## Facts

- Colleen Donlin worked as a temporary warehouse employee at Philips’s Mountaintop, Pennsylvania distribution center beginning in May 2002.
- The facility used temporary workers due to fluctuating demand and sometimes hired temps into permanent, full-time warehouse positions.
- Donlin applied for a full-time position but was not selected; male workers were hired into full-time roles.
- Philips ended Donlin’s temporary assignment in January 2003, citing decreased sales volume.
- Donlin sued under Title VII alleging gender discrimination in Philips’s failure to hire her as full-time (and also alleged retaliation; that claim was resolved against her before trial).
- A jury found for Donlin on gender discrimination and awarded $164,850 in compensatory damages and $395,795 in front pay; the district court reduced front pay to $101,800 by shortening the projected loss period.
- Philips appealed liability and damages; Donlin cross-appealed aspects of the damages determination.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s finding that Philips failed to hire Donlin for a full-time position because of gender, warranting denial of judgment as a matter of law or a new trial.
2. Whether the compensatory damages award for nonpecuniary harm was supported by admissible, nonspeculative evidence, including Donlin’s lay testimony.
3. Whether the front-pay award’s amount and duration were impermissibly speculative and inadequately supported by the record.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the jury’s liability verdict on the Title VII gender-discrimination claim.
- The court left the compensatory damages award intact.
- The court vacated the front-pay determination and remanded for further proceedings on damages, concluding the front-pay duration and calculation lacked adequate evidentiary support and risked speculation.

## Legal Principles

- A jury’s Title VII discrimination verdict may be sustained where the plaintiff presents evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could infer pretext and discriminatory motive; appellate review respects the jury’s credibility determinations and reasonable inferences.
- Compensatory damages for emotional distress and other nonpecuniary harms may be proven through the plaintiff’s testimony and other lay evidence; expert testimony is not required if the testimony is based on personal knowledge and admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 701.
- Front pay is an equitable remedy intended to compensate future lost earnings when reinstatement is not feasible, but it must rest on a reasonably certain factual basis rather than conjecture.
- Front-pay awards must be tied to record evidence supporting both the amount and the expected duration of loss; long-term projections are improper where future employment conditions and business demand are uncertain.
- A plaintiff’s mitigation through later employment does not automatically bar front pay, but the remedy must reflect realistic estimates of future loss and avoid unsupported assumptions about pay trajectories and job stability.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit upheld the finding that Philips discriminated against Donlin in failing to hire her as a full-time employee, but it required a reassessment of front pay because the record did not adequately support the length and certainty of the projected future earnings loss.


Donlin v. Philips Lighting N. Am. Corp., 581 F.3d 73 (3d Cir. 2009)