Court Opinion

ID: 9493106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:58:21.187452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:39.408203
License: Public Domain

CYNTHIA HOLCOMB HALL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with everything in the majority opinion except for the statement that “the district court should make a determination of whether the jury’s award included the value of lost pension benefits” and the preceding paragraph. The opinion states that “we cannot say for certain whether the jury did, or did not include the value of Sharkey’s lost pension benefits in making its award.” I believe it is plain from the record that the jury did not consider any request that Sharkey’s annual pension be adjusted upward to reflect the tenure he would have had at Ultramar had he received a nondiscriminatory offer of employment.
Sharkey notes that his current pension payment is based on a formula related to his three highest annual salaries. Sharkey suggests that had he continued working for Ultramar at the salary offered, his current pension would be approximately $55,000 per year. But because the discriminatory job offer caused him to cease his employment, his pension is calculated based on his earlier employment for the firm, which was at a much lower salary, resulting in an annual pension of $17,000 per year.
I find Ultramar’s arguments that the jury award already includes a lump sum payment to compensate Sharkey for his diminished future pension payments unpersuasive. Ultramar concedes that the “Ultramar Retirement Plan was not presented into evidence” (Ultramar Grey 21), and does not dispute Sharkey’s claim that he did not include any reference to lost pension benefits in his damages table, which was submitted to the jury. All the evidence the jury heard concerning pension benefits related to the differentials in the pension packages awarded to Sharkey on the one hand, and McAward and Kuz-min on the other. Pages 1145 and 1149 of the Joint Appendix, cited by the opinion as instances where Sharkey’s lawyer referred *377to pension benefits in his closing argument, are only relevant to the instant issue in the sense that the word “pension” indeed appears on page 1145. The only vague reference to Sharkey’s diminished pension benefits that I can find in the record is Sharkey’s statement on page 789 of the Joint Appendix (“And I didn’t know if he was familiar with our pension plan, because I know it was different than the Canadians. But to me, what that did was reduce the base salary on which my pension would be based on, and then in the future, when I did retire, my annual pension would be reduced by maybe $10,000 a year.”). Only a jury with mind-reading powers could use this testimony to estimate the diminution in Sharkey’s future pension benefits.
As the majority opinion correctly notes, it was proper for Sharkey to seek pension credit for the lost service as a form of post-trial equitable relief. Given this record, I would remand for the district court to calculate Sharkey’s pension based on, at an absolute minimum, two additional years of employment at the salary offered him by Ultramar.