Opinion ID: 162420
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Post-trial reduction of damages.

Text: 21 The jury awarded Dilley $115,268 in damages for backpay plus benefits, no money for future earnings and benefits, and $25,001.43 for other compensatory damages. In a rather confusing argument, Dilley contends that the district court should not have relied on Dilley's failure to mitigate as justification for reducing the jury's back pay award. Dilley does not challenge the substance of the district court's mitigation ruling, or the court's treatment of back pay as an equitable issue subject to judicial determination. Rather, Dilley asserts, without legal support, that we must assume that the jury verdict already includes consideration of the mitigation issues raised by the trial court in reducing the back pay, and that he was thus penalized twice for failing to mitigate. 22 Dilley disregards the district court's reasoning on this issue. The court did not reduce the jury's back pay award, but rather treated the award as an advisory verdict pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 39(c). This was based on the court's ruling that back pay was an equitable issue to be determined by the court, not the jury. The court acknowledged that it was unclear whether the jury's award of $25,000 for compensatory damages included a reduction for failure to mitigate. The court left this award intact, however, and addressed only the proper amount of back pay, ruling that whether or not any possible backpay award should be reduced by the plaintiff's failure to mitigate is intrinsically tied to the court's equitable determination of backpay — an issue distinct from the jury's determination of compensatory damages. Once the court decided to treat the jury's verdict as advisory, it was obligated to make its own findings. Marvel v. United States, 719 F.2d 1507, 1515 n. 12 (10th Cir.1983). The court ultimately concluded that Dilley was entitled to back pay only for a portion of the time following his termination, for at a certain point he should have been able to secure alternative employment. 23 It is unclear what the $25,000 in compensatory damages represents, but Dilley's counsel gave some clues in closing argument, telling the jury it could award damages for back pay, future pay, compensatory damages for emotional pain and suffering.  He later describes the damages options as back pay and perhaps future pay and perhaps emotional distress, and also raises the possibility of awarding noneconomic damages, including emotional pain and suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish. Whether or not the jury followed the request of Dilley's counsel, there is no reason to believe that the $25,000 award was impacted by the mitigation inquiry. Thus, there is no evidence that Dilley was penalized twice for failing to mitigate. 24 Mitigation is logically encompassed by the back pay determination. Any back pay award must be reduced by alternative sources of income that would reasonably have been available to Dilley. In closing arguments, SuperValu's counsel urged the jury to consider Dilley's failure to mitigate when determining his entitlement to back pay. However, there is nothing to suggest that mitigation was urged or instructed on the issue of compensatory damages, and even if it had been so urged or instructed, we fail to see how that would cast doubt on the correctness of the district court's consideration of Dilley's failure to mitigate in awarding back pay. Dilley's unsupported assertion that the district court's back pay award amounts to a windfall for SuperValu is unconvincing. 25