Pollard v. E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co.
The Court ruled that front pay — money awarded to cover lost wages between a judgment and the time a worker is reinstated, or in place of reinstatement — is not a form of compensatory damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and therefore does not count against that law's dollar cap.
The ruling means workers who win discrimination lawsuits can receive front pay on top of the maximum compensatory and punitive damages allowed by the statute, rather than having front pay eat into that capped amount.
“Front pay is . . . simply compensation for the post-judgment effects of past discrimination.”
Quoting an appeals court's description of what front pay compensates for.
How it got here: A trial court and the Sixth Circuit ruled front pay counted toward the damages cap based on prior circuit precedent; the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a split among appeals courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Sharon Pollard sued her employer, DuPont, claiming she was sexually harassed by coworkers while supervisors did nothing to stop it, forcing her to take psychological leave and eventually leading to her firing when she refused to return to that workplace. A trial court awarded her back pay, attorney's fees, and the maximum $300,000 in compensatory damages, but found that amount insufficient to fully cover her losses, including additional front pay she was owed.
The question before the Court
If a worker wins a sexual harassment lawsuit, does her "front pay" award count toward the law's cap on compensatory damages?
Why it matters
Workers who win sex-discrimination or harassment cases under Title VII can now recover front pay in full, without it shrinking the amount they can collect for pain, suffering, and other compensatory harms. Employers facing large discrimination verdicts may end up paying more overall, since front pay is added on top of the capped damages rather than absorbed by them.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, where Pollard can seek front pay in addition to the $300,000 in compensatory damages she already received, since front pay is no longer limited by the statutory cap. The ruling settles a split among federal appeals courts and applies going forward to similar discrimination cases nationwide, ensuring front pay awards are calculated separately from the capped damages amount.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide when front pay is an appropriate remedy in the first place — only whether it counts toward the damages cap once awarded. Whether Pollard is entitled to front pay, and how much, is left for further proceedings in the lower courts.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court examined the text of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which lets workers recover compensatory and punitive damages 'in addition to' relief already available under the older Title VII remedy provision, and which says compensatory damages exclude backpay or 'any other type of relief authorized' under that older provision.
- Because front pay had long been treated by courts as a form of backpay-like relief authorized under Title VII's original remedy provision — modeled on similar National Labor Relations Act language allowing wage awards through the date of reinstatement — the Court treated front pay as already-authorized relief rather than a brand-new category of damages.
- The Court found no meaningful difference between front pay awarded while waiting for an open position to become available and front pay awarded because reinstatement is impossible due to hostility or psychological harm, so it refused to treat the two situations differently.
- Reading the 1991 Act's cap provision in light of the rest of the statute, rather than in isolation, the Court concluded that Congress meant only to add new remedies (compensatory and punitive damages) on top of existing ones like front pay, not to fold front pay into the new capped category.