|
|
Clifford v. American Drug Stores8/22/2005
nd the mental stress of litigation are burdens which the parties must ordinarily bear themselves." (MacCharles v. Bilson (1986) 186 Cal.App.3d 954, 958 (MacCharles).)
A longer excerpt shows how inapplicable the cited authority is to Sav-On's argument: " plaintiff may not, in the very same action, assert independent causes of action against the defendant and defendant's attorneys for asserting false defenses to plaintiff's main claim. [Citations.] . . . would be expected to meet and defeat such evidence at trial, but he would have no independent cause of action against [the defendants] for asserting such defense. [Citations.] He would have no cause of action for the mental distress of having to defeat a false claim. [Citation.] . . . . [ ] Thus when appellant alleges that he will . . . suffer mental distress because he will have to disprove the proposed affirmative defense, he raises no issue of compensable damages." (MacCharles, supra, 186 Cal.App.3d at pp. 957-958.)
Sav-On also relies upon Schild v. Rubin (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 755 (Schild), in which the appellate court held that "The noise from a ball and the verbal chatter by several people engaged in recreational basketball play in the residential backyard described herein, playing at reasonable times of the day for less than 30 minutes at a time and no more than five times per week, does not constitute unlawful harassment . . . ." (Id. at p. 761.) Apparently frustrated with the lack of merit in the litigation before it, the Schild court also made the comment, "From our review of the record, we suspect that the bulk of any emotional distress suffered by the [plaintiffs] has been generated by the litigation in this case rather than by the noise from the [the defendants'] basketball playing." (Id. at p. 763.)
Clifford was not asserting a claim for damages caused by any of Sav-On's defensive trial techniques, and the 3 million dollar compensatory damage award clearly demonstrates the merits of her harassment claim.
The jury was properly instructed with regard to the elements of sexual harassment, hostile environment, and retaliation, including the requirement that the unlawful conduct "caused plaintiff injury, damage, loss, or harm." Further, the jury was instructed that damages were recoverable for "emotional distress suffered by plaintiff, provided that you find that the harm or loss was or will be suffered by the plaintiff and was or will be caused by the acts or omission upon which you base your finding of liability." (Italics added.) Thus, the jury was instructed that only those unlawful employment practices that cause the plaintiff injury, damage, loss, or harm, may give rise to liability; and damages are recoverable if caused by the conduct upon which a finding of liability is made. Further, the special verdict asked only for the amount of damages suffered by Clifford as a result of unlawful employment practices.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Show All Case Laws California PEO
|