Opinion ID: 2979005
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remittitur of the Compensatory Award

Text: Tyson claims the district court erred by not remitting the compensatory damages award because: (a) it was greater than the amount requested by West and (b) was the result of prejudice and bias by the jury against Tyson for employing Hispanics. This court reviews a district court’s denial of remittitur under a highly deferential standard. We undertake a highly deferential review of the district court, which itself is sharply limited in its ability to remit a jury verdict. A jury verdict should not be remitted by a court unless it is beyond the maximum damages that the jury reasonably could find to be compensatory for a party's loss. Our remittitur standard favors maintaining the award, unless the award is (1) beyond the range supportable by proof or (2) so excessive as to shock the conscience, ... or (3) the result of a mistake. A trial court is within its discretion in remitting a verdict only when, after reviewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the awardee, it is convinced that the verdict is clearly excessive, resulted from passion, bias or prejudice; or is so excessive or inadequate as to shock the judicial conscience of the court. - 29 - No. 08-6516 West v. Tyson Foods, Inc. Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 905 (6th Cir. 2004) (internal quotations and citations omitted); see also Ardingo v. Local 951, United Food and Commercial Workers Union, No. 08-1078, 2009 WL 1528505 (6th Cir. 2009) (“The defendant's arguments in favor of remittitur do little more than emphasize the uncertain and speculative nature of [plaintiff]'s damages, a fact that is almost certainly present to some degree in any case where front pay damages are available. Those arguments simply do not overcome the high degree of deference that is owed to the trial court's ruling, and therefore, this court will not second guess the trial court's conclusion that the jury award is not shocking to the conscience.”). At trial, West requested that the jury award up to $500,000 in compensatory damages; the jury awarded $750,000—$500,000 in compensatory damages for West’s past emotional distress and $250,000 for her ongoing emotional distress. As it did in the district court, Tyson cites Denhof v. City of Grand Rapids, 494 F.3d 534 (6th Cir. 2007), in support of its position that an award of compensatory damages award beyond that requested by the plaintiff must be remitted. The district court held that “Denhof cannot be read as standing for the proposition Defendant advances, i.e., that an award above counsel’s request must be remitted.” We, too, find that Denhof does not control here. Although Denhof does provide some support for Tyson’s position, (“[p]resumably, the plaintiffs' attorneys requested the amount of damages they believed were supported by the evidence,” id. at 547), the amount requested by the attorneys is only one factor to be considered in assessing whether a jury verdict should be remitted on the basis that “it is beyond the maximum damages that the jury reasonably could find to be compensatory for a party’s loss.” Id. - 30 - No. 08-6516 West v. Tyson Foods, Inc. In Denhof, this Court affirmed the district court’s grant of remittitur. In concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in reducing the award, this Court noted that the jury’s award of $1 million to each plaintiff was in excess of the amount requested. The court did not hold that any award in excess of that requested by a plaintiff must be remitted. Further, in Denhof the Court observed that the plaintiff had presented no evidence of “long-lasting mental injuries,” while West did present evidence of on-going mental consequences of the harassment. See Turic v. Holland Hospitality, Inc., 85 F.3d 1211, 1215 (6th Cir. 1996) (A plaintiff is only required to present competent evidence that the defendant's unlawful actions caused emotional distress, and may do so through her own testimony.). Tyson also claims that the jury’s compensatory damages verdict was influenced by prejudice against Hispanics. While it is true that during the trial there was much mention of the ethnicity of some of West’s co-workers and harassers, it is pure conjecture to surmise that this affected the jury’s verdict, or that the jury was biased in any way. Tyson also argues that the compensatory damages award here is anomalous in the context of compensatory damage awards in other, “similar,” cases. “[A]n appellate court should not attempt to reconcile widely varied past awards for analogous injuries which in the abbreviated appellate discussion of them seem somewhat similar.” Moody v. Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co., Inc., 915 F.2d 201, 211 (6th Cir. 1990) (internal quotations omitted); see also Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 905 (6th Cir. 2004) (“Endeavoring to compare awards is difficult and often unfruitful, because the factual circumstances of each case differ so widely and because it places reviewing courts in the position of making awkward assessments of pain and suffering better left to - 31 - No. 08-6516 West v. Tyson Foods, Inc. a jury.”). Therefore, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Tyson’s motion for remittitur. Based on the foregoing, we affirm the district court. - 32 -