Judge: Damages Jury Awarded NE Firefighter Excessive
By Lori Pilger
Source Lincoln Journal Star, Neb.
A federal judge last week said Lincoln firefighter Troy Hurd must choose between a new trial on damages or a $630,000 reduction in the amount the city must pay him for retaliation he faced after reporting discrimination against a female firefighter trainee born in Iraq.
Senior U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp said based on the evidence at Hurd's trial in Omaha in February, it wasn't shocking or plainly unjust that the jury awarded Hurd a substantial amount for past and future emotional distress.
In all, the jury awarded the fire captain $1,177,815.
"It is, however, shocking that the jury awarded $930,472.12 for future emotional distress, because the jury wasn't presented with any evidence of extraordinary circumstances that would merit such a large amount," she said.
Smith Camp said Hurd still works for the city and suffered no financial hardship.
At trial, Hurd said he always wanted to be a firefighter and now considers his career in Lincoln Fire & Rescue effectively over.
Over roughly seven years, he said he suffered from a list of problems, from anxiety and depression to insomnia and a loss of energy.
After trial, Assistant City Attorney Jocelyn Golden asked Smith Camp to throw out the verdict, in part because the amounts "were excessive and influenced by emotion and passion, not the evidence" and in part because of how jurors arrived at the amount.
She said a city paralegal talked to five jurors and learned that another of the jurors had created a spreadsheet at home and brought his computer in on the second day of deliberations to help them determine damages for future emotional distress.
Golden said before the spreadsheet, one juror thought $100,000 was a proper amount. They eventually arrived at nine times that.
