Opinion ID: 755554
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Order for Remittitur or a New Trial

Text: 63 In challenging the district court's order for remittitur or a new trial and seeking reinstatement of the original judgment, Kirsch contends that the court could not properly set aside the first jury's award of damages without finding that the amount of that award was so high as to shock the judicial conscience. He argues that the court did not make such a finding and that there was, in any event, evidence sufficient to support the first jury's award. For the reasons that follow, we see no basis for reversal. 64 The trial judge has  'discretion to grant a new trial if the verdict appears to [the judge] to be against the weight of the evidence.' ... This discretion includes overturning verdicts for excessiveness and ordering a new trial without qualification, or conditioned on the verdict winner's refusal to agree to a reduction (remittitur). Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. 415, 433, 116 S.Ct. 2211, 135 L.Ed.2d 659 (1996) (quoting Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 356 U.S. 525, 540, 78 S.Ct. 893, 2 L.Ed.2d 953 (1958)). The district court has authority to enter a conditional order of remittitur, compelling a plaintiff to choose between reduction of an excessive verdict and a new trial, 65 in at least two distinct kinds of cases: (1) where the court can identify an error that caused the jury to include in the verdict a quantifiable amount that should be stricken, ... and (2) more generally, where the award is 'intrinsically excessive' in the sense of being greater than the amount a reasonable jury could have awarded, although the surplus cannot be ascribed to a particular, quantifiable error. 66 Trademark Research Corp. v. Maxwell Online, Inc., 995 F.2d 326, 337 (2d Cir.1993) (quoting Shu-Tao Lin v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 742 F.2d 45, 49 (2d Cir.1984)). Where there is no particular discernable error, we have generally held that a jury's damage award may not be set aside as excessive unless  'the award is so high as to shock the judicial conscience and constitute a denial of justice,'  O'Neill v. Krzeminski, 839 F.2d 9, 13 (2d Cir.1988) (quoting Zarcone v. Perry, 572 F.2d 52, 56 (2d Cir.1978)). Where the court has identified a specific error, however, the court may set aside the resulting award even if its amount does not shock the conscience. In either circumstance, the district court's evaluation that damages are excessive is reviewed for abuse of discretion. See generally Gasperini v. Center for Humanities, Inc., 518 U.S. at 432-37; Dagnello v. Long Island R.R., 289 F.2d 797, 806 (2d Cir.1961). 67 In the present case, the district court granted defendants' motion for a remittitur or new trial on the ground that the jury erred by calculating Kirsch's entitlement to backpay on the basis of sums in excess of Kirsch's own compensation. In light of the June 1994 ending of the period for which Kirsch was entitled to backpay, see Part III.C.1. below, and the clear evidence as to his compensation just prior to his discharge, we see no abuse of discretion in this decision. The evidence was that when Kirsch was discharged, his salary was $60,000, his fringe benefits did not exceed $5,000, and he had earned nothing on his 2% override. At that level of compensation, if Kirsch had not been discharged, he would have earned, from May 1991 until his June 1994 retirement, $200,417. The court correctly held that that $200,417 was required to be reduced by the estimated $63,274 that Kirsch earned in working for Tomen during that period and the $20,769 in severance payments he received from Fleet Street. The court concluded that those figures permitted a calculation of Kirsch's backpay loss at no more than $116,374, which when doubled would come to $232,748. 68 Kirsch contended that the verdict should be sustained on the basis that the jury had calculated his backpay award by starting with the annual salary and fringe benefits that the company had agreed to pay Kedrus ($80,000 plus $15,000). As discussed in Part III.B. below, we see no abuse of discretion in the district court's ruling that Kirsch's backpay should not be computed on the basis of the earnings of persons such as Kedrus or members of the Haber family, whose positions were not comparable to Kirsch's. That ruling was reflected in the court's instructions to the first jury that if it found that Kirsch was constructively discharged because of his age, he was entitled to be ma[d]e ... whole through the recover[y of] lost wages an[d] benefits, and that the jury was to determine his entitlement to backpay with reference to the amount that would have been earned. (First Tr. 1207.) In order to make Kirsch whole by reference to the amount that would have been earned, the jury was required to refer to Kirsch's own compensation, for he was injured only to the extent that he lost what he, not what someone else, would have earned. Since the jury awarded far more than was reasonably inferable from the evidence of what Kirsch himself would have earned, it plainly did not follow the court's instructions. 69 Accordingly, we see no basis for reversing the district court's determination that insofar as the jury found that Kirsch had suffered more than $116,374 in lost back wages, the jury erred by basing that finding on something other than evidence of Kirsch's own level of compensation. The order for remittitur or a new trial was not an abuse of discretion. 70