degraded”); Deloughery, 422 F.3d at 620 (affirming

$175,000 award of compensatory damages for emotional

distress in a failure to promote case where a highly motivated

female police officer with a family heritage in law enforcement

was frustrated in her quest for greater responsibility simply
20 No. 15-3311

because she asserted her right to be free from discrimination);

Harvey v. Office of Banks & Real Estate, 377 F.3d 698, 714 (7th Cir.

2004) (affirming compensatory damages in range of $50,000 to

$150,000 for emotional distress for African American employees denied promotions on account of race); and David v.

Caterpillar, 185 F. Supp. 2d 918, 923-24 (C.D. Ill. 2002) (remitting

compensatory damage award to $50,000 for plaintiff who felt

depressed, robbed and cheated by a discriminatory failure to

promote). SigmaTron did not even attempt to distinguish the

cases on which the district court relied. “Abuse of discretion

exists only where the result is not one that could have been

reached by a reasonable jurist or where the decision of the trial

court strikes us as fundamentally wrong oris clearly unreasonable, arbitrary, or fanciful.” Greviskes v. Universities Research

Ass'n, Inc., 417 F.3d 752, 758 (7th Cir. 2005). A reasonable jurist

could refuse to grant a further remittitur on compensatory

damages in this case and so we must affirm. 

We turn to the punitive damage award of $250,000. In

reviewing punitive damages, the Supreme Court has set forth

three guideposts to assess the award: the degree of

reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct; the disparity

between the harm suffered by the plaintiff and the punitive

damages award; and the difference between the award in this

case and the penalties imposed in comparable cases. BMW of

North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 574-75 (1996);

Kapelanski, 390 F.3d at 534. The BMW case involved a fraud

claim in a state where there was no statutory cap on punitive

damages. We have noted that, when “Congress sets a limit,

and a low one, on the total amount of damages that may be

awarded, the ratio of punitive to compensatory damages in a
No. 15-3311 21

particular award ceases to be an issue of constitutional dignity[.]” Lust, 383 F.3d at 590. 

The purpose of placing a constitutional ceiling on

punitive damages is to protect defendants against

outlandish awards, awards that are not only irrational in themselves because out of whack with any

plausible conception of the social function of punitive damages but potentially catastrophic for the

defendants subjected to them and, in prospect, a

means of coercing settlement. That purpose falls out

of the picture when the legislature has placed a tight

cap on total, including punitive, damages and the

courts honor the cap.

Lust, 393 F.3d at 590-91. A “statutory cap suggests that an

award of damages at the capped maximum is not outlandish.”

AutoZone, 707 F.3d at 840. In assessing punitive damages on

appeal, “[t]he judicial function is to police a range, not a point.”

Mathias v. Accor Economy Lodging, Inc., 347 F.3d 672, 678 (7th

Cir. 2003). 

SigmaTron notes that Gracia requested a total of $200,000

in punitive damages for both her sexual harassment and

retaliation claims. Although the jury found in favor of

SigmaTron on the sexual harassment claim, it awarded Gracia

$50,000 more in punitive damages than she requested in total.

SigmaTron cites that disparity as evidence that the award is the

result of bias. The company asserts that the award should have

been remitted to $0 or to a far lesser sum than $250,000. The

company also argues that its conduct was not reprehensible or

malicious, continuing to assert that Gracia was terminated not
22 No. 15-3311

in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment but because she

knowingly allowed employees to use the incorrect solder.

SigmaTron also argues that the award is disproportionate to

the harm Gracia suffered, suggesting that the jury erroneously

awarded punitive damages for both of Gracia’s claims even

though she succeeded only on the retaliation claim. Finally, the

company contends that the award is inconsistent with those

assessed in comparable cases.

We must begin by pointing out again that SigmaTron does

not come to terms with the facts as found by the jury. Any

argument that Gracia was terminated for allowing an employee to use the wrong solder was soundly rejected by the

jury. SigmaTron’s continued refusal to acknowledge the

appropriate standard of review on appeal, even after the

plaintiff cited the correct standard in her brief, is puzzling. We

must assess the reprehensibility of SigmaTron’s conduct by

viewing the facts as the jury found them. The jury had more

than enough evidence to conclude that SigmaTron terminated

Gracia because she complained about sexual harassment and

filed a charge with the EEOC. Upper management then created

documents falsely accusing Gracia of wrongdoing and asserting that the cause of termination was legitimate. The company

persisted in asserting that false reason for the termination and

the false accusation of wrongdoing throughout the litigation.

The jury was also aware that when Gracia tried to explain the

extent of Silverman’s conduct to Fairhead in the October 24th

meeting, he spoke over her, denying her an opportunity to

fully report the conduct. Fairhead’s response to Gracia’s

complaint was to ignore the claim and force her to shake hands
No. 15-3311 23

with her harasser. A scant two weeks after Gracia filed an 10

EEOC charge asserting that Silverman sexually harassed her,

Silverman himself falsely accused Gracia of wrongdoing. And

Fairhead claimed to have accepted the truth of that suspect

accusation, falsely claiming that Trujillo had confirmed

Silverman’s story. Although it was undisputed that Silverman

repeatedly sent Gracia photos of partially nude women in

degrading poses, the company never disciplined Silverman for

this deplorable conduct towards a female subordinate. Yet it

quickly terminated a stellar female employee on trumped up

charges shortly after she filed a charge of sexual harassment

with the EEOC. 

And that version of the facts adequately supports the jury’s

award of punitive damages. A complaining party may recover

punitive damages in a Title VII case by demonstrating that the

employer “engaged in a discriminatory practice or discriminatory practices with malice or with reckless indifference to the

federally protected rights of an aggrieved individual.”

42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(1); Kolstad v. American Dental Ass’n, 527

U.S. 526, 535 (1999). “Applying this standard in the context of

§ 1981a, an employer must at least discriminate in the face of

a perceived risk that its actions will violate federal law to be

liable in punitive damages.” Kolstad, 527 U.S. at 536. Fairhead’s

conduct in response to the report of sexual harassment in the

October 24th meeting and the EEOC charge meets the statutory

Both Miedema and Fairhead conceded at trial that, when Gracia told

10

them about Silverman’s unwelcome late night party invitation, neither

investigated Silverman’s claim that it was David Niemi and not Silverman

who had placed the call.
24 No. 15-3311

standard for punitive damages. As the district court noted, this

standard is met when the employer engages in the act of

retaliatory discharge and then makes efforts to hide it, in this

case creating a false paper trail that included manufactured

details of reports and meetings with Trujillo and other managers in an effort to hide the true nature of the discharge. One of

the purposes of punitive damages is to limit the defendant's

ability to profit from its wrongful conduct by escaping detection. Mathias, 347 F.3d at 677. See also Lampley v. Onyx Acceptance Corp., 340 F.3d 478, 486 (7th Cir. 2003) (where the evidence supports a finding that the employer engaged in a coverup in flagrant violation of Title VII, a large punitive damage

award is warranted). Gracia thus meets the first guidepost, the

degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct.

The second guidepost asks us to assess the disparity

between the harm the plaintiff suffered (as indicated by the

compensatory damages) and the punitive damage award. As

we noted, when Congress sets a limit on the total amount of

damages that may be awarded, “the ratio of punitive to

compensatory damages in a particular award ceases to be an

issue of constitutional dignity.” Lust, 383 F.3d at 590. In this

case, the jury awarded Gracia punitive damages that are five

times the amount of compensatory damages. A 5:1 ratio is well

within the range we have approved in other cases. See Mathias,

347 F.3d at 678 (affirming a 37:1 ratio); Kapelanski, 390 F.3d at

534 (finding a 3.3:1 ratio easily permissible); Lampley, 340 F.3d

at 485-86 (finding a 9:1 ratio acceptable). As we have noted,

Title VII cases are very fact-specific, and we will not normally

disturb an award of damages at or under the statutory cap

because the decision is largely within the province of the jury.
No. 15-3311 25

Lampley, 340 F.3d at 486; Fine v. Ryan International Airlines,

305 F.3d 746, 755 (7th Cir. 2002). 

Finally, we are aware of no rule prohibiting a jury from

awarding more in damages than a plaintiff requests and

SigmaTron cites no authority for this claim. See, e.g., Dresser

Industries, Inc. v. Gradall Co., 965 F.2d 1442, 1447 (7th Cir. 1992)

(affirming a jury award that exceeded the plaintiff’s request).

So long as the award has a reasonable basis in the evidence, a

jury has wide discretion in determining damages. Id. “This is

especially so where the trial judge, who had the opportunity to

hear the evidence and observe the jury, has seen fit to uphold

the award in the face of a post-trial challenge.” Id. We also note

that it is unlikely the jury was biased in Gracia’s favor as it

found against her on the sexual harassment claim. Apparently,

the jury simply had a different view than the plaintiff regarding the amount necessary to punish SigmaTron’s conduct and

deter future wrongdoing. Merriweather, 103 F.3d at 581 (noting

that we will set aside an award of punitive damages only if it

exceeds an amount necessary to serve the objective of deterrence and punishment). We see no reason to disturb the jury’s

award here. 

C.

Finally, in kitchen-sink fashion, SigmaTron argues that it is

entitled to a new trial because (1) the jury awarded excessive

damages; (2) the district court permitted a venire person to

remain on the jury who should have been stricken for cause; (3)

SigmaTron was wrongly prohibited from presenting a witness;

and (4) Gracia presented a doctored and prejudicial exhibit to
26 No. 15-3311

the jury. None of these issues has any merit and we will

address them summarily. 

As we have just concluded, the jury did not award excessive damages. The district court did not abuse its discretion in

refusing to exclude the prospective juror because nothing the

juror said evinced an irrational or unshakeable bias that would

prevent him from ruling impartially on the case. Griffin v. Bell,

694 F.3d 817, 826 (7th Cir. 2012). Nor did the court abuse its

discretion in barring SigmaTron from presenting a witness

whose testimony the court deemed cumulative under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 403. Moreover, SigmaTron failed to

preserve the alleged error for appeal when it failed to make an

offer of proof regarding the excluded witness’s expected

testimony. Wilson v. City of Chicago, 758 F.3d 875, 885 (7th Cir.

2014); Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(2). And finally, the district court did

not abuse its discretion in allowing Gracia to present the

challenged exhibit. The exhibit consisted of one of the explicit

photos that Silverman had emailed to Gracia, but for the trial

version of the email, the plaintiff had removed the forwarding

chain in order to hide the fact that Gracia had forwarded the

email to her attorney. The court remedied the matter by

allowing the defendant to present the full email and crossexamine the plaintiff on the matter. Any error in allowing the

exhibit into evidence was harmless in light of the court’s

corrective actions. There is no merit in any of SigmaTron’s

remaining arguments and no new trial is warranted.

AFFIRMED.