Court Opinion

ID: 9486323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:44:25.861169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:38.825466
License: Public Domain

HILL, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring dubitante:
I concur, without further comment, as to all except the damages calculation, IIA.
I concur with some hesitation, in IIA. Our holding conforms to precedent but may not be demanded by it. I suggest that, in an appropriate case, we might continue the work done in N.L.R.B. v. Seven-Up Bottling Co. 344 U.S. 344, 73 S.Ct. 287, 97 L.Ed. 377 (1953) and in Darnell v. City of Jasper, 730 F.2d 653 (11th Cir.1984). As I read them, those cases represent the choice between calculating awards for lost earnings by the aggregate earnings formula and the quarterly earnings formula — the latter being the clear choice.
The aggregate earnings formula is denounced. Were we to presume to improve damage calculation by re-adopting that method, we should be in improper conflict with controlling precedent.
I believe, however, that no other method of calculating damages has been ruled out. None other is even discussed by The Court or in our Darnell case. If a better formula than the quarterly earnings formula (other than, of course, the aggregate earnings formula) were put forward, I apprehend that we might consider it.
Since working on Darnell I have felt that improvement might well be possible. If so, we shall require more counselling than presented to us here. Nevertheless, I proffer the following.
The aggregate earnings formula defines the actual lost earnings with mathematical precision. It would be attractive, but it discourages settlement with, or reemployment of, the wronged employee. It does so because it applies what I call a “spread back” of post-discharge earnings. So, if a wrongfully discharged employee should go for one year without employment, but, then, obtain work at twice the earnings previously enjoyed, at the end of the second year there would be no damages. The “excess” earned in the second year would be “spread back” over the first year to the end that the wronged employee who had endured a year without earnings would be entitled to take nothing. The de*1516fendant would do well to delay and delay, fishing for such a result.
The quarterly earnings formula provides for no “spread” of “excess” earnings at all. It does the employer no good at all to postpone settling up while the employee is earning nothing — or less than the lost earnings. The employer is going to pay for those lost earnings whether or not the plaintiff does better later. This is a beneficial result. When a pay period’s wages are lost, damages calculation should include that loss. There should be no “spread back.”
But I see no merit in the windfall of damages that might well result from the absence of a “spread forward.” If, for a spell, the employee has post-discharge earnings in excess of those during employment, the excess should not cancel out any damages already suffered, but the excess should result in the accumulation of no further damages until it has been “used up” by being applied to subsequent periods of no or reduced earnings. Making these calculations on a “pay period” basis would seem appropriate. If the wronged employee had a bi-weekly pay period, examination should be made of post-discharge earnings on a bi-weekly basis to determine damages or mitigating earnings, spread forward if indicated.
I do not dissent from our failure to adopt such a calculation in this case. It has not been put into issue by the parties. They debate aggregate earnings versus quarterly earnings and quarterly earnings prevail. I suggest that they are not set in binding concrete.