In a major employment law development in the fall of 2016, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed a longstanding precedent and stated that trial judges shall no longer reduce a jury’s verdict for pain and suffering damages, absent unusual circumstances. Cuevas vs. Wentworth Property Management (2016).

Here are the essential facts.  Two brothers, Jeffrey and Ramon Cuevas, complained about ethnic discrimination at their job with Wentworth Property Management.  The case was filed by two brothers, Ramon and Jeffrey Cuevas, who are Hispanic.  Wentworth fired the two brothers after one of them complained about a hostile work environment.

A jury awarded the brothers close to three million dollars for lost wages, emotional damages, and punitive damages.  Wentworth then asked the trial judge to reduce the damages awards as the product of outrageous thinking by the jury, which the trial judge rejected.  The Appellate Division also upheld the jury’s verdict.  The Supreme Court upheld the jury’s award as well, but in so doing it overturned a decision, He v. Miller, 207 N.J. 230 (2011), on the books for 5 years.  In He, the Supreme Court expressly granted trial judges the right to decide damages reduction motions based on their personal experiences and “feel of the case”, a highly subjective standard.  Many trial lawyers representing plaintiffs (including employment lawyers), strongly objected to the He standard, because it invited the trial judge to substitute her or his subjective beliefs for those of the jury.  The issue is this:  why bother impaneling a jury if you are not going to listen to their verdict?

In Cuevas, the New Jersey Supreme Court re-established the old standard of legal review as to whether the jury’s award “shocked the conscience of the court.”  Nothing short of that will allow a trial judge to disregard the jury’s verdict.  Trial judges are admonished to defer to the jury when asked to review an award.  This is a matter of constitutional principle in our State.  Juries have responsibility under the New Jersey Constitution to decide damages.  Judges are not to treat themselves as an extra juror or a super juror.  Rather, the jury’s verdict must stand unless the amount awarded, in that rare case, is obviously and glaringly excessive, based on the record before the trial court on post-verdict review.

We got a damages verdict in a case some years ago in which the jury awarded our client more than the defense had offered and more than the trial judge thought the case was worth.  When the jury’s verdict came in, it was about twice what the trial judge though it “should have been”.  On a defense motion to set aside the verdict, the Judge said if we did not accept one-half the jury’s award, then the defense could get another shot at trial.  Our client took our advice to reject the reduction of award.  We filed an appeal.  The Appellate Division said we had to take the case through a second trial, and file another appeal if we did not like that verdict, based on a rule that does not permit piecemeal appeals.  So we tried the case again in front of another jury that had no knowledge of the earlier case (if prospective jurors advised they knew of the earlier verdict, which they disclosed at sidebar, the Judge dismissed them without more).  The jury in Case Number Two came back with an award that dwarfed the first one.  We were ecstatic, as was the client. The defense decided enough was enough, and they paid our client the second verdict in full, plus pre-judgment interest at the Court Rule rate.  Sometimes, it pays to hold out and fight.

The Cuevas Court has instructed trial judges, in ruling on reduction motions, to stay away from comparisons between the jury’s damages award and awards given by juries in similar cases.   The Court was concerned that the uniqueness of each case’s facts must be respected.  No two cases are ever exactly the same.

If you have a crisis or concern about an employment law matter, involving discrimination, retaliation, discipline, termination, or whistleblowing, please contact our law firm for a near-term reduced fee initial consultation.  Call us at 609-683-7400 or write us online.  We will listen to your facts, advise you on the law, and recommend the past course of action for you. Call us today. You will be glad you did.