If you believe you were wrongfully terminated from your job, you might have a legal claim against your former employer. And if you win your case, you could potentially recover lost wages.
But your lost wages award could end up drastically reduced if your employer mounts a successful mitigation of damages defense. How is this possible? To answer that question, let’s quickly explain lost wages as a form of monetary recovery.
What Are Lost Wages?
Also called back pay, lost wages refer to money you would have made had you not been improperly fired. In addition to monetary compensation, lost wages can include workplace benefits, like health insurance.
To calculate your potential back pay award, you’ll count how much time passed between the date you were fired and when you win your case. So if you were fired on January 1, 2022 and you won your lawsuit on June 30, 2023, you’d be eligible for up to 18 months’ worth of back pay.
Yet your employer could argue that your lost wages award should be reduced if you didn’t find another job to replace the earnings you lost. In other words, they’d argue that even if they shouldn’t have fired you, they shouldn’t have to pay for all of your back pay because you could have reduced, or mitigated, your income loss by finding a new job.
The Failure to Mitigate Defense
This is an affirmative legal defense, which means if the defendant doesn’t raise the defense, it’s waived. It’s also a defense where the burden is on the employer to prove that the...
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