Court Opinion

ID: 9478379
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:47:50.512457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.120850
License: Public Domain

WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Giving plaintiff the full benefit of favorable inferences from the proof in this case, I concur that the jury could have found, despite Fite’s generally mediocre to poor employment record and the difficult economic circumstances of defendant, First Tennessee Production Credit Association (FTPCA), that age was a factor in Fite’s termination. I do not, therefore, disagree that the jury could have “reasonably concluded that FTPCA’s performance argument was a mere pretext.” Slip op. at 12. There was certainly evidence to the contrary, but ADEA gives claimant the right to a jury determination of legitimate factual disputes.
My disagreement in this case lies first with the damage award. Plaintiff conceded that he did not attempt to find other employment, temporary or otherwise, for over a year after his termination. At the time of trial, moreover, he had secured employment and was earning nearly $11,-*896000 a year exclusive of other job benefits.1 Fite, of course, had the unquestioned duty to mitigate his damages and for a year he had made no effort to do this. Assuming that Fite would have continued to work for FTPCA, absent a factor of age discrimination, at the same salary, after reducing this to current value, the jury award was clearly excessive and must have erroneously included over $38,000 in “thrift premium money” which Fite claimed as damages because he was forced to expend this fund as a result of his termination and over $13,000 which Fite claimed for three years’ lost interest on the thrift plan. The jury’s inclusion of these two sums is equivalent to adding to an ADEA damage award either the amount of a claimant’s savings account or the total value of other assets which the claimant exhausted because of an allegedly discriminatory discharge. There is no basis in law for such an allowance.
In addition, after his termination, Fite was receiving more than $5,500 in annual early retirement benefits he would not have received but for this early discharge. (He claimed that had he retired at the prescribed retirement age, he would have then received considerably more than this, but the $5,500 received annually should have been offset against the claimed loss of an annual $28,000 salary.) Fite cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim the full salary loss and the loss of anticipated retirement benefits without taking into account the benefits he did and would receive between 1984 amd 1991. No evidence of life expectancy was presented to give the jury guidance about loss of earnings due to work life expectancy.
There was, moreover, abundant evidence that other senior FTPCA employees were faced with the choice of early retirement or demotion during the 1983-84 period due to economic distress of FTPCA. There was, then, evidence questioning the continued viability of the FTPCA operation during the time in question and whether Fite, or any other senior employee, could continue at the same salary in light of mounting losses. In sum, I find the jury award to be grossly excessive and speculative. It should have been subject to a remittitur or reduction of at least one-fourth to one-third in order to avoid a new trial on the question of damages.2
The award is disproportionate to the amount of the “front end” award made in Davis v. Combustion Engineering, Inc., 742 F.2d 916 (6th Cir.1984), which stated that “an award of front pay must be governed by the sound discretion of the trial court and may not be appropriate in all cases.”3 Id. at 923.
Finally, I disagree with and dissent from the attorney’s fee award made in this case. In the first place, some of the hours spent in pursuit of unsuccessful claims or contentions against parties other than FTPCA should not have been allowed. Moreover, there is no justification for enhancing a “lodestar” award simply because plaintiff’s counsel was practicing in a two person law office. No authority is cited for this novel proposition. That Fite’s lawyer spent a large number of hours preparing the case simply means that he could not devote these hours to other clients. Thus, there certainly should not be a 75% increment based solely on the size of the attorney’s practice. There can be no basis for awarding a lawyer in a very small firm an increment for legal services that a lawyer in a large firm would not receive merely because he worked in a large firm.
The other basis for an increase was the contingent fee arrangement the attorney had with his client. The fact that Fite agreed to pay a contingent fee means that as between Fite and his attorney, Fite may be liable for fees after the court’s assessed *897reasonable fees against FTPCA under ADEA. There was no statement by the district court that this case was unusual, novel, or complex with respect to the ADEA issues involved. It was, rather, a hard fought case with straightforward factual disputes that might have gone either way. The award was not in conformity with Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984); Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 3078, 97 L.Ed.2d 585 (1987), nor, I believe, with Hensley v. Eckerkart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). See also Dean v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 860 F.2d 670 (6th Cir.1988); Contelin v. Lovely, 834 F.2d 543 (6th Cir.1987). If a multiplier were appropriate in this case, something not borne out by the reasons articulated by the district court (no finding of novel issues, unusual complexity, or community resentment), I would consider a one-third multiplier factor to be generous. See Delaware Valley, 107 S.Ct. 3078.
Accordingly, I would reverse and remand on both the damages issue and the attorney’s fee issue for the reasons stated.

. Fite classified this job as a temporary one.

. I find $46,000 of claimed elements of damage (representing the thrift plan and interest thereon) to be clearly unallowable. There also should have been an offset for the salary Fite earned or reasonably expected to earn between 1984 and 1991.

.As set out in my separate opinion in Davis, 742 F.2d at 924,1 believe that a front end award in a case involving the circumstances here present, should be limited and should take into account the likelihood of other employment.