Car Dealership Worker Wins Damages Dispute at Eleventh Circuit

A district court wrongly reduced what a Miami car dealership owes for violating workplace discrimination law by $300,000, a federal appeals court ruled.

Car Auto Holdings LLC wasn’t entitled to federal anti-bias law’s $50,000 damages limit for small employers because that cap is an affirmative defense that the company didn’t properly raise during litigation, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held Thursday.

“Because the dealership didn’t plead the $50,000 cap in its answer—or list its employee headcount in the pretrial stipulation as a fact issue to be decided by the jury, or propose jury instructions on its ...