Fifth Circuit: No Duty to Mitigate Emotional Distress Damages in Title VII Cases

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Quick Hits

• In EEOC v. SkyWest Airlines, Inc., the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that Title VII plaintiffs do not need to take steps to reduce their damages for emotional distress.
• A Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport parts clerk sued SkyWest Airlines for sexual harassment and retaliation, and a Dallas jury awarded her $2 million in punitive damages and $170,000 for emotional harm, an award later reduced to statutory cap of $300,000.
• The Fifth Circuit upheld the admission of the plaintiff’s text messages to her husband as evidence of her mental and physical state during the harassment.
• The ruling is binding on employers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, and underscores the importance of prompt, thorough investigations into workplace harassment complaints.

Title VII prohibits workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on sex and other legally protected characteristics. Sexual harassment creates a legally actionable hostile work environment when the unwelcome conduct is either so severe or so pervasive that a reasonable person would consider the workplace intimidating, abusive, or offensive.

Background on the Case

A parts clerk for SkyWest Airlines at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport alleged that several coworkers, including a maintenance supervisor, subjected her to sexual harassment, including asking if she liked “whips and chains and leathers,” joking about selling her as a prostitute, and displaying pornographic images on computer screens. She claimed that the coworkers frequently joked about rape—up to forty times in a single day. At the time, the plaintiff sent texts to her husband about the harassment.

The employee told her supervisor about the harassment, and he told her that taking any action in response “would just put a larger target on [her] back.” As a result, the employee suffered headaches, nightmares, and vomiting. She started taking antidepressants and took a medical leave of absence. The harassment continued when she returned to work, and she reported it to a human resources manager. While the plaintiff was out on paid administrative leave, the HR manager interviewed witnesses, gave written warnings to some employees, and ordered some employees to undergo additional training. The plaintiff eventually decided to accept the airline’s early retirement offer.

On the plaintiff’s behalf, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued SkyWest for sexual harassment and retaliation under Title VII. It argued that the internal investigation was insufficient and ineffective. To recover punitive damages, the EEOC needed to prove that SkyWest acted with malice or reckless indifference to the employee’s right to a workplace free of discrimination and harassment based on sex.

In November 2024, a Dallas jury decided that the plaintiff was harassed based on her sex and that SkyWest failed to take prompt remedial action. The jury awarded $2 million in punitive damages and $170,000 for emotional harm. It also found SkyWest did not retaliate against the plaintiff.

SkyWest moved for a new trial, arguing that the federal district court erroneously admitted the plaintiff’s text messages describing the harassment to her husband and others as evidence. The airline also argued that the court failed to instruct the jury to limit compensatory damages for emotional distress. It contended that Title VII plaintiffs have a duty to mitigate their losses by, for example, going to therapy or taking medication.

In March 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas denied the airline’s motion for a new trial and reduced the damages down to the statutory cap to $300,000. It found that SkyWest did not make a good-faith effort to comply with Title VII because the HR manager “did not interview many of the employees implicated by [the plaintiff’s] allegations; did not subject those employees whom she did interview to fulsome questioning; did not follow her standard practice of writing an investigative summary at the investigation’s conclusion; and subjected the employees whom she found to have violated SkyWest’s sexual harassment policy to lenient corrective action, or, in one case, no corrective action at all.”

The district court stated that “even if Title VII imposes some duty to mitigate compensatory damages, it does not impose a duty to mitigate emotional harm.”

Fifth Circuit Ruling

The Fifth Circuit concluded the text messages were admissible because they described events as they happened contemporaneously, and they reflected the plaintiff’s mental and physical state at the time. The court reasoned that whether the plaintiff “subjectively perceived the harassment as abusive” was relevant to the case.

The Fifth Circuit also held that Title VII plaintiffs are not required to mitigate damages for emotional distress. The court reasoned that because the statute imposes a mitigation requirement for backpay, but includes no comparable requirement for compensatory damages, the U.S. Congress did not intend to impose a duty to mitigate compensatory damages generally. The court further concluded that, even if some duty to mitigate compensatory damages existed, it would not extend to emotional distress because there is no well-established common-law principle requiring plaintiffs to mitigate that type of harm. The Fifth Circuit aligned with the majority of federal courts that have addressed this issue.

The Fifth Circuit further affirmed the jury’s punitive damages award. The court held that evidence that the maintenance supervisor actively participated in the harassment, despite receiving regular sexual harassment training, was sufficient to support a finding that SkyWest acted with malice or reckless indifference. The court held that deficiencies in the HR investigation—including randomly selecting only some witnesses for interviews, failing to ask relevant follow-up questions, and disciplining no one for the supervisor’s conduct—allowed the jury to conclude that SkyWest failed to establish a good-faith defense to punitive damages.

Key Takeaways

Employers can show a good-faith effort to comply with Title VII by distributing a clearly written policy prohibiting sexual harassment, providing training on sexual harassment, and investigating an employee’s sexual harassment complaints. Taking prompt corrective actions to prevent future violations may help to reduce an employer’s liability. In this case, the Fifth Circuit found that, although SkyWest had a sexual harassment policy and provided training, deficiencies in its internal investigation demonstrated that SkyWest could not establish a good-faith defense to punitive damages.

Ogletree Deakins’ Employment Law Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and will post updates on the Employment Law, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Workplace Investigations and Organizational Assessments blogs as additional information becomes available.

Tiffany Stacy is a shareholder in Ogletree Deakins’ San Antonio office.

Shaina E. Hicks is of counsel in Ogletree Deakins’ Dallas office.

This article was co-authored by Leah J. Shepherd, who is a writer in Ogletree Deakins’ Washington, D.C., office.

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