SDNY judge awards sexual harassment/retaliation plaintiff $1.25 million for pain and suffering

A Southern District judge has ruled that a sexual harassment plaintiff is entitled to $1.25 million in damages for pain and suffering. While Judge Rakoff reduced the damages award from $2 million, the final damages award is among the highest for a single-plaintiff employment discrimination claim.

The case is Tulino v. City of New York, issued on August 1. I assisted in handling the post-trial motions for plaintiff, who suffered harassment from an older, male supervisor over the course of several years. The jury heard evidence that the supervisor "cultivated an inappropriately close relationship with [plaintiff] and became angry and resentful when Tulino tried to distance herself from him." The supervisor repeatedly called Tulino his "special friend," and his emails and text messages helped prove her case. After plaintiff threatened to report her supervisor to EEO, she suffered retaliation in the form of lost job assignments.

The jury returned a verdict in plaintiff's favor on the sexual harassment and retaliation claims. It also awarded her $2 million for pain and suffering. (The constructive discharge claim was dismissed during trial, so there are no back pay damages). Post-trial, the City tried to vacate the retaliation verdict and reduce the damages award.

Juries are not told how to assess pain and suffering damages. Juries are also not told that their handiwork will be picked over by the courts and counsel to ensure the damages awards are not too high. Trial judges in the Second Circuit rely upon a three-part damages model in reviewing jury awards. "Garden variety" damages do not involve medical treatment and will cap out at $125,000. "Significant" damages are worth somewhere in the six figures, and "egregious" damages, which involve major lifestyle changes and severe pain and suffering, provide the largest awards. Judge Rakoff notes that plaintiff's expert said she suffers panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression. The medical records certainly bear that out. While the court states plaintiff suffered "significant" damages, I am wondering if the court meant to say she suffered egregious damages. That's because the court reduced the damages award to $1.25 million, which falls within the egregious category.

To my knowledge, the highest damages award for a single-plaintiff harassment case is Turley v. ISG Lackawana, Inc., 774 F.3d 140 (2d Cir. 2014), where the Court of Appeals assessed the racial harassment plaintiff's damages at $1.32 million. The Court in Turley said that amount pushes the limits of what is acceptable. Judge Rakoff cites Turley in his analysis, along with Zeno v. Pine Plains Central School Sch. Dist., 702 F.3d 655 (2d Cir. 2012) (a case that I tried in 2010), where a school bullying victim was awarded $1 million. Few sexual harassment cases entitle the plaintiff to $1 million in damages; Tulino's case is now one of them. The court said in particular that plaintiff is entitled to $1 million for the sexual harassment and $250,000 for the retaliation.

This ruling includes a few other interesting holdings addressing constructive discharge and retaliation. I will get to those issues in a separate blog post.