Opinion
No. 95 C 5425
April 30, 2002
Ruling on Defendants' Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or Alternatively for a New Trial
Plaintiff produced adequate evidence to support the jury's verdict on her IIED claim. The motions, insofar as they seek to set aside the jury's verdict based on insufficiency of the evidence, are therefore denied.
Defendants argue that the jury's award of back and front pay must be vacated because such damages are not available in an IIED case. However, the jury did not award back and front pay, as those terms connote Title VII damages, but rather was instructed, by means of Illinois Pattern Instruction No. 30.06, that it could award damages for "[t]he value of earnings and benefits lost" and "[t]he present cash value of the earnings and benefits reasonably certain to be lost in the future," typical elements of Illinois tort damages which were explicitly held applicable to employment-related IIED cases in Sutton v. Overcash, 623 N.E.2d 820, 838-39 (Ill.App.Ct. 1993). There is nothing in Hertzberg v. SRAM Corp., 261 F.3d 651 (7th Cir. 2001), which suggests that the Seventh Circuit intended to displace Illinois damages law in a case where Illinois law provides the rule of decision, nor does the court see any reason why, on an Illinois tort claim, the jury should not be permitted to award such damages if they are proximately caused the defendant's conduct. See Hughes v. Patrolmen's Benevolent Ass'n of the City of New York, 850 F.2d 876, 884 (2d Cir. 1988) (affirming lost wages in IIED case where the plaintiff provided evidence suggesting that his chances for promotion but for the defendants' conduct were good). With respect to the argument that there was no evidence to support an award of future lost wages, the court recalls sufficient evidence on the impact of defendants' conduct on plaintiff's physical and emotional health to support the jury's conclusion that plaintiff's future earning capacity has been damaged.
The defense also argues that the jury's award of $240,000 for pain and suffering is excessive and not in line with awards in comparable cases. Indisputably, $240,000 is a large award for pain and suffering, but in this court's view, not "monstrously excessive" if the jury believed plaintiffs evidence, as it clearly did. EEOC v. AIC Sec. Investigations, Ltd., 55 F.3d 1276, 1285 (7th Cir. 1995). Plaintiff's evidence revealed a course of conduct which threatened her physical health and the health of her fetus, seriously affected the emotional well-being of her family, and caused her severe and possibly permanent emotional damage, for which she ultimately sought and has been found to need continuing professional therapy.
Defendants cite Webb v. City of Chester, 813 F.2d 824 (7th Cir. 1986); Ramsey v. Am. Air Filter Co., Inc., 772 F.2d 1303 (7th Cir. 1985); Avitia v. Metro. Club of Chicago, 49 F.3d 1219 (7th Cir. 1995); and Enright v. Illinois State Police, No. 97 C 8788, 2000 WL 420857 (N.D.Ill. Apr. 18, 2000), in support of their lack of comparability argument. There is nothing in the Webb opinion that suggests the kind of sustained campaign of harassment, humiliation, and impossible demands, against a plaintiff who was physically ill during much of the time, which plaintiff's evidence established, nor is there anything in the opinion suggesting that the Webb plaintiff suffered severe, long-term emotional damage. In Ramsey, the court of appeals expressly noted that during the course of the trial, "there is a paucity of references to any emotional harm that plaintiff suffered" and no evidence that he was treated for depression or emotional distress, and the court noted that on such a record, a $75,000 emotional distress award is excessive. Ramsey, 772 F.2d at 1313. In Avitia, the only evidence in the record of any nonpecuniary loss was a few sentences of testimony by the plaintiff that he felt terrible when he was fired, and the court of appeals ruled that this testimony did not establish a "protracted bitterness from the firing" and therefore remitted the jury's award from $21,000 to $10,500. Avitia, 49 F.3d at 1229-30. Enright is a very terse opinion, suggesting that the plaintiff suffered an ulcer, a "stroke-like experience," and "stress-induced migraine headaches" as a result of the defendant's conduct, but then asserting that "plaintiff presented no medical or other evidence of serious emotional harm." Id. at *2. This court can only assume from this that the plaintiff either never related her sufferings to the defendant's conduct or never adequately proved a relationship. In any event, Enright is not this case. Plaintiff here presented medical and other evidence of serious emotional harm.
Plaintiff has cited cases affirming comparable or larger awards. See Madison v. IBP, Inc., 257 F.3d 780, 802 (8th Cir. 2001); Liberatore v. CVS New York, Inc., 160 F. Supp.2d 114, 121 (D.D.C. 2001). While neither of these cases is identical to the case at bar, they are much more analogous than anything cited by defendants. Defendants have failed to show that the $240,000 award is out of line with the awards in cases involving similar evidence of emotional damage.
Finally, defendants argue that the jury's award of $35,000 for past and future medical expenses should be vacated because it is speculative and not supported by the evidence. The court cannot adequately consider this argument without the evidence and testimony to which the parties direct their arguments. Defendants may, if they wish to pursue this matter, provide the court with relevant transcripts and exhibits, but the court is unwilling to set aside a jury's verdict based on the vague arguments currently before the court.
Defendants' Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or, Alternatively, for a New Trial is denied except that defendants may, if they wish, provide supplemental argument in support of the motion to set aside the jury's verdict of $35,000 for past and future medical expenses. If defendants wish to pursue this issue, they should prepare a motion to supplement their Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law and the court will set a briefing schedule on it.
Minute Order
Plaintiff has moved for reconsideration of this court's November 16, 2000 grant of partial summary judgment dismissing her claim that she was fired in retaliation for filing an EEOC charge. Plaintiff has raised a number of grounds for reconsideration but this court reaches only one: her claim that the Seventh Circuit's recent decision in Stone v. City of Indianapolis Pub. Utils. Div., 281 F.3d 640 (7th Cir. 2002) constitutes "a significant controlling change in the law on the standard of proof in retaliation cases." (Pl.'s Supp. Authority at 1.) The Court agrees. Not only did Stone, in its own words, "create a new rule for the adjudication of retaliation cases," id. at 644, but it expressly held that in cases "in which the plaintiff [is] proceeding under McDonnell Douglas," as plaintiff was here, "a plaintiff so proceeding need not show even an attenuated causal link" to avoid summary judgment. Id. This court granted summary judgment to defendants precisely because plaintiff, who was clearly proceeding under McDonnell Douglas, could not demonstrate a close enough temporal connection between her protected conduct and her termination to create an inference of causation. As this court stated in its summary judgment ruling, "Because Naeem has failed to offer causation evidence sufficient to overcome the significant temporal gap between her protected action and her discharge, the court grants McKesson's motion for summary judgment on Count II." Naeem v. McKesson Drug Co., 2001 WL 1720965, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 16, 2000). In light of the Seventh Circuit's decision in Stone, the grant of summary judgment on this basis was error.
Beyond the issue of causation, defendants oppose plaintiff's request for reconsideration by arguing the plaintiff presented insufficient evidence to refute the belief of her managers that she was not performing her job in a satisfactory manner at the time of her termination. As is implicit in this court's other ruling of this date that plaintiff adequately proved her claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, plaintiff produced adequate evidence to support the jury's verdict that defendants' conduct leading up to and including her termination constituted the intentional infliction of emotional distress. Since there was evidence adequate to allow the jury to conclude that the demands and requirements imposed on plaintiff by her supervisors outrageous" conduct, and since the evidence was clear that those demands and requirement led directly to plaintiff's discharge, summary judgment cannot be granted on the theory that there is no material dispute as to whether plaintiff was performing her job according to her employer's legitimate expectations. The court's erroneous summary judgment decision cannot be salvaged on this basis.
The court therefore grants plaintiff's motion for reconsideration of its grant of partial summary judgment on Count II of plaintiff's complaint. The case is set for status on May 16, 2002 at 9:30 a.m.