Opinion ID: 1230453
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: back pay damage award

Text: The next issue is whether the trial court erred in failing to reduce the award of $175,000 in back pay where the Appellee was a full-time student during most of his period of unemployment. The Appellant argues that rather than seeking alternative employment, the Appellee, five months after his discharge, chose to attend college full-time, pursuing a masters' degree. The Appellant asserts that [m]any courts [14] have recognized that to award an employee back pay for time spent pursuing a full-time education would result in a `double recovery' and is inconsistent with the `make whole' approach to compensatory damages. In contrast, the Appellee argues that the burden was on the Appellant to prove that the Appellee failed to mitigate his damages and the Appellant failed to meet that burden. The Appellee asserts that there was no evidence offered to show that the Appellee declined to accept work that was offered to him. Further, there was no evidence offered to show that work similar to what the Appellee had preformed even existed in the area. Most significantly, the Appellee contends that the Appellant failed to request or offer a jury instruction [15] on the applicable law regarding mitigation of damages and, therefore, should be precluded from raising the issue on appeal. This Court previously held in syllabus point four of Paxton v. Crabtree, 184 W.Va. 237, 400 S.E.2d 245 (1990) that: Once a claimant establishes a prima facie case of discrimination and presents evidence on the issue of damages, the burden of producing sufficient evidence to establish the amount of interim earnings or lack of diligence shifts to the defendant. The defendant may satisfy his burden only if he establishes that: (1) there were substantially equivalent positions which were available; and (2) the claimant failed to use reasonable care and diligence in seeking such positions. Id. at 239-40, 400 S.E.2d at 247-48, Syl. Pt. 4. In the instant case, it is apparent that the Appellant failed to meet its burden of proving the Appellee did not mitigate his damages. This is evinced not only by the Appellant's failure to offer evidence on mitigation of damages, but the Appellant's failure to even offer a jury instruction as well. Such failures constitutes a waiver of this alleged error by the Appellant and precludes appellate review. See Syl. Pt. 1, in part, Shia v. Chvasta, 180 W.Va. 510, 377 S.E.2d 644 (1988) (quoting W.Va.R.C.P. 51, in part) (No party may assign as error the giving or the refusal to give an instruction unless the party objects thereto before the arguments to the jury are begun, stating distinctly, as to any given instruction, the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection....).