Opinion ID: 504371
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: remaining issues on the class's appeal

Text: 71 The remaining issues raised by the class concern the measure of damages that the district court awarded. Although, as stated above, we will not vacate the entire award based upon our holding that USX was liable to the class under the disparate treatment theory, we find it necessary to vacate part of the district court's decision regarding damages and remand for rehearing. We conclude that the district court erred in the rationale that it employed to deny the class's claims for prejudgment interest and front pay and thereby abused its discretion.
72 The question of whether to award prejudgment interest in this case is committed to the sound discretion of the district court. The particular rationale that the district court relied upon to deny a full measure of prejudgment damages, however, appears inconsistent with established precedent regarding the award of such relief. In its damage award, the district court expressed the view that the defendant's lack of intentional discrimination is ... [a] mitigating factor in its behalf weighing against the award of prejudgment interest that dated back to the acts of discrimination. Jt. App. at 183 (Damages Opinion p 291) (emphasis in original). Therefore, the district court awarded interest from the date of the liability judgment to the damages decision only. Although we defer ordinarily to the discretionary authority of the district courts in such cases, and we recognize that in reaching a determination on such awards, the district court may reasonably consider the extent and determinability of the employer's liability, nothing in the cases suggest that the award of prejudgment interest should be predicated upon a finding of intentional discrimination or bad faith, or that such an award should be offset by the absence of such bad faith. In fact, the Supreme Court has instructed that the opposite view is more consistent with the purpose in granting remedies for Title VII discrimination. 73 In Albemarle Paper Co., the Court held that backpay awards could not be conditioned upon the showing of bad faith. The Court noted that Congress had intended that that relief go to the consequences of discriminatory employment practices, not simply to the motivation for the discrimination. Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U.S. at 422, 95 S.Ct. at 2373. The Court stated that if such awards were available 74 only upon a showing of bad faith, the remedy would become a punishment for moral turpitude, rather than a compensation for workers' injuries. This would read the make whole purpose right out of Title VII, for a worker's injury is no less real simply because his employer did not inflict it in bad faith. 75 Id. Although Albemarle Paper Co. specifically addressed back pay awards, the Court's primary focus concerned the make whole purpose of Title VII damage awards. This purpose is equally applicable to the award of prejudgment interest, and therefore the rationale of Albemarle Paper Co. is applicable to this case. 16 B. Front Pay 76 The district court's denial of front pay to the class was predicated upon its view that the amount of such an award would require too much speculation. The speculation that was required resulted from USX's inability to hire the class members at the time that judgment against it was entered, and concerned when USX would be able economically to make any new hires for the P & M jobs. The district court found that, [i]n all likelihood, [USX] will not resume hiring until at least 1990 or 1991. Jt.App. at 180 (Damages Opinion p 274). The class sought an award of the mitigated wages for 1984 and 1985 (the two years immediately succeeding the liability judgment) as an appropriate estimate of front pay. The district court concluded that the proposed estimate was 'sheer guesswork,' and would require [it] to speculate wildly as to the proper amount of damages. Id. at 181 (Damages Opinion p 277). Inthis conclusion, however, we find that the district court was in error. 77 The decision whether to award front pay as relief in Title VII cases rests certainly within the discretion of the trial court. Dillon v. Coles, 746 F.2d 998, 1006 (3d Cir.1984). The exercise of that discretion, however, must be sound, and it must be consistent with the rationale and purpose underlying front pay, which, in furtherance of the overall remedy scheme of Title VII, is to make a victim of discrimination 'whole' and to restore him [or her] to the economic position he [or she] would have occupied but for the unlawful conduct of his [or her] employer. 17 Maxfield v. Sinclair Int'l, 766 F.2d 788, 795 (3d Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1057, 106 S.Ct. 796, 88 L.Ed.2d 773 (1986); cf. Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U.S. at 416, 95 S.Ct. at 2371 (exercise of discretion should not be dictated by the court's  'inclination, but ... its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles' ) (quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F.Cas. 30, 35 (C.C.Va.1807) (No. 14, 692d) (Marshall, C.J.)); Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., Inc., 424 U.S. 747, 770-71, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 1267, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976) (reversing the district court's denial of grant of seniority as remedy for discrimination and stating that [d]iscretion is vested not for purposes of 'limit[ing] appellate review of trial courts, or ... invit[ing] inconsistency and caprice,' but rather to allow the most complete achievement of the objectives of Title VII that is attainable under the facts and circumstances of the specific case) (quoting Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U.S. at 421, 95 S.Ct. at 2373 (brackets in original) (citations omitted)). As we concluded in Dillon, the award of this type of relief necessarily implicates a prediction about the future. 746 F.2d at 1006. The fact that that prediction is difficult should not work to defeat the purpose of the relief. 78 In the present case, it was undisputed that the time at which USX would be economically able to hire new employees was uncertain, although almost assuredly not before seven or eight years following the determination of its liability to the class. In this light, an award to the class of front pay in an amount reflecting mitigated wages for two years following the judgment of liability, appears more as a reasonable compromise between the liability for harm caused by USX's discrimination and the class members' ability to mitigate, than wild speculation. Moreover, to the extent speculation would be inherent in the award, USX and not the class should have borne the risk that the ultimate conclusion would prove in fact erroneous. The risk of lack of certainty with respect to projections of lost income must be borne by the wrongdoer, not the victim. Goss v. Exxon Office Sys. Co., 747 F.2d 885, 889 (3d Cir.1984) (citing Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 51 S.Ct. 248, 75 L.Ed. 544 (1931)). 79 A review of our decision in Goss may prove instructive, and elucidate why this case is not one in which the speculation necessary should have precluded the award. In Goss, we affirmed the district court's award of front pay. We rejected as requiring insupportable speculation Goss's assertion that she was entitled to a greater measure of front pay. Goss, who had been employed as a salesperson for Exxon Office Systems and whose income there had been based upon commissions from sales, argued that she was entitled to a front pay award that included an amount intended to provide additional compensation to her salary with her new employer. She asserted that she was entitled to this additional measure of compensation because it was unlikely that she would earn as much as a salesperson for the different company as she would have earned at Exxon. This assertion was apparently predicated upon Goss's belief that, because she had more knowledge of the Exxon product and more experience selling it, her success selling it would be greater than her success selling the new product, and thus her commission salary would have been larger. In its denial of this request, the district court concluded that whether or not Goss would be less successful in her new job than she would have been at Exxon depended in significant part upon future market conditions. The district court thus noted that a difference of sales would not result only from Goss' own skills or anything over which Exxon could exercise control. The district court recognized that not only could it not predetermine whether in fact Goss would be less successful as a salesperson in her new job, but that it also could not predetermine whether her income would not have similarly diminished during the same time period if she had been still employed by Exxon. The court concluded that this type of speculation was unreasonable. It therefore awarded front pay only for that time period following Exxon's liability for back pay and prior to Goss' start in a commensurate position with her new employer. 80 We affirmed this judgment. The type of speculation that the district court avoided in that case, however, is distinguishable from that required in the present case. Here, the district court was asked to fix some amount that would help to offset future harm that would certainly be caused by USX's past discrimination. The class contended that two years' mitigated wages were sufficient and necessary to compensate its members adequately for the injury caused by USX. This amount may in fact be greater (or lesser) than the actual damages to which the class was entitled. It is not our charge to determine whether that request reflected in fact an appropriate measure. The district court, however, should not have completely refused to award front pay merely because some speculation was necessary. USX should have been presented with the opportunity and the burden to demonstrate that the class members failed in their obligation to mitigate their losses or that for some other reason the award of two years' mitigated wages was unreasonable. USX, however, and not the class, must ultimately bear the risks of speculation. As the Supreme Court has noted, whatever of uncertainty there may be in this mode of estimating damages, it is an uncertainty caused by the defendant's own wrongful act; and justice and sound public policy alike require that he should bear the risk of the uncertainty thus produced. Story Parchment Co., 282 U.S. at 564, 51 S.Ct. at 251 (citations omitted).