Opinion ID: 776408
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the damages cap

Text: 4 The limitations on Title VII compensatory and punitive damages is found in 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b), which provides: 5 (3) Limitations 6 The sum of the amount of compensatory damages awarded under this section for future pecuniary losses, emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other nonpecuniary losses, and the amount of punitive damages awarded under this section, shall not exceed, for each complaining party — 7 (A) in the case of a respondent who has more than 14 and fewer than 101 employees in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, $50,000; 8 (B) in the case of a respondent who has more than 100 and fewer than 201 employees in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, $100,000; and 9 (C) in the case of a respondent who has more than 200 and fewer than 501 employees in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, $200,000; and 10 (D) in the case of a respondent who has more than 500 employees in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year, $300,000. 11 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(3). For purposes of this statute, we have held that the current year refers to the year in which the discriminatory act took place, not the year of judgment. See Vance I, 209 F.3d at 446; cf. Dumas v. Town of Mount Vernon, 612 F.2d 974, 979 n. 4 (5th Cir.1980). 12 The statute limits allowable damages based on the number of employees employed by the employer in the current year, but it is silent about how to identify the relevant employer. Thus, when there is more than one entity involved, either through a parent/subsidiary or a joint-employer relationship, the question becomes: Which entities' employees are counted for purposes of calculating the damages cap? Pertinent to this inquiry is the question of whether the complaining employee in a particular case was denied a new job with a new employer (i.e., a failure to hire claim), or whether the complaining employee was denied a transfer to another nominally independent, but sufficiently interrelated, entity (i.e., a failure to promote claim). 13 In Trevino v. Celanese Corp., we provided some direction on how to identify the relevant entity or entities in these types of cases: 14 Ordinarily, promotion is perceived as occurring within a single company or organization. It is clear, however, that an employee may also be promoted, or denied promotion, from one to another nominally independent entity, provided these two entities' activities, operations, ownership or management are sufficiently interrelated. Whether transfer from one workforce to another constitutes a promotion or a hiring depends on the facts of each particular case; however, the degree of interrelatedness between companies required before an employee will be considered to have been promoted as he transfers from one to the next cannot reasonably be said to exceed that degree of connexity which the courts require for a finding of joint employer or integrated enterprise status. 15 701 F.2d 397, 403 (5th Cir.1983). Factors we consider to determine if distinct entities constitute an integrated enterprise are (1) interrelation of operations, (2) centralized control of labor relations, (3) common management, and (4) common ownership or financial control. Id. at 404. Courts applying this four-part standard in Title VII and related cases have focused on the second factor: centralized control of labor relations. Id. This criterion has been further refined to the point that `[t]he critical question to be answered then is: What entity made the final decisions regarding employment matters related to the person claiming discrimination?' Id.