New York Employment Lawyer Blog

Personalities from basketball courts have made appearances in courts of law lately. A New York federal jury handed down an $11.6 million verdict this past October in the Isiah Thomas harassment case. On Thursday, Dec. 6, a California state court jury awarded a former Fresno State women’s basketball coach just over $19 million in damages on her gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation claims.

Many civil verdict awards are comprised of both economic and non-economic components, both of which are sometimes broken down even further. In the case of the Fresno coach, plaintiff Stacy Johnson-Klein’s award broke down into four components: Past economic losses, future economic losses, past non-economic losses and future non-economic losses.

Ms. Johnson-Klein’s past economic losses component of the award, $634,254 , covers the period between the coach’s firing in 2005 until the commencing of the trial. Past economic losses typically includes lost wages and benefits. Ms. Johnson-Klein’s future economic losses component, $4,440,419 , projects the plaintiff’s losses if she had not been fired, and typically includes lost wages and benefits measured from the trial through the plaintiff’s work life expectancy. This point is usually the plaintiff’s retirement age, typically between age 65 and 70.

The non-economic components are awarded to the plaintiff for pain and suffering that she experienced as a result of the defendants’ conduct, independent of economic damages. Ms Johnson-Klein was awarded $3 million for past non-economic losses and $11 million for future non-economic losses. In some cases, the jury may award the plaintiff punitive, or exemplary, damages in order to punish the defendants’ willful misconduct which led to the suit. However, in the Johnson-Klein case, there was no punitive damages award against Fresno state; this is because in California, punitive damages may not be recovered by a plaintiff against a defendant that is a public entity.