Opinion ID: 1818042
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Billingsley's Cross-Appeal: Equitable Claims

Text: On cross-appeal, Billingsley claims as his first assignment of error that the district court erred in denying him equitable relief on his age discrimination claim. Billingsley sought equitable relief in the form of front pay or reinstatement. We conclude that this assignment of error is without merit. We noted in Billingsley v. BFM Liquor Mgmt., 259 Neb. 992, 613 N.W.2d 478 (2000), that an age discrimination claimant was entitled to have a jury determine the lawfulness of the employer's conduct and the amount of claimed past damages and, thereafter, to have the district court consider any request for equitable relief. Because in Billingsley, the district court had not yet ruled on Billingsley's request for equitable relief prior to the appeal, we dismissed the appeal for lack of a final, appealable order. In setting forth this procedure for handling legal and equitable claims in an age discrimination case, we quoted with approval from Gibson v. Mohawk Rubber Co., 695 F.2d 1093 (8th Cir.1982), in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit stated that in an age discrimination case, [a]fter the jury trial on the foregoing damages issues, the district court should reconsider [the plaintiff's] request for equitable relief.... Although the court below retains its discretion to consider all the circumstances in this case when it determines what equitable relief may be appropriate, it cannot base its decision on its own factual findings that conflict with those expressly made by the jury. Billingsley v. BFM Liquor Mgmt., 259 Neb. 992, 1001, 613 N.W.2d 478, 485 (2000). Accordingly, in an age discrimination case, when the district court considers the plaintiff's request for equitable relief, the district court cannot reject the jury's findings on whether the plaintiff was the victim of age discrimination, but it nevertheless retains discretion to consider all the circumstances in the case when it determines what equitable relief, if any, may be appropriate. In the instant case, following this court's dismissal of Billingsley, supra, the district court considered Billingsley's request for equitable relief. After a hearing on Billingsley's equitable claims, the district court entered an order in which it granted Billingsley's request for attorney fees and postjudgment interest, but denied him the relief of reinstatement or front pay. The district court explained its decision as follows: Based upon the over 4-year gap between Richard Billingsley's termination of employment, and his trial, and based upon the jury's computation of his wage claim and his age claim ... the Court is persuaded that the verdicts which the jury reached were inclusive not only of Richard Billingsley's legal claims, but those matters which are included within Billingsley's pending request for equitable relief, save the claim for an attorney's fee and post-judgment interest running from the date of the jury's award. Although the district court's opinion is somewhat unclear, we interpret this order to be a ruling that [b]ased upon ... his trial, Billingsley had not established that he was entitled to the relief of reinstatement or front pay. According to the order, the district court considered the jury's findings that defendants had terminated Billingsley on the basis of his age, and the district court was aware of the damages the jury had awarded Billingsley as a result of this unlawful discrimination. It thus appears that the district court consider[ed] all the circumstances in this case and then determined, in its discretion, that under the evidence, no equitable relief in the form of reinstatement or front pay was appropriate. See Gibson, 695 F.2d at 1101. Under our de novo standard of review, see Hornig v. Martel Lift Systems, 258 Neb. 764, 606 N.W.2d 764 (2000), we cannot say that the district court erred in its decision on Billingsley's claim for equitable relief. Accordingly, we find no merit to this assignment of error in Billingsley's cross-appeal.