In this article, an Orange County employment law firm attorney discusses economic damages and how they are measured in your case.

Calculating Economic Damages

The majority of the damages in most cases are less straightforward and therefore more difficult to quantify than the economic damages, which are primarily lost income and so on. Normally, if you are not an executive or major stockholder in the company, the economic damages resulting from your case will be the lowest number when the total worth of your case is calculated.

What Constitutes Economic Damages

Economic damages include:
• Earnings you have lost between the time you were terminated from your job and the judgment date, or “back pay.” It also includes employer-provided retirement plans, paid sick leave, paid vacation time and health insurance plans.
• Earnings and benefits that will be lost from the date of judgment until you either find another job with similar wages and benefits or are restored to the position you lost due to the employer’s discrimination against you, or “front pay.”
• Other costs such as expenditures you may face if you have to move to another location, or “incidental damages.”

The Opposition’s Position

Counsel for the defense will usually take the position that you suffered little or no economic damages as a result of the employer’s action and will downplay the worth of your case accordingly. This happens very frequently in settlement negotiations and mediation sessions. You and your Orange County employment lawyer must be prepared to contradict it right away, especially if that claim is false. If it is not and your economic damages are nominal, your attorney can counter by pointing out that the worth of your claim is not determined by economic damages alone. There are other factors that can increase it dramatically, and settlements have reflected this in the past.

Expert Opinions

Counsel for both sides may call in specialists such as CPAs or other experts to assess and report on such matters as:
• The current job market and your prospects of finding employment that compares favorably with what you have lost either in your area of expertise or a similar field.
• The economy in general or other subjects that might affect the economic damages in your case.

Computerized Programs

There are also software programs designed to perform the computations necessary to determine the economic damages you have suffered.

Let Us Help You

Discrimination in the workplace is a devastating experience. Seek help by calling Daily Aljian LLP, your Orange County employment law firm, at 949-861-2524 today.