Opinion ID: 1443016
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Rate of Pay

Text: An award of damages will not be disturbed if the trial court's determination is based on substantial evidence; it will not be reversed unless it appears to have resulted from passion, prejudice, partiality, undue influence or some corrupt cause or motive, where there has been palpable error or the measure of damages has been mistaken. Powers v. Campbell, 79 N.M. 302, 304, 442 P.2d 792, 794 (1968) (quoting Hammond v. Blackwell, 77 N.M. 209, 421 P.2d 124 (1966)). On review, the evidence is considered in a light favorable to the verdict. Nash v. Higgins, 75 N.M. 206, 209, 402 P.2d 945, 947 (1965). Furthermore, in an employment discrimination case, once discriminatory activity has been proved, courts are willing to award damages despite uncertainty and the lack of precise measurement of injury as long as there is some evidence of damage, because of the public policy inherent in the law condemning invidious discrimination. See Hairston v. McLean Trucking Co., 520 F.2d 226, 232-33 (4th Cir.1975); United States v. United States Steel Corp., 520 F.2d 1043, 1050 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 61, 50 L.Ed.2d 77 (1976); Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 494 F.2d 211, 260-61 (5th Cir.1974). We are at a loss to understand why evidence of plaintiff's wages at the time of his dismissal was not elicited from plaintiff at trial. Although future earnings may be speculative and difficult to precisely measure, surely Smith's current wage rate at the time of his dismissal was easily susceptible of proof and would have greatly aided the court in its determination of damages. Nevertheless, we find that there was sufficient evidence for the court to form a basis for its permissible speculation into Smith's lost earnings. See White v. Carolina Paperboard Corp., 564 F.2d 1073, 1091 (4th Cir.1977) (allowing trial court to speculate amount of lost income based on known earnings); Brown v. Rollins, Inc., 397 F. Supp. 571, 578 (W.D.N.C. 1974) (back pay determination based on evidence of other employee's earnings). Smith presented evidence that he was hired at $4.00 per hour in 1973 and that the starting wage for workers at the plant was $3.75 an hour in 1983. The calculation of back pay by the court was permissibly based on this evidence.