HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - A woman who endured years of racially motivated abuse by a neighbor isn’t entitled to more than $15,000 in damages for emotional distress, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled, rejecting a state commission’s argument the award was too low.
Kelly Howard filed a claim with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities after neighbor Richard Cantillon tormented her with obscene gestures and “the most vile racial epithets, including use of the N-word, threatened to shoot her and punch her in the face,” and “brandished a snow shovel on one occasion.”
After a hearing where Cantillon didn’t appear, a referee awarded Howard $15,000. The commission then appealed, citing a Connecticut Supreme Court decision it said meant state law set a floor of $30,000 on emotional distress damages. An appeals court rejected that argument, as did the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The apparent $30,000 limit came in a discussion of appropriate emotional damages awards, the high court ruled, and wasn’t intended to serve as an absolute floor.
“If some minimum award for garden-variety emotional distress damages is to be established for such heinous conduct, then that minimum amount must be established by the legislature, either independently, via legislation, or in conjunction with the commission” through a rule-making process, the court said.
The court also rejected the commission’s argument the referee hadn’t properly applied standards for evaluating emotional distress. Evidence included the facts Howard relied on her own testimony to support her emotional distress claim, didn’t seek medical or psychological help, miss work, move from her condominium or suffer from lack of sleep, the court said.
The commission couldn’t identify any other area of the law where courts have established minimum damages awards, the Supreme Court said, “and for good reason.” Damages awards are inherently subjective and change over time, the court said.
“We have little doubt that Cantillon’s heinous conduct reasonably could have resulted in a damages award many times higher. But the referee, as the finder of fact, was in the best position to assess the necessarily uncertain nature and degree of the complainant’s internal distress,” the court concluded.