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

Heading: Fears's alleged failure to mitigate damages

Text: 44 In the alternative, Warren argues that the district court abused its discretion in awarding Fears back pay despite his alleged failure to mitigate damages by waiting to reapply for a position with the city until 1991, seven years after Warren eliminated the residency requirement for police applicants. In an apparent case of first impression, Warren asks us to consider whether a Title VII claimant who was never hired because of discriminatory employment practices is precluded from a back pay award because he did not reapply for work with the same employer when it eliminated its discriminatory practices. The district court found that Fears's failure to reapply to the City of Warren did not equal a failure to mitigate damages, and therefore, did not preclude his back pay award. We affirm the district court's decision. 45 A Title VII claimant has a duty to mitigate damages by seeking substantially equivalent employment. See Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U.S. 219, 231-32, 102 S.Ct. 3057, 3065-66, 73 L.Ed.2d 721 (1982). This duty has ancient origins, and operates to prevent claimants from recovering for damages which they could have avoided through reasonable diligence. Rasimas, 714 F.2d at 623. In this case, Fears worked as an officer with the Detroit Police Department from July 1985 to November 1990. He therefore found and pursued employment comparable to that he would have enjoyed with the City of Warren absent discrimination. Thus, Fears's work as a Detroit police officer satisfies Title VII's requirement that he mitigate his damages. 46 Warren asks us to reach the inequitable conclusion that Fears should have been aware of the City's elimination of its residency requirement for police applicants in 1984 and he was therefore obligated to reapply to the Warren police force after he had been working in Detroit. We decline to reach this result. No established authority requires Title VII claimants who have found comparable employment to reapply for positions with employers who have previously refused to hire them for discriminatory reasons. This is simply not a hoop Title VII requires claimants to jump through, and we will not be the first to require it. 47 For the above stated reasons, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding Joseph Fears back pay, and we affirm this aspect of the district court's opinion. 13