Opinion ID: 1415904
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standard of Review and Discussion [4]

Text: The Whistle-Blower Law states at W.Va.Code, 6C-1-5 [1988]: A court, in rendering a judgment for the complainant in an action brought under this article, shall order, as the court considers appropriate, reinstatement of the employee, the payment of back wages, full reinstatement of fringe benefits and seniority rights, actual damages or any combination of these remedies. A court may also award the complainant all or a portion of the costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney fees and witness fees, if the court determines that the award is appropriate. In Dobson v. Eastern Associated Coal Corp., 188 W.Va. 17, 24, 422 S.E.2d 494, 501 (1992), this Court recognized that make-whole relief could include an award by a jury of front pay in a wrongful discharge case, where reinstatement was not appropriate. Where a plaintiff is offered and accepts reinstatement to a comparable position, however, reinstatement and front pay are not an issue. See, e.g., Haynes v. Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., 206 W.Va. 18, 25-26, 521 S.E.2d 331, 338-39 (1999). Similarly, in Casteel v. Consolidation Coal Co., 181 W.Va. 501, 507, 383 S.E.2d 305, 311 (1989), we recognized that a jury may award front pay in a Human Rights Act case where the employer, by opposing reinstatement, elected front pay rather than reinstatement. In Perilli v. Board of Education of Monongalia County, 182 W.Va. 261, 387 S.E.2d 315 (1989), we recognized the proper role of the jury in calculating front pay as opposed to in deciding on reinstatement. We held that a person who was seeking inter alia an injunction requiring that she be hired for a job from which she claimed to have been illegally barred by sex discrimination was entitled to a jury trial on the discrimination issue and on her damagesbut not on the injunction issue. [5] As previously noted, the remedies set forth in the Whistle-Blower Law, W.Va.Code, 6C-1-5 [1988] are reinstatement of the employee, the payment of back wages, full reinstatement of fringe benefits and seniority rights, actual damages, or any combination of these remedies. A court may also award the complainant all or a portion of the costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney fees and witness fees, if the court determines that the award is appropriate. And, as our discussion has shown, the issue of ordering reinstatement for a prevailing plaintiff is an equitable decision that is committed to the sound discretion of the trial judge, and not the jury. Perilli, supra . [6] Procedurally, addressing the issue of reinstatement in an employment law case is susceptible to several different approaches, depending on the circumstances. A plaintiff and defendant may stipulate prior to trial, or a court may rule preliminarily, that reinstatement is not a remedy that will be considered by the court, should the plaintiff prevail on the merits. Such a determination will most likely affect the fashion in which instructions are given and a verdict rendered. In the absence of such a determination, a jury may be instructed that in the event that the plaintiff prevails on the merits, there is a possibility of reinstatement by the trial courtand that any front pay award calculated by the jury may be mooted if there is a decision by the judge to order some form of reinstatement. [7] Other fact patterns may require other approaches. A number of factors may go into a trial judge's exercise of discretion relating to the reinstatement issue in a given employment case; it would be difficult to create an exhaustive list. For example, in Rosario-Torres v. Hernandez-Colon, 889 F.2d 314, 322 (1st Cir.1989), the court stated: Whenever an ex-employee sues alleging wrongful dismissal by a government agency, job restoration may be a material aspect of meaningful relief. Yet in the real world, reinstatement in unlawful-discharge cases often will place some burden on the agency: there will likely be tension (or even hostility) between the parties when forcibly reunited; employees who have assumed duties previously performed by the fired worker will have to be displaced when he or she returns; and, as a result, the public's business may be conducted somewhat less efficaciously. Obviously, the considerations with private employers may be somewhat different, but equally multifaceted. Our task in the instant case is to review a discretionary decision by a circuit court made on the basis of evidence that was adduced at a one-week trial, the record of which is not before us. Based on what is before us, we cannot conclude that the trial court erred in not awarding reinstatement to the appellant. [8] We find it significant, as did the trial court, that the jury was instructed that they should make the plaintiff whole if they found a wrongful dischargeand, so instructed, they declined to award the appellant even one-half of her calculated back wages, or any front pay. The jury may have concluded that the appellant had not mitigated her damages before trial; or they may have concluded that she would have been properly discharged at some time well before trial. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, a plausible reading of the jury's verdict is that the appellant was not entitled to have kept her former job up until the time of trial, much less after trial. Under these circumstances, we believe that the trial court was within his discretion to decline to enter an injunctive order requiring that the appellant be reinstated to her former job. [9]