We talked recently about how employment discrimination victims can use their discrimination claims to make a lasting and effective change to their employer’s policies and practices. But what other types of remedies can discrimination victims recover through their claim? Depending on the case, employment discrimination can result in a variety of injuries to the victim, from financial to emotional. The general goal of state, local and federal anti-discrimination laws is to make the victim whole, allowing them to be compensated for the variety of injuries they suffer.

We’ll outline the various types of remedies that can be available in a claim under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act and the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws. If you have questions about your own discrimination claim and what remedies may be available to you, please contact Eisenberg & Baum. We have decades of experience helping victims of employment discrimination recover damages and other relief in New York and around the country.

Pay and Benefits

Very often, workplace discrimination can result in the victim being fired, passed over for a promotion, or denied pay increases or bonuses. Under Title VII and the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws, victims of discrimination are entitled to recover back pay, front (or future) pay and benefits denied them as a result of the discrimination. Take, as an example, a female employee who is continually passed over for a promotion to a position for which she was otherwise qualified because she was a woman. If the employee successfully shows that her employer engaged in gender discrimination in denying her a promotion, she could be entitled to the difference in pay she would have received if she had been promoted. Similarly, if an employee is wrongfully terminated because of their gender, race, religion or other protected classification, the employee could recover back pay, front pay, as well as compensation for other benefits, like medical insurance, to which the employee would have been entitled if they’d not been fired.

Compensatory and Punitive Damages

Victims of discrimination can also suffer financial as well as physical and emotional damages beyond the direct loss of pay or benefits. These types of damages are known as compensatory damages and can include things like medical expenses, the cost incurred in finding a new job and damages from emotional distress. It’s not uncommon for a victim of discrimination, especially discrimination that has occurred over a long period of time, to suffer emotional injuries as a result of the discrimination. In some cases, such as sexual harassment, the employee may suffer physical injuries as well. Compensatory damages for these types of injuries are recoverable under Title VII as well as New York State and City Human Rights Laws. Some compensatory damages can be hard to value but can be a crucial part of ensuring a discrimination victim is made whole.

Punitive damages, on the other hand, are a way of punishing the employer and deterring similar acts of discrimination in the future rather than restoring the victim. Punitive damages are allowed under Title VII and the New York City Human Rights Law but not under the New York State Human Rights Law. Even where they are allowed, they are not commonly awarded because they are reserved for particularly bad acts by employers.

We’ve lumped compensatory and punitive damages together in this section because under Title VII, there is a cap on the total combined amount of compensatory and punitive damages that can be awarded. The size of the cap depends on the size of the employer, ranging from $50,000 on the small side to $300,000 on the large side. New York State law, while not allowing for punitive damages in a discrimination case, does not cap the amount of compensatory damages a victim can recover. New York City law does not cap either compensatory or punitive damages.

Injunctive and Affirmative Relief

As we discussed in our recent blog post on changing your employer’s policies, one of the remedies available to discrimination victims is injunctive relief. Courts can grant injunctive and affirmative relief under Title VII and the New York State and City Human Rights Laws to require an employer to take some action to remedy the discrimination. In our earlier example in which the female employee was repeatedly passed over for promotion because of her gender, it’s possible that the court, in addition to awarding the victim monetary damages, could order the employer to promote the employee to the position they were wrongfully denied. In a situation where an employee was wrongfully terminated on a discriminatory basis, the court could order the employee re-hired.

Costs and Fees

Inevitably, when you pursue a legal claim, you are bound to incur some court costs and attorney’s fees. However, you are not required to pay Eisenberg & Baum, LLP any fees unless we collect money from settlement or judgment. Then the fees will come out of the recovery. For cases where a judgment is obtained, an application for legal fees can be filed under federal or city law. Whether you can recover court costs and attorney’s fees can depend on the law under which you prevailed. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the New York City Human Rights law both allow for a prevailing plaintiff to recover their court costs and reasonable attorneys fees, while the New York State Human Rights Law does not. When your attorney works on a contingency fee basis like Eisenberg & Baum, courts will still calculate the attorney’s fees award based on the reasonable number of hours worked on your case multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate for the work performed.

You Can Be Made Whole

Unfortunately, there is no way to completely undo the effects that workplace discrimination can have on an individual. But federal, state and local laws do include a number of different forms of remedies for discrimination victims to pay them for the financial and emotional loss they’ve suffered and place them in the position they would have been had they not been discriminated against. If you’ve been discriminated against at work, please contact us to discuss your case and the remedies that may be available to you.