Opinion ID: 752355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Back Pay Calculation: Overtime Compensation and Attrition Factor

Text: 38 The United States appeals the district court's refusal to include overtime as part of Joseph Fears's back pay award. We review a district court's calculation of back pay and its decision not to award back pay for abuse of discretion. See Wilson Metal Casket, 24 F.3d at 840. A victim of discrimination is to be placed, as near as may be, in the situation he would have occupied if the wrong had not been committed. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 418-19, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2372, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975). Moreover, we have acknowledged that lost overtime pay should be included in back pay, Meadows v. Ford Motor Co., 510 F.2d 939, 947 (6th Cir.1975), and a district court must ensure that back pay awards completely redress the economic injury the claimant has suffered as a result of the discrimination. Rasimas v. Michigan Dep't of Mental Health, 714 F.2d 614, 626 (6th Cir.1983). In excluding overtime compensation from Fears's back pay compensation, the district court relied on the testimony of former Warren police commissioner Paul Pash who stated that officers in police departments other than Warren's would not have earned the same amount of overtime as Warren police officers with whom they were compared, unless they had previously held jobs with similar functions as those performed by the comparable Warren officers. However, the district court did not address the city's calculations showing that the people it hired as police officers at the time Fears would have been hired earned between $12,000 and $35,000 in overtime. Rather, the district court declined to award Fears overtime on the theory that it would provide a windfall by compensating him for work he did not perform. 39 Because lost overtime is a well-established part of a back pay award under Title VII, the district court's reasoning that including overtime in Fears's award would be a windfall is inconsistent with that court's finding that Warren would have hired Fears but for discrimination. The district court's exclusion of back pay from Fears's award does not place him as near as possible to the position he would have occupied absent discrimination. Therefore, the district court did not apply the law properly, and we find that it abused its discretion with regard to this issue. However, this court is not a fact-finding court. Therefore, we remand the overtime issue to the district court to determine whether all police officers whom Warren hired during the time Fears applied earned overtime and whether Fears's position with the Detroit Police Department was comparable to that of Warren police officers who earned overtime. 40 The United States also appeals the district court's application of an attrition factor to Fears's back pay calculation. The district court provided no discernible reason for its application of the attrition factor. However, the attrition of police officers from the Warren Police Department was not an appropriate factor to consider in this case because the district court had already terminated Fears's back pay as of November 1990, the date that he left the Detroit Police Department. The court's limitation of Fears's back pay by both the time that he actually stopped working and the time that similarly situated Warren police officers left their jobs amounts to double-counting, an improper application of the law and therefore an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, we remand this issue, and note that in calculating Fears's back pay award, the district court should apply either the actual date that Fears stopped working, or the attrition factor, keeping in mind that ambiguity in what the claimant would have received but for the discrimination should be resolved against the discriminating employer. Rasimas, 714 F.2d at 628; see also Wooldridge v. Marlene Industries Corp., 875 F.2d 540, 549 (6th Cir.1989) ([G]uidelines for back pay awards under Title VII have effectively shifted the risk of error in favor of the back pay claimant.).