Opinion ID: 147782
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Award of Damages against the Municipality

Text: As to each of the twenty-two plaintiffs, the jury awarded $15,000 in compensatory (suffering and anguish) damages and $4,960 for back pay jointly and severally against defendants. We need not determine whether this is the appropriate measure of damages for a procedural due process violation; it is enough that the Municipality has never challenged it. Indeed, the Municipality's only challenge to the back pay award is a specific argument that the award improperly included for each plaintiff a $500 Christmas bonus for 2001. There was no error in the district court's denial of remittitur on these grounds. Plaintiffs had a property interest in their employment through June 30, 2001, and under Puerto Rican law, any employee who works for the government for at least six months of a calendar year is entitled to an annual Christmas bonus. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3, § 757. There was sufficient evidence to support the award of the bonus. We have considered the rest of the arguments made by each side and either have no need to reach them or have concluded they are without merit.