There are no “hard and fast” rules governing the amount to be awarded.
However, non-pecuniary damages must be limited to the sums necessary to compensate the injured party for actual harm, even where the harm is intangible, and should take into account the severity of the harm and the length of time that the injured party has suffered from the harm.
see Carter v. Duncan-Hogans, Ltd., 727 F.2d 1225 (D.C. Cir. 1994)
Carpenter v. Dept. of Agriculture, EEOC Appeal No. 01945652 (July 17,1995)
EEOC Notice No. N 915.002 at 14.
Even though there are no set hard and fast amounts for awards, you can be certain the federal agency legal team will present very low awarded comparisons, and will scrutinize every aspect of your EEOC claim to lower the amount as significantly as possible, even going as far to create calculation errors.
The Commission notes that for a proper award of non-pecuniary damages, the amount of the award should not be “monstrously excessive” standing alone, should not be the product of passion or prejudice, and should be consistent with the amount awarded in similar cases.
See Cygnar v. City of Chicago, 865 F.2d 827, 848 (7th Cir. 1989);
US EEOC v. AIC Security Investigations, Ltd., 823 F.Supp. 573, 574 (N.D. Ill. 1993).
