Opinion ID: 741821
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Front Pay Award

Text: 22 The district court held that since Waters discontinued his employment search after the fall of 1993, he made no effort to mitigate his damages and thus would not be entitled to a front pay award. The court apparently concluded that since Pape's evidence of suitable employment covered the fall of 1993 and the time immediately preceding trial, Pape had demonstrated that suitable employment would be available from the time of trial to late December 1995. 23 The EEOC contends, however, that the jury reasonably could have concluded that suitable employment was not available to Waters. Pape's expert testified that he reviewed positions available from 1991 until the time of trial in the customer service management, parts management, warehouse management, and sales management areas; the EEOC put forward evidence, however, that those jobs that were similar in kind to Waters' former position had salaries lower than that of his old job. In addition, the EEOC argued that some of the jobs listed by Pape's expert, which included positions as a news director, animal health manager, sound effects manager, and music librarian, were substantially dissimilar to Waters' previous employment. In Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U.S. 219, 231, 102 S.Ct. 3057, 3065, 73 L.Ed.2d 721 (1982), the Supreme Court held that an unemployed or underemployed claimant need not go into another line of work, accept a demotion, or take a demeaning position. A plaintiff need only pursue substantially equivalent work. Id. at 232, 102 S.Ct. at 3066. Pape's argument may essentially be reduced to the proposition that an individual should consider working as an animal health manager or music librarian after he has been illegally discharged from his position as a parts manager in a forklift truck operation, or alternatively, that he should accept a position similar to the one he held previously, but which offers a significantly lower salary. These arguments are simply untenable, and we reject them. The jury's finding that Pape did not satisfy its burden of demonstrating that suitable work was available to Waters is thus well-supported by the evidence. 24 We also reject Pape's argument that after a period of looking for work unsuccessfully, Waters was obligated to lower his sights in order to procure employment. See id at 232 n. 16, 102 S.Ct. at 3066 n. 16 (noting, without adopting the principle, that some lower courts have indicated that after an extended period of time searching for work without success, a claimant must consider taking a lower-paying position). Pape has waived this argument because it never requested an instruction on the so-called lowered sights doctrine; the jury was instructed only that Waters must seek a job of like kind, status and pay, and it reasonably concluded that no such job was available. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's judgment for Pape and its conditional grant of a new trial on the front pay issue.