Civil Model Jury Charge 2.35 PAST
EMOTIONAL DISTRESS IN AN EMPLOYMENT LAW CASE
NOTE TO JUDGE
In Battaglia v. United Parcel Service, Inc.,
214 N.J. 518 (2013), the Supreme
Court held that it was error for a court to instruct a jury in an employment
law case to consider life expectancy in connection with emotional distress
damages where the plaintiff did not offer any expert testimony as to the permanency
of the emotional distress. The Court
held that while an employment law plaintiff can claim emotional distress
damages without expert testimony, such damages are limited to past emotional
distress through the time of trial. For an employment law plaintiff to claim
future emotional distress, he or she must offer expert testimony as to the
permanency of the distress. Id. at 551-55.
The
following charge is intended for use in cases in which the plaintiff has not
offered expert testimony and is claiming damages only for past emotional
distress through the time of trial.
Charge 2.36 should be used if the plaintiff is claiming future emotional
distress based on expert testimony regarding permanency.
If you find for
plaintiff, (s)he is entitled to recover fair and reasonable money damages for
the full extent of the harm caused, no more and no less.
A plaintiff who is
awarded a verdict is entitled to fair and reasonable compensation for any
emotional distress (s)he has suffered that was the proximate result of the
defendant’s unlawful conduct. The
plaintiff here is not seeking damages for emotional distress continuing into
the future; rather, (s)he is only seeking damages for the emotional distress
(s)he has suffered from the date of the defendant’s unlawful conduct through
the date of your verdict. Emotional
distress includes embarrassment, humiliation, indignity, and other mental anguish. The measure of damages is what a reasonable
person would consider to be adequate and just under all the circumstances of
the case to compensate plaintiff for his(her) emotional distress.
You should consider the
nature, character, and seriousness of any emotional distress. You must also consider the duration of the
emotional distress, as any award you make must cover the damages suffered by
plaintiff to the present time. Plaintiff
has
the burden of proving his(her) damages through credible, competent evidence,
although (s)he does not have to offer any witnesses to corroborate his(her)
emotional distress; the distress need not be permanent; physical or
psychological symptoms are not necessary; and plaintiff need not have obtained
any type of professional treatment.[1] The plaintiff’s testimony standing alone is
enough to support an award of emotional distress damages. On the other hand, you are free to disbelieve
all or part of the plaintiff’s testimony, and if you do, you should act
accordingly by either reducing the amount of damages you award for emotional
distress or by not warding any emotional distress damages at all.
The law does not provide you with any table,
schedule or formula by which a person's emotional distress may be measured in
terms of money. The amount is left to
your sound discretion. You are to use
your discretion to attempt to make plaintiff whole, so far as money can do so,
based upon reason and sound judgment, without any passion, prejudice, bias or
sympathy. You each know from your common
experience the nature of emotional distress and you also know the nature and
function of money. The task of equating
the two so as to arrive at a fair and reasonable award of damages requires a
high order of human judgment. For this
reason, the law can provide no better yardstick for your guidance than your own
impartial judgment and experience.
You are to exercise sound judgment as
to what is fair, just and reasonable under all the circumstances. You should consider all of the evidence
presented by the parties on the subject of plaintiff’s emotional distress. After considering the evidence, you shall
award a lump sum of money that will fairly and reasonably compensate plaintiff
for any emotional distress you find she has proven.
