Travers v. Flight Services & Systems, Inc. , 808 F.3d 525 ( 2015 )


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  •           United States Court of Appeals
    For the First Circuit
    Nos. 14-1745
    14-1756
    JOSEPH TRAVERS,
    Plaintiff, Appellee, Cross-Appellant,
    v.
    FLIGHT SERVICES & SYSTEMS, INC.,
    Defendant, Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
    APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
    [Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]
    Before
    Torruella, Lynch, and Barron,
    Circuit Judges.
    Jeffrey M. Rosin, with whom Christopher M. Pardo and
    Constangy, Brooks & Smith LLP were on brief, for appellant, cross-
    appellee.
    Shannon Liss-Riordan, with whom Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C.,
    was on brief, for appellee, cross-appellant.
    December 15, 2015
    BARRON, Circuit Judge.     A company that provides skycap
    services to airlines was defending against a class action lawsuit
    when one of the skycaps that the company had employed brought his
    own individual suit against the company.          The skycap alleged in
    his suit that the company had fired him for his role in helping to
    organize the class action.     A jury eventually found for the skycap
    in that unlawful-termination suit.        And the company now appeals
    both from that verdict and from the District Court's award of
    damages and attorney's fees and costs.          Because we find no error
    in any of the District Court rulings that the company challenges,
    we affirm them.
    At the same time, the skycap who won the retaliatory-
    termination suit cross-appeals.        He contends that the District
    Court erred by eliminating and not trebling the jury's award of
    front-pay damages, failing to grant his request to treble the
    emotional-distress   damages   award     that   the   District   Court   had
    ordered on remittitur, and denying his request for prejudgment
    interest.   We affirm the District Court's decisions not to treble
    and not to grant prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress
    damages, but we vacate the District Court's elimination of any
    front-pay award and remand for further proceedings.          In addition,
    we certify a question to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
    regarding the award of prejudgment interest on Travers's back-pay
    damages.
    - 2 -
    I.
    The defendant in both the class action and the unlawful-
    termination suit is Flight Services and Systems, Inc. (FSS).                This
    company provides skycap services for JetBlue at Boston's Logan
    International Airport.      The skycaps work on the curb just outside
    the airport, where they issue boarding passes and check luggage.
    The skycaps receive low wages and so, like most waiters and
    waitresses, rely on tips for the bulk of their pay.
    The named plaintiff in the class action against FSS is
    the same plaintiff who brings the retaliatory-termination suit.
    He is Joseph Travers, a skycap FSS employed to service JetBlue
    customers at Logan.
    The     class    action      --    which   Travers    helped       to
    organize -- concerns JetBlue's 2008 decision to charge $2 per bag
    for luggage checked in via skycap and then to have JetBlue, and
    not the skycaps, keep that $2 fee.             The complaint -- captioned
    "Travers   v.    JetBlue   and   FSS"    --   contends   that   the   new    fee
    diminished the tip income skycaps received from customers and
    violated both the Massachusetts wage and tips law and the federal
    Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
    The source of the present dispute is FSS's decision,
    while that class action was pending, to fire Travers.                 Travers
    alleges that FSS did not fire him because -- as FSS contends is
    the case -- a customer had complained that Travers had solicited
    - 3 -
    a tip from her.    Travers's suit alleges, instead, that FSS fired
    him in retaliation for his role in organizing the skycaps' class
    action against JetBlue and FSS and that FSS relied on the tip-
    solicitation complaint as a pretext for that retaliatory firing.
    Travers's suit further contends that, in consequence, FSS violated
    both the FLSA and the Massachusetts wage and tips law, as each of
    those laws prohibits a company from taking adverse action against
    an employee who seeks to obtain the protection that those laws
    provide.    See 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149,
    § 148A.
    Before Travers's retaliation suit went to the jury, the
    District Court granted summary judgment to FSS.       But we then
    reversed.    Travers v. Flight Servs. & Sys., Inc., 
    737 F.3d 144
    ,
    145 (1st Cir. 2013). We held that, on the summary judgment record,
    "a reasonable jury could return a verdict for Travers without
    relying on improbable inferences or unsupported speculation."   
    Id. On remand,
    the case went to trial, and a jury found FSS
    liable for retaliatory termination in violation of both the federal
    and state statutes.     The jury rendered its verdict in a single
    verdict form that did not differentiate between the state and
    federal claims or apportion the award between them.       The jury
    awarded Travers $90,000 in back pay, $450,000 in front pay, and
    $400,000 for emotional distress.
    - 4 -
    Following the verdict, FSS renewed its previous motion
    for judgment as a matter of law, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b), and
    also moved in the alternative for a new trial or to amend the
    judgment.    See Fed. R. Civ. P. 59.      The District Court ordered
    Travers to remit all but $50,000 of the emotional-distress damages
    or face a new trial.    And the District Court also eliminated the
    entire front-pay award as unsupported by the evidence.
    Travers then sought, under separate state statutes, to
    have the damages award trebled, to receive attorney's fees and
    costs, and to receive prejudgment interest.      See Mass. Gen. Laws
    ch. 149, § 150; 
    id. ch. 231,
    § 6B.      With respect to trebling, the
    District Court agreed to treble the back-pay award to $270,000,
    but declined to treble the award for emotional distress.          The
    District Court also did not order the prejudgment interest that
    Travers had requested, though the District Court did grant Travers
    attorney's fees in the amount of $176,185 and costs of $7,398.45.
    FSS and Travers timely filed these appeals.1
    1 We discuss the federal and state claims separately only
    insofar as doing so is relevant to our analysis.
    - 5 -
    II.
    FSS raises five distinct arguments in its appeal, and we
    consider each one before turning to Travers's cross-appeal.
    A.
    FSS's primary argument on appeal is that the District
    Court erred in denying FSS's motions for judgment as a matter of
    law because "a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient
    evidentiary basis to find for [Travers]." Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1).
    To win on his retaliation claims at trial, Travers had to show (1)
    that he engaged in conduct that the FLSA and Massachusetts wage
    and tips law protect when he participated in the class action
    against   FSS,   (2)   that   FSS   subjected   Travers   to   an   adverse
    employment action when the company fired him, and (3) that FSS
    fired him because of his protected conduct. See Claudio-Gotay v.
    Becton Dickinson Caribe, Ltd., 
    375 F.3d 99
    , 102 (1st Cir. 2004)
    (describing elements of a claim under 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3)); Smith
    v. Winter Place LLC, 
    851 N.E.2d 417
    , 421 (Mass. 2006) (interpreting
    Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 148A).
    FSS does not dispute that, under both the federal and
    the state statutes on which Travers's individual suit rests,
    Travers engaged in protected conduct or that FSS subjected him to
    an adverse employment action.          The dispute concerns only what
    caused FSS to fire Travers -- his help in organizing the class
    - 6 -
    action or, as the company contends, his solicitation of a tip in
    violation of company policy.
    To resolve this dispute, we need not decide the precise
    standard of causation that a plaintiff must meet to prove unlawful
    retaliation under either the state or federal statutes on which
    Travers's suit rests.      The parties appear to agree, as they did
    when this case came before us on summary judgment, that each
    statute requires the plaintiff to show "but-for" causation to prove
    retaliation.    See 
    Travers, 737 F.3d at 147
    & n.1.
    Thus, our task is straightforward.               Because we are
    reviewing   a   renewed   motion   for   judgment   as   a   matter   of   law
    following a jury verdict, we must view the evidence of causation
    "in the light most favorable to the verdict" and "affirm unless
    the evidence, together with all reasonable inferences in favor of
    the verdict, could lead a reasonable person to only one conclusion,
    namely, that the moving party was entitled to judgment."              Astro-
    Med, Inc. v. Nihon Kohden Am., Inc., 
    591 F.3d 1
    , 13 (1st Cir. 2009)
    (quotation marks and citations omitted).
    FSS argues that it is entitled to judgment as a matter
    of law because the trial record provides too little evidence to
    support a finding of but-for causation if we exclude -- as FSS
    says we must -- one particular piece of testimony that the jury
    heard.   This testimony came from Travers, and it concerned what
    - 7 -
    Travers contends Rob Nichols, a mid-level manager in charge of FSS
    operations at Logan, told him.
    Travers   testified   that    Nichols   told   him   that   FSS's
    owners and senior managers told Nichols that the lawsuit "was
    costing [the company] a lot of money, and that [Nichols] should
    get rid of Travers."   Travers went on to testify that Nichols also
    advised Travers to drop the lawsuit because, otherwise, Travers
    would "probably lose [his] job."
    At trial, the District Court rejected FSS's contention
    that Travers's testimony concerning Nichols should be excluded as
    hearsay.   After the jury returned a verdict for Travers, however,
    the District Court revisited this ruling in connection with FSS's
    motion for judgment as a matter of law.       In doing so, the District
    Court changed its mind and concluded that Travers's testimony
    concerning Nichols should have been struck. But the District Court
    still denied FSS's motion for judgment as a matter of law.2
    2 Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(D), testimony about
    an out-of-court statement by a non-testifying person is not hearsay
    if "[t]he statement is offered against an opposing party" and "was
    made by the party's agent or employee on a matter within the scope
    of that relationship and while it existed." Travers testified on
    direct examination that his conversation with Nichols occurred in
    early summer of 2010. But on cross-examination, when FSS's counsel
    noted that Nichols had been fired by FSS in the spring of 2010
    (and so would not have been employed by FSS in the early summer of
    2010), Travers apologized for mixing up the dates.          Travers
    clarified that the conversation occurred in the spring of 2010
    "right before [Nichols] was terminated."        Although Travers's
    testimony about Nichols was before the jury when it returned its
    verdict, the District Court later concluded that Nichols's
    - 8 -
    FSS now argues that the District Court was right the
    second time that it ruled on whether Travers's testimony concerning
    Nichols should have been struck as hearsay.          And FSS goes on to
    argue that, without that testimony, the record does not permit a
    reasonable jury to conclude that FSS fired Travers because of his
    role in organizing the class action.      See Weisgram v. Marley Co.,
    
    528 U.S. 440
    ,   453-54   (2000)   (discussing    excising   certain
    inadmissible evidence from the record for purposes of reviewing a
    renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law).           Instead, FSS
    argues, the evidence that remains shows only that FSS fired Travers
    because the company believed Travers had solicited a tip from a
    customer.3
    In support of that contention, FSS notes that Susan
    Collier -- the manager who actually fired Travers -- testified
    statement to Travers "was made post-employment" and thus Nichols
    had not been an agent of a party-opponent at the time he made these
    statements. For that reason, the District Court concluded that
    the statements should have been excluded as hearsay.
    3 FSS notes that, in reversing the District Court's earlier
    grant of summary judgment in this case, we relied on the Nichols
    evidence. There, we explained that a reasonable jury might rely
    on the Nichols evidence to conclude that "retaliatory animus
    resided at the apex of the organizational hierarchy" and "spread
    to other managers," including the manager that decided to fire
    Travers. 
    Travers, 737 F.3d at 147
    . But our opinion, even on the
    summary judgment record, did not contend that the Nichols evidence
    was necessary, only that it was sufficient. And, of course we are
    now assessing the denial of the motion for a judgment as a matter
    of law.   Thus, the record before us is different from the one
    presented on summary judgment.     Nothing in our decision here,
    therefore, is at odds with our prior ruling in this litigation.
    - 9 -
    that the company fires a skycap every time a passenger complains
    in writing that, in the passenger's opinion, the skycap tried to
    solicit a tip.     And Collier did also state that "if the passenger
    takes the time to stop and make a written complaint, it happened,"
    and thus that the written complaint the customer filed against
    Travers    here    --   though        the    customer     never    testified    at
    trial -- supplied a foundation for the company's conclusion that
    Travers made the solicitation.
    But although a jury could have believed the reason that
    FSS gave for firing Travers, a jury was not compelled to do so on
    this record.      For while the remaining evidence does not reveal a
    smoking gun proving retaliation -- or even include direct evidence
    of a command from on high to fire Travers to disrupt the class
    action suit -- the remaining evidence is sufficient to support an
    inference of retaliation.         See Speen v. Crown Clothing Corp., 
    102 F.3d 625
    , 635 (1st Cir. 1996) ("[A] plaintiff need not . . .
    produce 'smoking-gun' evidence . . . .                 There are many veins of
    circumstantial evidence that may be mined . . . ."); Wooster v.
    Abdow Corp., 
    709 N.E.2d 71
    , 76 (Mass. App. Ct. 1999) (stating that
    "smoking   gun    evidence    .   .    .    is   not   required"   and   that   the
    "plaintiff's       ultimate       burden         of     persuasion       may    be
    satisfied . . . [by] circumstantial evidence" (quotation marks and
    citation omitted)).
    - 10 -
    To    begin    with,    a     jury    could   disbelieve     Collier's
    testimony about the necessary consequences that follow -- as a
    matter of FSS policy -- from a customer's submission of a written
    complaint about an employee's solicitation of a tip.                       Collier
    herself testified that the determination of whether an employee
    did solicit a tip requires the exercise of judgment.                    As Collier
    put it, you have to look at the "facts and circumstances of every
    case."    And the evidence also indicated that FSS undertakes an
    investigation following a customer complaint before determining
    whether or not tip solicitation actually occurred.
    In addition, testimony from Nabil Agba, a former FSS
    skycap supervisor in Boston, indicated that termination was not
    automatic upon receipt of a complaint and, indeed, could depend on
    factors   unrelated       to   whether     tip    solicitation   had,    in   fact,
    occurred.    Agba testified that "there was not a standard process"
    for who would get fired and who would not following accusations of
    tip solicitation. Instead, Agba testified that the general manager
    in Boston would base his recommendation to Collier on "the employee
    records and the job performance" of the employee and sometimes
    would     "just    chalk-up        the     accusation     to     some    type    of
    miscommunication with the passenger" and not fire the skycap.
    Notably, Agba clarified that managers' attitudes toward employees
    colored the ultimate decision: "From my experience, if they like
    - 11 -
    the person, they try to help them and protect them as much as they
    can."
    Thus, a jury could have reasonably concluded that a
    customer complaint about tip solicitation would not automatically
    lead to the dismissal of the employee who allegedly made the
    solicitation.   Instead, a jury could reasonably have found that
    factors unrelated to whether the solicitation occurred could bear
    on the disciplinary consequences that would follow.    And so long
    as the jury was free to conclude that FSS had the discretion to
    make a judgment whether to fire despite a complaint -- and to make
    that judgment for reasons unrelated to whether the solicitation in
    fact occurred -- the jury was also free to consider whether some
    reason other than the customer complaint tipped the balance, so to
    speak, with regard to the decision to fire Travers.
    Of course, the record must still contain enough evidence
    to support a jury's conclusion that this other reason was the
    company's desire to retaliate for Travers's protected conduct.
    But we conclude that the jury did have before it enough evidence
    to support a reasonable inference in that regard -- even if we
    strike from consideration Travers's testimony that Nichols had
    told him about the instruction from higher officials to fire
    Travers due to his involvement in the class action.   For while the
    remaining testimony was not as directly probative on that point as
    - 12 -
    was the testimony from Travers about what Nichols had supposedly
    said to him, the rest of the evidence was still strong enough.
    In particular, the jury heard testimony from other FSS
    employees -- in management positions -- that indicated that FSS's
    owners and senior managers were very concerned about the skycap
    class action.      Nabil Agba, the former FSS skycap supervisor,
    testified that there was "a lot of talk among FSS managers about
    [the underlying] lawsuit" and that he "always heard [from the FSS
    Boston general manager that] the corporate [leadership] is not
    happy about [the skycaps' class action]."               And Agba further
    testified that FSS's chief executive officer told the local FSS
    Boston manager (who then told Agba) that "we can't afford to lose
    cases because [the CEO] doesn't like it."
    The jury also heard evidence that reasonably linked
    those general concerns within management about the class action to
    concerns   about   Travers's   involvement   in   the   class   action    in
    particular.     For example, the jury had before it evidence that
    Susan Collier, the FSS manager who actually fired Travers, was
    aware of senior management's concerns about the skycaps' lawsuit
    and that she was responsible for addressing those concerns.              Her
    own testimony showed that she was the point person on FSS's defense
    against the lawsuit and that she spoke with FSS's president about
    - 13 -
    the case frequently.4           And Collier agreed that the president was
    increasingly frustrated with the expense of litigation -- expenses
    that she was responsible for minimizing and justifying.
    Moreover,      Collier's    testimony    provided   support   for
    concluding that she knew about Travers's leading role in the
    skycaps' class action at the time she made the decision to fire
    him.        Collier herself testified that she knew when she fired
    Travers that Travers was a plaintiff. And while she denied knowing
    he was the lead plaintiff, the caption for the case for which she
    was the point person was "Travers v. JetBlue and FSS."
    Against this background, Travers's testimony about a
    conversation that he had with an FSS duty manager at Boston Logan
    helps to support a reasonable inference of retaliation.              According
    to Travers, the duty manager, Eqerem Mero, expressly warned Travers
    that his job was in jeopardy because of FSS management's dislike
    of Travers's role in the skycaps' class action by saying: "These
    guys,       they're   rich.      They're    powerful.      They're   dangerous.
    They -- you know, you're going to lose your job over this.                   You
    should get out of the lawsuit."             And Travers also testified that
    Arbin Cote, an FSS assistant manager at Boston Logan, told him
    that he "should stop and get out of the lawsuit."
    4
    Collier even stated in her deposition that she "always"
    spoke with the company president about the case, though she
    quibbled with "always" in her live testimony.
    - 14 -
    This testimony from supervisors and managers about how
    Travers's role in the class action placed his job in jeopardy is
    especially significant given Travers's testimony about a curious
    exchange that he had with the Boston manager who recommended that
    Collier fire Travers after that manager had been assigned to
    investigate    the   complaint    that      Travers   had   solicited    a    tip.
    Travers testified that, during the tip-solicitation investigation,
    he asked that manager, Lisa Varotsis, when he could get back to
    work and that she replied, "You know why this is happening."
    Travers further testified that he then asked that manager if the
    investigation was happening because of his role in the skycaps'
    class action, and Varotsis replied, "I can't talk about it," and
    walked away.
    Thus,      on   Travers's    account,     when    he   confronted   the
    person responsible in the first instance for deciding whether he
    had solicited the tip, she seemingly declined to confirm in the
    straightforward      way    one   might        otherwise    expect    that     the
    tip-solicitation      complaint       was   the    actual    reason     for    the
    investigation into that complaint.             And, indicating that she was
    barred from doing so, she refused to comment on whether the real
    reason for the investigation was his role in the class action.
    See Gómez-González v. Rural Opportunities, Inc., 
    626 F.3d 654
    ,
    662-63 (1st Cir. 2010) ("Pretext can be shown by such weaknesses,
    implausibilities,          inconsistencies,           incoherencies,            or
    - 15 -
    contradictions in the employer's proffered legitimate reasons for
    its action that a reasonable factfinder could rationally find them
    unworthy of credence and hence infer that the employer did not act
    for the asserted non-discriminatory reasons." (quoting Morgan v.
    Hilti, Inc., 
    108 F.3d 1319
    , 1323 (10th Cir. 1997))); City of Salem
    v. Mass. Comm'n Against Discrimination, 
    693 N.E.2d 1026
    , 1038
    (Mass. App. Ct. 1998) (same), overruled on other grounds by
    Trustees of Health & Hosps. of Boston, Inc. v. Mass. Comm'n Against
    Discrimination, 
    839 N.E.2d 861
    (Mass. App. Ct. 2005).
    Finally, and also supporting Travers's account, Nabil
    Agba testified that he overheard the Boston general manager of FSS
    saying -- after Travers had been fired -- that "[t]he plan [to
    defend against the class action] was to get more [plaintiffs] to
    drop out of the case," and, "after a few months, people started
    dropping out."    Agba also testified that the general manager spoke
    with skycaps one by one about the class action and that skycaps
    started dropping out of the case just a few months after Travers
    was fired.
    There are potentially innocent interpretations of each
    of the facts related by these witnesses, even assuming their
    testimony should be credited.        The lower-level managers' warnings
    about what would happen to Travers if he stayed involved in the
    class   action   litigation,   for    example,   could   be   dismissed   as
    speculative predictions about what might happen rather than solid
    - 16 -
    assessments about management's intentions derived from comments
    made by higher-ups within FSS.         Similarly, Varotsis's comment that
    Travers "kn[e]w why this is happening" could have been a reference
    to the customer's accusation of tip solicitation and nothing more,
    while her statement that she could not talk about the reason for
    the investigation might have been unrelated to a direction from
    above and not motivated by a desire to cover up an impermissible
    purpose.    And Agba's statements about management's plan to get the
    class action plaintiffs to drop out -- even if true -- do not
    expressly   allege    that   that    plan    involved     an   effort    to    fire
    employees on trumped-up grounds.
    But while the jury did not have to find for Travers on
    the basis of this evidence, the jury did find for him.                   And for
    purposes of this appeal, that is decisive.                Whatever holes one
    might poke in the evidence that favored Travers's version of
    events, that evidence considered as a whole was not so deficient
    that no reasonable jury could have relied on it in finding for
    Travers.    Rather, the jury could reasonably have concluded that
    the evident concerns within FSS about the class action suit in
    general, and Travers's role in that litigation in particular, made
    plausible the direct warnings that Travers says that he received
    from supervisors and managers that he would be fired for his
    involvement.         And   Travers's     testimony      about     the    company
    investigator's    seemingly    odd     reluctance    to    confirm      that    the
    - 17 -
    tip-solicitation       complaint     was      the    reason     for    the
    investigation -- reflected in her comment, "I can't talk about
    it" -- lends additional credence to that interpretation of the
    evidence.     So, too, does the FSS manager's testimony about the
    plan to get skycaps to drop out of the class action in the wake of
    Travers's firing.      See Trainor v. HEI Hospitality, LLC, 
    699 F.3d 19
    , 29 (1st Cir. 2012) (affirming denial of motion for judgment as
    a matter of law in a retaliatory termination case under the Age
    Discrimination in Employment Act "[b]ecause the record supports
    conflicting versions of the truth, [so] it became the jury's
    function -- not the court's -- to choose between these versions");
    cf. Hodgens v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 
    144 F.3d 151
    , 171 (1st Cir.
    1998) ("Statements by supervisors carrying the inference that the
    supervisor harbored animus against protected classes of people or
    conduct     are   clearly   probative   of    pretext"   and   retaliatory
    termination "even if that inference is not the only one that could
    be drawn from the comment." (emphasis added) (citations omitted)).
    In light of this evidence, we need not decide whether
    the tip-solicitation complaint was in fact well founded -- a point
    that Travers vigorously contests.           It is enough to observe that
    the jury could decide for itself, and reasonably so, that FSS had
    discretion at the time it chose to fire Travers, notwithstanding
    the tip-solicitation complaint, and that FSS chose to exercise
    that discretion adversely to Travers because of his role in the
    - 18 -
    class action and then relied on the tip-solicitation explanation
    as a pretextual cover.5   We thus have no basis on this record to
    second-guess the District Court's decision that the jury should
    not be second-guessed. Accordingly, we affirm the District Court's
    decision to deny the motions for judgment as a matter of law.
    B.
    Even if the evidence sufficiently supports the verdict
    without Travers's testimony concerning Nichols, FSS argues, the
    District Court still erred by denying the company's motion for a
    new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(a)(1)(A).    FSS
    identifies the error that requires a new trial as the District
    Court's decision to admit Travers's testimony that Nichols had
    told him about the retaliatory threat from FSS's chief executive
    officer.   FSS contends that the verdict must be thrown out because
    5 For this reason, we need not dive deeply into what the
    evidence shows about how other skycaps who had been accused of tip
    solicitation were disciplined by FSS in the past.      The parties
    sharply dispute whether Travers was treated just like these other
    employees.   But whatever the record shows about the handful of
    cases that are the focus of the parties' dispute on that score,
    the record shows that there was conflicting testimony about whether
    the company had discretion to fire (or not) an employee who had
    solicited a tip. One witness testified that the company had such
    discretion and exercised it based on whether the company "like[d]"
    the employee. That testimony and the other testimony regarding
    FSS's discretion, in our view, provides a basis for a jury to
    conclude that FSS had discretion about whether to fire Travers,
    even if he had engaged in the same kind of tip solicitation that
    resulted in the firing of other employees. For that reason, the
    key issue concerns whether the record reasonably supports a finding
    that the company exercised this discretion in Travers's case due
    to his role in the class action.
    - 19 -
    Travers's testimony about Nichols was inadmissible hearsay that
    was so highly prejudicial that it irrevocably tainted the jury's
    verdict, even if the remaining evidence (standing on its own and
    thus untainted by what the jury heard about Nichols's conversation
    with Travers) could have been enough to sustain the verdict against
    a motion for judgment as a matter of law.
    But FSS failed to present this argument about prejudice
    in the motion for a new trial that FSS filed in the District Court,
    as that motion relied on distinct grounds.    See Docket Entry No.
    152, at 16-21.6   And even if we were to look past FSS's failure to
    raise this argument until now, see Sampson v. Eaton Corp., 
    809 F.2d 156
    , 161 (1st Cir. 1987) (concluding that an evidentiary
    issue, as a "discretionary matter . . . peculiarly appropriate"
    for resolution in the district court, is waived when not raised in
    a new-trial motion, and declining to review it further on appeal),
    we would review this unpreserved claim only for plain error.
    6  FSS did argue below that the Nichols testimony was
    improperly admitted into evidence and was prejudicial, but FSS did
    so only in connection with its motion for judgment as a matter of
    law, in which FSS argued that the absence of Travers's testimony
    about Nichols left a fatal hole in Travers's proof of retaliatory
    animus.   See Docket Entry No. 152, at 12-16.      FSS offered no
    argument below as to why erroneous admission of the Nichols
    testimony tainted the jury such that a new trial was required even
    if the evidence remaining was otherwise sufficient to support the
    verdict. Instead, FSS's argument for a new trial rested on other
    ways in which FSS contends the jury was exposed to material it
    should not have been.
    - 20 -
    But       FSS    raised     this     new-trial     argument      only     by
    referencing it in a single sentence in the summary of argument,
    and in another lone sentence in the argument section that is
    accompanied     by    a    citation   to   a    single    case   that     involved   a
    preserved evidentiary argument and so did not involve plain-error
    review.    FSS thus makes no argument on appeal for why we should
    conclude the District Court's error here (if indeed there was
    error) was clear and obvious, prejudicial, and resulted in a
    miscarriage of justice, as we would have to conclude to reverse
    under the plain-error standard.               See Chestnut v. City of Lowell,
    
    305 F.3d 18
    , 20 (1st Cir. 2002) (en banc) (per curiam) (applying
    plain-error review to unpreserved claim of error in a civil case);
    United States v. Zannino, 
    895 F.2d 1
    , 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues
    adverted to in a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort
    at developed argumentation, are deemed waived.").
    True, the District Court did conclude after the trial
    that it had erred in allowing the jury to hear the testimony from
    Travers about what Nichols told him.                  But the question on plain-
    error review is not whether the District Court was right to find
    that its first pass on the hearsay issue was mistaken.                             The
    question   is    whether     the     decision    to    deny   the   new   trial    was
    obviously wrong -- a standard that would not seem to be met in a
    case involving an evidentiary judgment call about the testimony
    concerning Nichols that was at least a close one.                           And even
    - 21 -
    assuming the initial evidentiary ruling was plainly wrong, there
    still would remain on plain-error review the question whether the
    decision to deny a new trial resulted in a miscarriage of justice,
    given all of the other testimony that the jury could have relied
    on to support Travers's claim of unlawful retaliation.
    In the absence of any focused arguments by FSS as to why
    the error was obvious or the harm so great as to cause a miscarriage
    of justice, we decline to conclude that the company's unpreserved
    challenge to the District Court's denial of the motion for a new
    trial should succeed.       See Wells Real Estate, Inc. v. Greater
    Lowell   Bd.   of   Realtors,   
    850 F.2d 803
    ,   811   (1st   Cir.   1988)
    ("Where . . . the district court's ruling would call into play a
    discretionary matter, peculiarly appropriate for that court, it
    becomes more important to bring the error first to that court's
    attention." (quoting 
    Sampson, 809 F.2d at 161
    )); see also 
    Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17
    .      We thus affirm the decision to deny the motion
    for new trial.
    C.
    FSS next challenges the jury's award of back pay, which,
    after the District Court trebled it, totaled $270,000.            See Mass.
    Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 150.        FSS raises three distinct arguments,
    each of which relies on Travers's testimony that he under-reported
    his tips to FSS.     We reject each argument.
    - 22 -
    FSS first argues that we must reduce or eliminate the
    award because Travers has unclean hands due to his under-reporting
    of tip income to FSS.   The District Court rejected this argument,
    concluding that "it is troubling that there may have been . . . a
    whiff of suspected tax fraud . . . but . . . this was not a tax
    case and it is not my job to prosecute people for potential tax
    violations."   We review this decision to withhold an equitable
    defense for abuse of discretion, Murphy v. Timberlane Reg'l Sch.
    Dist., 
    22 F.3d 1186
    , 1189 (1st Cir. 1994), and we find none here.
    "The doctrine of unclean hands only applies when the
    claimant's misconduct is directly related to the merits of the
    controversy between the parties, that is, when the tawdry acts in
    some measure affect the equitable relations between the parties in
    respect of something brought before the court for adjudication."
    Texaco Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Dep't of Consumer Affairs, 
    60 F.3d 867
    , 880 (1st Cir. 1995) (quotation marks and citation omitted);
    see also N.Y., N.H. & H.R. Co. v. Pierce Coach Lines, 
    183 N.E. 836
    , 837 (Mass. 1933) ("[E]quity will not interfere in behalf of
    one who is guilty of illegal or inequitable conduct in the matter
    with regard to which he seeks its action . . . .").   FSS cites no
    evidence, however, indicating that Travers's under-reporting of
    tips affected his equitable relationship with FSS in the context
    of this retaliation case, and not just his relationship with the
    government in the context of a potential tax complication.     Cf.
    - 23 -
    Atl. Limousine, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 
    243 F.3d 711
    , 715-18 (3d Cir.
    2001) (rejecting argument that the National Labor Relations Board
    must base its back-pay determination on the tips employees reported
    on income tax returns and not the higher amount of tips claimed in
    testimony because the harm of discrimination and the harm of tax
    avoidance are distinct and can each be remedied in separate
    procedures).7    And,   even   assuming    Travers   did   harm   FSS   by
    under-reporting his tips, FSS does not cite evidence indicating
    the magnitude or nature of that harm.       Accordingly, we decline to
    disturb the District Court's weighing of the equities.            We thus
    conclude the District Court acted well within its discretion in
    rejecting the unclean-hands argument.
    FSS next argues that the back-pay damages should be
    eliminated under the "after-acquired evidence doctrine," which we
    have described as cutting off damages "at the time that the
    defendant discovers evidence that would have led it to fire the
    plaintiff on legitimate grounds."         Johnson v. Spencer Press of
    7 FSS cites Hubert v. Consolidated Medical Laboratories, 
    716 N.E.2d 329
    (Ill. App. Ct. 1999), for the proposition that the
    unclean-hands defense should prevent Travers from recovering back
    pay here. But in Hubert, the plaintiff had engaged in wrongdoing
    that was the basis for her claim of having engaged in protected
    conduct for which, in retaliation, her employer allegedly fired
    her. 
    Id. at 335.
    The court declined to allow the plaintiff to
    recover "from the defendants based on circumstances directly
    arising from her own misconduct." 
    Id. But Travers's
    participation
    in the class action, and not his under-reporting of tips to FSS,
    is the protected conduct for which a jury held FSS retaliated.
    Thus, his wrongdoing is not the basis for FSS's liability.
    - 24 -
    Maine, Inc., 
    364 F.3d 368
    , 382 n.14 (1st Cir. 2004) (emphasis
    added); see also City of Springfield v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 
    14 N.E.3d 241
    , 249 n.14 (Mass. 2014) (describing the same doctrine in
    state law).      But FSS's tip-reporting policy stated only that
    failure to file a tip-reporting sheet each pay period "may" lead
    to termination.    There was no evidence in the record that a skycap
    had been terminated for failure to report tips, much less any
    evidence indicating that Travers's infractions would have led to
    termination.     We thus conclude that the District Court did not
    abuse its discretion in withholding this equitable remedy.      See
    
    Murphy, 22 F.3d at 1189
    (reviewing withholding of equitable defense
    for abuse of discretion); see also McKennon v. Nashville Banner
    Pub. Co., 
    513 U.S. 352
    , 360 (1995) (after-acquired evidence is an
    equitable doctrine).
    Finally, FSS argues that the back-pay award of $90,000
    is unsupported by the evidence if we credit the amount of tips
    Travers reported to FSS -- sometimes just $40 a day -- rather than
    the much higher amounts of $200 to $250 a day that he testified to
    receiving.     But FSS cites no authority for its assertion that a
    jury, in making the loss calculation, could not rely on Travers's
    testimony about what he had lost and that a jury was required
    instead to rely only on what Travers reported in terms of tip
    income.   Thus, because evidence that the jury was entitled to
    credit supported the back-pay award -- as the jury could have found
    - 25 -
    that Travers did not report the full extent of his tip income -- we
    see no basis for reversal.          See Dopp v. Pritzker, 
    38 F.3d 1239
    ,
    1249 (1st Cir. 1994) ("[A] reviewing court will not tinker with
    the jury's assessment of money damages [even for economic harms]
    as   long   as   it   does   not   fall    outside   the   broad   universe    of
    theoretically possible awards that can be said to be supported by
    the evidence."); Beaupre v. Cliff Smith & Associates, 
    738 N.E.2d 753
    , 768 (Mass. App. Ct. 2000) (upholding back-pay award as
    supported by sufficient evidence where the award was supported by
    plaintiff testimony about difference in earnings at old job and
    new job and time elapsed since termination); cf. Atl. 
    Limousine, 243 F.3d at 715-17
    (concluding that the National Labor Relations
    Board is not bound by under-reported tip amount in calculating
    lost tip income).
    D.
    FSS contests the amount of damages ordered for emotional
    distress as well.        The jury awarded $400,000, but the District
    Court then ordered remittitur to $50,000 or a new trial, and
    Travers accepted the remittitur and thus the $50,000 amount.                  FSS
    argues, however, that we must knock down this award still lower to
    $10,000.
    Our review of the award that the District Court chose in
    ordering remittitur is highly deferential. In reviewing a district
    court's denial of a motion to set aside a verdict as excessive, we
    - 26 -
    reverse only for an abuse of discretion.              Gasperini v. Ctr. for
    Humanities, Inc., 
    518 U.S. 415
    , 435 (1996); Browning-Ferris Indus.
    of Vermont, Inc. v. Kelco Disposal, Inc., 
    492 U.S. 257
    , 279 (1989).
    "Translating    legal     damage    into     money   damages   is     a     matter
    'peculiarly within a jury's ken,' especially in cases involving
    intangible, non-economic losses," and "[w]e will find an abuse of
    discretion    only   if   the   jury's     verdict   exceeds   'any       rational
    appraisal or estimate of the damages that could be based on the
    evidence before the jury.'"        Trull v. Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 
    320 F.3d 1
    , 9 (1st Cir. 2002) (quoting Smith v. Kmart Corp., 
    177 F.3d 19
    , 29–30 (1st Cir. 1999)).
    And where, as here, the defendant seeks to prune the
    jury award further after "the trial court already has invoked its
    discretion in granting a remittitur, the scope of review is even
    narrower than usual."        Sanchez v. Puerto Rico Oil Co., 
    37 F.3d 712
    , 724 (1st Cir. 1994) (original alterations omitted) (quoting
    Ruiz v. Gonzalez Caraballo, 
    929 F.2d 31
    , 34 (1st Cir. 1991)).
    "Once a verdict has been trimmed and reshaped at the hands of the
    trial judge, an assault on the remaining amount calls upon the
    court of appeals not merely to grade the essay, but to grade the
    teacher's    grading    of   the   essay."     
    Id. (original alterations
    omitted) (quoting 
    Ruiz, 929 F.2d at 34
    ).             With that in mind, when
    we review an accepted order of remittitur for excessiveness,
    "[f]urther relief is not warranted unless the award, as remitted,
    - 27 -
    remains 'so extravagant as to shock the appellate conscience.'"
    Trainor v. HEI Hospitality, LLC, 
    699 F.3d 19
    , 32 (1st Cir. 2012)
    (applying this standard of review to both state and federal
    claims).
    In contending that the evidence did not support even the
    reduced     emotional-distress       damages   award,   FSS   relies       on   the
    Massachusetts     standard     for    emotional-distress         awards.        See
    Stonehill College v. Mass. Comm'n Against Discrimination, 
    808 N.E.2d 205
    , 225 (Mass. 2004) (stating that emotional-distress
    awards "should be fair and reasonable, and proportionate to the
    distress suffered" and identifying relevant factors in fashioning
    an award such as "(1) the nature and character of the alleged harm;
    (2)   the   severity   of    the   harm;   (3)   the    length    of   time     the
    complainant has suffered and reasonably expects to suffer; and (4)
    whether the complainant has attempted to mitigate the harm").                   And
    in arguing that further remittitur is required under this standard,
    FSS relies on Franceschi v. Hospital General San Carlos, Inc., 
    420 F.3d 1
    , 5 (1st Cir. 2005).
    But Franceschi held only that a district court did not
    abuse its discretion when it ordered remittitur of emotional-
    distress damages from $200,000 to $10,000 in a garden-variety
    commercial dispute.         Franceschi says nothing about whether a
    district court abuses its discretion in ordering remittitur down
    to $50,000, but not less, in a case of this sort.
    - 28 -
    Here, there was testimony about the emotional impact on
    Travers of FSS's firing him for his efforts to recover in court
    for other alleged wrongs of FSS.     Specifically, Travers testified
    that when he was eventually fired "[i]t hurt a lot" because he
    "loved that job," and that he "put in a lot of time" and "prided
    [him]self in . . . working there, and for so long, too."                He
    further testified that, despite his lack of education and low-
    income   upbringing,   this   job   allowed   him    to   "support   [his]
    kids" -- and that when he lost the job "it was embarrassing" and
    "hard to explain" to people, such as his sick mother.8
    Thus, Travers testified that, after the firing, he was
    "depressed," "didn't want to take [his] son out" or "do any of the
    things [he] usually did," and "didn't want to get up in the morning
    some days."   He also testified that the stress of trying to pick
    up more shifts at other jobs "was a little bit hard[] on [his]
    family life," and that it especially led to more fights with his
    girlfriend.     And,   according    to   Travers's    girlfriend,    this
    8 Travers did testify that his mother had Alzheimer's and that
    he was taking care of her during this time. FSS argues this shows
    Travers's depression was caused by circumstances independent of
    his termination.      But the testimony does not compel that
    conclusion.    The testimony would support a reasonable jury's
    conclusion that Travers's depression resulted primarily from being
    fired.   Most of the testimony about the manifestations of his
    depression concerned the effect losing his job had on him.
    - 29 -
    depressed mood persisted for "a couple of months, three, four,
    five months."9
    As a result of this testimony, Franceschi provides no
    basis for finding error in this case.      Nor does the other case on
    which FSS places great weight, DeRoche v. Massachusetts Commission
    Against Discrimination, 
    848 N.E.2d 1197
    , 1203 (Mass. 2006). There,
    the Supreme Judicial Court found the evidence to be insufficient
    to support a $50,000 award for emotional distress. But the Supreme
    Judicial Court explained in DeRoche that the plaintiff in that
    case had not introduced evidence linking his emotional distress to
    the retaliatory act and that "[t]here was no testimony . . . the
    plaintiff was compelled to curtail his life activities in any way
    due to stress from the . . . retaliatory action."        
    Id. Here, by
    contrast, Travers did testify that his emotional distress stemmed
    from the retaliatory firing.      Travers and his girlfriend also
    testified about the impact his emotional distress had on his family
    and   daily   activities,   including    his   relationship    with   his
    girlfriend and his child and his ability to get out of bed.
    9 Travers's girlfriend also testified that Travers's
    termination "impact[ed] him very dramatically": he used to "like[]
    to do things with [his family]," but after his termination
    "everything change[d]." He "didn't enjoy nothing with [the family]
    anymore" and became "nasty" such that she had to "shut the door
    and leave him alone." And, the girlfriend testified, Travers went
    from always playing with his son after work to not wanting to even
    get out of bed.
    - 30 -
    In sum, FSS cites no precedent that leads us to conclude
    that the District Court abused its discretion by knocking the award
    down only as far as it did, and not still further.             And while the
    evidence of emotional distress was not particularly strong in this
    case,10 it was not so lacking that the reduced award of $50,000
    shocks the appellate conscience.               See 
    Trainor, 699 F.3d at 32
    .
    Accordingly, we affirm the emotional-distress damages award set
    forth in the order of remittitur and accepted by Travers.
    E.
    The last of FSS's challenges concerns the District Court
    order        that   granted   Travers   $176,185   in   attorney's   fees   and
    $7,398.45 in costs.           See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 150.           FSS
    argues for a fee reduction because Travers's attorney allegedly
    engaged in misconduct during the trial.
    FSS rightly observes that "[i]t is well settled in this
    circuit that the district court has the duty and responsibility to
    supervise the conduct of attorneys who appear before it, and
    10
    FSS supports its argument for further remittitur by noting
    that Travers presented no expert testimony regarding his emotional
    distress. But "expert testimony . . . is useful but not essential
    to support an award of emotional distress damages." Boston Pub.
    Health Comm'n v. Mass. Comm'n Against Discrimination, 
    854 N.E.2d 111
    , 117 (Mass. App. Ct. 2006); see also Molloy v. Blanchard, 
    115 F.3d 86
    , 93 (1st Cir. 1997) (concluding, for federal claim, that
    expert testimony on emotional distress is not required where lay
    testimony is "within the common knowledge and experience of the
    layperson"). And here the lack of expert testimony does not lead
    us to conclude the District Court abused its discretion in
    declining to order further remittitur.
    - 31 -
    that . . . [d]enial of attorneys' fees may be a proper sanction"
    for attorney misconduct.    Culebras Enters. Corp. v. Rivera-Rios,
    
    846 F.2d 94
    , 97 (1st Cir. 1988); see also Wong v. Luu, 
    34 N.E.3d 35
    , 45 (Mass. 2015) (holding that "[t]he inherent powers necessary
    to preserve the court's authority to accomplish justice include
    the power to sanction an attorney" for misconduct by assessing
    fees).     But we review "the district court's [attorney conduct]
    supervisory rulings under an 'abuse of discretion' standard" when
    determining whether fees should be offset for attorney misconduct,
    Culebras Enters. 
    Corp., 846 F.2d at 97
    ; see also 
    Wong, 34 N.E.3d at 46
    , and we conclude that, under this deferential standard, the
    District Court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that
    there was no attorney misconduct that required a reduction of the
    attorney's fees award.
    The first of the three alleged examples of attorney
    misconduct that FSS identifies as a basis for reducing the award
    on appeal concerns the closing arguments by Travers's counsel.
    FSS contends she inappropriately argued that the jury should draw
    a negative inference from FSS's failure to locate or subpoena the
    woman who complained that Travers solicited a tip from her.    But
    the District Court characterized these statements as typical over-
    zealousness -- not bad-faith acts.     And we can see no reason to
    conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in so
    finding.
    - 32 -
    FSS also points to Travers's testimony about Nichols in
    seeking to reduce the award.     FSS contends that Travers's counsel
    knew the testimony was inadmissible but sought to admit it anyway.
    But the District Court disagreed, and we do not think the District
    Court abused its discretion in so deciding.          In fact, the District
    Court itself appeared to view the evidentiary issue as close, as
    it initially declined to strike the testimony before then reaching
    the opposite conclusion after trial.
    Finally, FSS points to one aspect of Travers's counsel's
    line   of   questioning   of   Nabil   Agba,   the    former   FSS   skycap
    supervisor. Travers's counsel asked Agba whether he had ever heard
    that Lisa Varotsis, the general manager in Boston, was considering
    giving Travers his job back.       FSS argues that Travers's counsel
    was thus suggesting to the jury that FSS had made a settlement
    offer, even though Federal Rule of Evidence 408(a) restricts the
    admission of settlement offers.         But while the District Court
    struck certain parts of the testimony Agba provided in response to
    this line of questioning, the District Court also ruled that Rule
    408(a) was beside the point.     The District Court found that there
    was no evidence that Varotsis ever sent or saw a settlement offer,
    and thus no ground for concluding that the counsel was seeking to
    do an end run around the rule by asking the questions she did.
    FSS points to nothing that shows the District Court abused its
    - 33 -
    discretion in so finding and thus to nothing that shows counsel
    did engage in misconduct in seeking to admit the testimony.
    For   these   reasons,    we    affirm   the   District   Court's
    decision not to reduce or eliminate the attorney's fee award for
    alleged attorney misconduct.11
    III.
    We now turn to Travers's cross-appeal.         Travers presents
    three challenges to the District Court's handling of the case.           He
    argues that the District Court erred first in entirely eliminating
    and not trebling front-pay damages, next in failing to treble the
    $50,000   emotional-distress       award,    and   finally    in    denying
    prejudgment interest.    But before taking up each contention, we
    note that FSS argues that we may not review any of them.            And that
    is because FSS contends that Travers accepted the District Court's
    offer of remittitur in order to avoid a new trial.
    In making this threshold argument, FSS points to the
    Supreme Court's opinion in Donovan v. Penn Shipping Co., Inc., 
    429 U.S. 648
    , 649 (1977), which held that "a plaintiff cannot appeal
    the propriety of a remittitur order to which he has agreed."            But
    11FSS also argues the fees and costs award should be reduced
    to zero because Travers under-reported his tips to FSS during his
    employment. But we agree with the District Court, which concluded
    that "[w]hile Travers may have created future complications for
    himself with the Internal Revenue Service . . . , there is no
    authority that I am aware of (and none is cited) that would punish
    the lawyer for the tax defalcations of her client in a case that
    had nothing to do with tax issues . . . ."
    - 34 -
    as   we     will   explain    in    the   course       of   addressing    Travers's
    challenges, each one may be resolved either independently of, or
    notwithstanding the application of, the Donovan rule.
    A.
    Travers argues first that the District Court abused its
    discretion when it ruled that the jury's $450,000 front-pay award
    was "based wholly on speculation" and thus must be rejected in its
    entirety. Before addressing the merits of that contention, though,
    we   must    address   FSS's   argument        that    Travers's   acceptance        of
    remittitur stands in the way.
    The reason that FSS is wrong on this point is simple.
    Remittitur must be accepted in order to be effective.                    See Mejias-
    Quiros v. Maxxam Prop. Corp., 
    108 F.3d 425
    , 429 (1st Cir. 1997)
    (remanding "for a new trial on medical costs unless Mejías accepts
    a remittitur"). But the record reveals that Travers never accepted
    the elimination of the front-pay award and that the District Court
    then separately rejected the front-pay award as a matter of law
    because it was too speculative.
    Specifically,    in    addressing        FSS's   motion    for    a   new
    trial, the District Court did rule that it would grant the motion
    if the "plaintiff reject[s] a remittitur of damages." The District
    Court then listed, alongside a reduction in emotional-distress
    damages, the complete elimination of front-pay damages.                        Travers
    responded by accepting remittitur.                    But in doing so, Travers
    - 35 -
    clearly accepted the reduction of the emotional-distress damages
    but characterized the elimination of front pay as a partial
    judgment as a matter of law that Travers expressly neither accepted
    nor rejected.       See Docket Entry No. 174. Then, in the course of
    denying   FSS's     motion       for   reconsideration,         the     District    Court
    announced   that     it    stood       by   "its    decision       to   eliminate     the
    front[-]pay award of $450,000 altogether and to order a remittitur
    of the $400,000 award of emotional-distress damages to $50,000
    (which plaintiff has accepted)."                   Docket Entry No. 184 at n.1.
    The District Court thus apparently acknowledged that Travers had
    accepted remittitur as to the emotional-distress damages alone and
    that the court was entering a separate judgment rejecting the
    front-pay award as a matter of law.
    Against       this    background,        we    construe      the   District
    Court's elimination of front-pay damages as a partial judgment as
    a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50.                          See de
    Jesus v. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, 
    918 F.2d 232
    , 235 (1st Cir.
    1990)   ("If   the    court       believed       that     the   jury's    verdict     was
    unsupported    by    the    evidence,       it     could    have    granted    judgment
    notwithstanding the verdict to defendant.                   If it believed that the
    verdict was supportable, but that the jury's award of damages was
    grossly excessive, it could have fixed a remittitur amount."); see
    also Hill v. Marshall, 
    962 F.2d 1209
    , 1217 (6th Cir. 1992).                           And
    we review a grant of judgment as a matter of law de novo and affirm
    - 36 -
    only if, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the
    non-moving party, no reasonable jury would conclude that there
    could be a front-pay award in this case.               See Irvine v. Murad Skin
    Research Labs., Inc., 
    194 F.3d 313
    , 316 (1st Cir. 1999) (discussing
    the Rule 50 standard).
    Under both state and federal law, front-pay awards, like
    all damages awards, "may not be determined by speculation or guess,
    must be causally related to the defendant's wrongdoing, and . . .
    should not . . . ma[k]e [the plaintiff] more than whole."                     Conway
    v.    Electro     Switch       Corp.,   
    523 N.E.2d 255
    ,   257    (Mass.     1988)
    (citations omitted); see also Powers v. Grinnell Corp., 
    915 F.2d 34
    ,   43   (1st    Cir.    1990)    (front-pay      award   should   not   be    "too
    speculative").          Still, some level of uncertainty regarding the
    future is inevitable and so "[m]ere uncertainty" does not bar
    front-pay damages.         
    Conway, 523 N.E.2d at 257
    ; see also Trainor v.
    HEI Hospitality, LLC, 
    699 F.3d 19
    , 31 (1st Cir. 2012) (observing
    that "crafting a front pay award necessarily entails some degree
    of [permissible] speculation").               Finally, front-pay damages, as an
    award for future damages, "must be reduced to present value" to
    account for the difference in the value of money in the future and
    the value of money today.           
    Conway, 523 N.E.2d at 257
    n.3; see also
    Scarfo v. Cabletron Sys., Inc., 
    54 F.3d 931
    , 961 (1st Cir. 1995)
    (noting that "in calculating damages for front pay, [an expert]
    correctly       chose     to     discount     the   amounts   representing        the
    - 37 -
    plaintiffs' future wages at an appropriate interest rate in order
    to determine the present value of the future stream of income to
    which each plaintiff would have been entitled").
    Travers defends the $450,000 jury award by multiplying
    twenty years of future employment12 by $25,000 in lost tips per
    year13 and then subtracting $50,000 to discount those lost future
    12 Travers arrives at this twenty-year figure apparently on
    the basis of his testimony that, if he had not been fired, he
    planned on staying "[a]nother 20 years. You know, skycaps work
    for 20, 30, 40 years at the curb. I don't see me leaving. It was
    a good job," and on the testimony of other skycaps who testified
    they had been skycaps for years, including one who testified that
    he had been a skycap for twenty-nine years by the time of trial.
    13 Travers bases this number on his testimony that he took a
    new skycap job, after being fired by FSS. He testified that that
    job resulted in about $100 less in tips per shift and two fewer
    shifts per week, for a loss of at least $500 per week over a fifty-
    week work year. And the District Court accepted that Travers had
    estimated in his testimony that he would lose about $25,000 per
    year as a result of being fired.
    We note that Travers also testified that he was able to
    somewhat increase his hours and hourly wage at yet another job
    after being fired by FSS.     The increase in hours, however, was
    only temporary, and at the time of trial Travers testified that he
    was working within the same range of hours per week (18 to 20) on
    this other job as he was before being fired (15 to 20), with a
    modest increase in his hourly rate (from $17 to $20.75).         In
    defending against Travers's cross-appeal on the front-pay issue,
    FSS does not argue that Travers's slightly increased earnings from
    this other job undermine the estimation of $25,000 in losses per
    year or contribute to the speculative nature of the original front-
    pay award. And, in any event, we note that a calculation using
    Travers's highest estimation of his hours per week at this job
    before being fired (20) and his lowest estimation of his hours per
    week at the same job after FSS fired him (18), even after
    accounting for the increase in hourly wages, shows only a modest
    impact of $1,675 on his yearly earnings, assuming a fifty-week
    work year. Given that Travers's loss estimation of $25,000 per
    year was based on the lower end of the tips per day that Travers
    estimated earning and did not include his $2.63 hourly wage, we
    - 38 -
    earnings to present value.           We agree with the District Court that
    awarding the full projected loss for the full twenty-year term
    Travers asserted he wanted to work would go beyond acceptable
    uncertainty and constitute unsupported speculation.
    The Supreme Judicial Court has upheld larger awards of
    front pay over similarly long time horizons, but it has done so in
    cases involving considerably more detail about the likelihood of
    future earnings than was established here.                See, e.g., Haddad v.
    Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 
    914 N.E.2d 59
    , 69-72 (Mass. 2009) (upholding
    $733,307 award for nineteen years of front pay, where expert
    testified    about       wage   difference     between    old     and   new   jobs,
    difficulty finding a new job with a similar salary to the old job,
    likely    tenure    at    employer    based     on    excellent    work    reviews,
    remaining    time    until      retirement,     and     present-value     discount
    calculations); see also Kelley v. Airborne Freight Corp., 
    140 F.3d 335
    , 355-56 (1st Cir. 1998) (upholding under Massachusetts law a
    $1 million, fourteen-year front-pay award, a "hotly contested
    issue at trial," based on plaintiff's assertion he would work until
    sixty-five, the six-year proximity to his being fully vested in
    pension   plan,     and    expert    evidence    from    both   sides     regarding
    difficulty finding a better job).                In fact, Travers does not
    conclude that (at least absent any argument to the contrary)
    whatever impact Travers's increased earnings at his second job had
    does not affect our analysis here.
    - 39 -
    identify a single Massachusetts case that supports upholding a
    $450,000 award over a twenty-year time horizon based only on the
    plaintiff's testimony that he desired to work another twenty years,
    that others in that position at the company had similarly long
    tenures, and his testimony about current lost income.             Travers
    cites Weber v. Community Teamwork, Inc., 
    752 N.E.2d 700
    (Mass.
    2001), as an example of the Supreme Judicial Court upholding a
    large front-pay award based on a fifteen-year period of assumed
    continued employment.       But there, the court expressly reserved
    judgment on the sufficiency of the evidence underlying that award.
    
    Id. at 718.
       Accordingly, we agree with the District Court that
    the $450,000 front-pay award was too speculative to stand.14
    But the District Court did not merely reject a $450,000
    front-pay   award.    The    District     Court   ordered   the   complete
    elimination of front-pay damages, notwithstanding the evidence of
    the losses Travers testified that he would sustain going forward
    and notwithstanding his testimony that he had intended to stay in
    14 Travers cites both federal and state cases for the general
    standard of how speculative a jury award may be before being struck
    as a matter of law under both federal and state law. But he relies
    primarily on Massachusetts cases -- while citing some non-
    Massachusetts state cases as persuasive authority -- in arguing
    that the application of that standard in this case should have
    resulted in leaving the jury's front-pay award unchanged.
    Accordingly, we have considered only Massachusetts law in
    concluding that the District Court was warranted in rejecting as
    a matter of law the full amount of the front-pay award in this
    case.
    - 40 -
    his job at FSS had he not been fired.      That evidence, however, was
    sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to award some front-pay
    damages greater than zero.    See Handrahan v. Red Roof Inns, Inc.,
    
    680 N.E.2d 568
    , 577 (Mass. App. Ct. 1997) (finding excessive a
    $487,800 front-pay award over thirty years based on self-reported
    intention   of   employee   but   remanding   for   recomputation,   not
    elimination, of front pay); see also 
    Trainor, 699 F.3d at 31
    (affirming front-pay award, at least partially under federal law,
    based on estimation of loss and plaintiff's testimony that he would
    continue to work for three years).         Accordingly, we vacate the
    District Court's order eliminating the jury's front-pay award and
    remand for the District Court to consider the issue anew.
    B.
    Travers next contends that the District Court erred in
    not trebling the remitted emotional-distress damages award of
    $50,000 on the basis of a Massachusetts statute.15       See Mass. Gen.
    Laws ch. 149, § 150.   That statute provides that an employee, like
    Travers, may bring a suit "for any damages incurred, and for any
    15 The damages Travers seeks to treble under state law are
    based on both federal and state claims and the damages were not
    apportioned between them. But "[w]hen federal and state claims
    overlap, the plaintiff may choose to be awarded damages based on
    state law if that law offers a more generous outcome than federal
    law," Tobin v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 
    553 F.3d 121
    , 146 (1st Cir.
    2009). FSS makes no argument challenging Travers's right to seek
    trebling under state law notwithstanding that the damages rely
    partially on a federal claim.
    - 41 -
    lost wages and other benefits" and that, if the plaintiff prevails,
    the plaintiff "shall be awarded treble damages, as liquidated
    damages, for any lost wages and other benefits."                    
    Id. Travers contends
       that    this   statute     applies    to    the    emotional-distress
    damages because, although he acknowledges that they are not "lost
    wages," damages compensating for emotional distress are an "other
    benefit[]" of employment.
    We need not decide whether, as FSS contends, that -- in
    consequence    of     Donovan   --    Travers's      acceptance    of   remittitur
    precludes him from seeking the trebling of these damages.                      And
    that is because we find no basis for concluding that, under
    Massachusetts General Laws ch. 149, § 150, payment of damages for
    emotional distress is a "benefit[]" of employment.
    Travers     cites    no    case    law     or   legislative    history
    indicating that the Massachusetts legislature had in mind the
    counterintuitive meaning that he assigns on appeal to the word
    "benefit[]," and we have found none.                 Travers cites cases that
    interpret     other    Massachusetts      statutes      that    make    emotional-
    distress damages subject to trebling.                  But those statutes all
    permit trebling for "damages" -- a broadly encompassing term that
    rather clearly includes emotional-distress damages -- rather than
    limited    categories      of   damages   that    do    not    generally   include
    emotional-distress damages plus "other benefits."                       See, e.g.,
    Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 9(3A).              In fact, the contrast between
    - 42 -
    the use of the word "damages" in those statutes and "benefit[]" in
    this one highlights the problem with Travers's proposed reading of
    this statute.
    Thus we, like the District Court, do not believe the
    Massachusetts state courts would conclude that emotional-distress
    damages are subject to trebling under ch. 149, § 150.16
    C.
    Finally, relying on a Massachusetts statute, Travers
    seeks prejudgment interest on the $90,000, pre-trebling portion of
    the back-pay award and on the award of emotional-distress damages.
    That    law   provides:   "In   any   action   in   which   a   verdict   is
    rendered . . . for pecuniary damages for personal injuries to the
    plaintiff or for consequential damages . . . there shall be added
    by the clerk of court to the amount of damages interest thereon at
    the rate of twelve per cent per annum from the date of commencement
    of the action even though such interest brings the amount of the
    16
    Travers also argues that the District Court erred by
    refusing to treble the front-pay award. But we decline to reach
    this question of state law.     The District Court eliminated the
    front-pay award entirely and has not yet had an opportunity to
    grant or reject on the merits a motion to treble front pay. Should
    a remitted front-pay award result on remand, we leave it to the
    parties to address and the District Court to decide whether front
    pay qualifies for trebling under the Massachusetts statute as "any
    lost wages and other benefits." See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, §
    150.
    - 43 -
    verdict or finding beyond the maximum liability imposed by law."
    Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 6B (emphasis added).17
    As   a   threshold   matter,   FSS   argues,   in   perfunctory
    fashion, that Travers may not raise this issue to us because he
    accepted remittitur.    But we conclude that Donovan is no obstacle
    to our review of Travers's claim for prejudgment interest on the
    back-pay award and we also conclude that Travers's claim for
    prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress damages award fails
    for reasons independent of the Donovan bar.        For reasons we will
    give below, the disposition of Travers's claim for prejudgment
    interest on the back-pay award depends on the resolution of a close
    question of Massachusetts law, and so we certify that question to
    the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.         Finally, we conclude
    that the claim for prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress
    17 FSS does not argue that this statute has no application to
    the Massachusetts wage and tips law by virtue of that law being an
    employment law. And we note that, in any event, the Massachusetts
    Court of Appeals has applied this statute to claims of unlawful
    employment retaliation under Massachusetts' statutory employment
    law. See Salvi v. Suffolk Cty. Sheriff's Dep't, 
    855 N.E.2d 777
    ,
    788 (Mass. App. Ct. 2006); see also Blockel v. J.C. Penney Co.,
    
    337 F.3d 17
    , 29 & n.4 (1st Cir. 2003) (same). Finally, "[s]tate
    law customarily governs prejudgment interest determinations on
    state law claims."    
    Blockel, 337 F.3d at 29
    .    Although Travers
    seeks prejudgment interest here under state law on an unapportioned
    award made under both a federal and state claim, we have explained
    before that "[w]hen federal and state claims overlap, the plaintiff
    may choose to be awarded damages based on state law if that law
    offers a more generous outcome than federal law." 
    Tobin, 553 F.3d at 146
    .     FSS makes no argument that Travers may not seek
    prejudgment interest under state law due to the underlying federal
    claim.
    - 44 -
    damages   was    not   properly    presented     in   Travers's     motion   for
    prejudgment interest below.
    The    record      reveals     that    Travers,     in    accepting
    remittitur, did not waive his claim for prejudgment interest on
    the back-pay award.18       When Travers asked the District Court below
    to award prejudgment interest, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 6B, the
    District Court concluded that it "d[id] not need to decide" that
    issue because it did not yet know whether Travers would accept
    remittitur or instead opt for a new trial.            Travers then accepted
    remittitur,     but    he   did   not   expressly     waive   his   claim    for
    prejudgment interest in so accepting.             Indeed, the category of
    damages for which Travers seeks prejudgment interest -- back
    pay -- was not even reduced in the order of remittitur or a new
    trial.
    Moreover, after Travers accepted remittitur and the
    question of prejudgment interest on the new award became relevant,
    Travers renewed his request for prejudgment interest. The District
    Court then denied the request on the merits and with no mention of
    18 Travers waived any claim to prejudgment interest on front
    pay. In his first motion for prejudgment interest, he expressly
    stated that he "does not seek prejudgment interest on his award of
    front pay," and, perhaps to explain his decision, he cited Salvi
    v. Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, 
    855 N.E.2d 777
    , 788 (Mass.
    App. Ct. 2006) ("We conclude that prejudgment interest may not be
    added to an award of damages for lost future earnings and
    benefits." (original alterations omitted) (quoting 
    Conway, 523 N.E.2d at 390-91
    )).
    - 45 -
    the claim to prejudgment interest having been waived by Travers's
    earlier acceptance of remittitur as to a different category of
    damages.     Given this record, we decline to conclude that FSS's
    bare invocation of Donovan suffices to provide a ground for
    preventing Travers from seeking prejudgment interest on the back-
    pay award.    See 
    Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17
    ("[I]ssues adverted to in
    a perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed
    argumentation, are deemed waived.").
    Turning   to   the   prejudgment-interest        statute   itself,
    Travers argues that its plain text makes prejudgment interest
    mandatory because of the word "shall" and that the District Court
    therefore had to award prejudgment interest on the back-pay award.
    FSS, in reply, notes that Massachusetts revised the trebling
    provision applicable to the back-pay award, Mass. Gen. Laws ch.
    149, § 150 (§ 150), in 2008 to make trebling mandatory rather than
    discretionary and to characterize treble damages under § 150 as
    "liquidated damages."       FSS argues that, through this revision, the
    Massachusetts legislature necessarily expressed its intent that
    these treble damages compensate for the loss due to delay that
    prejudgment     interest      otherwise   would    provide     for   and   thus
    (presumably)    that    the    Massachusetts      mandatory    treble-damages
    - 46 -
    statute displace the Massachusetts mandatory prejudgment-interest
    statute in cases like this one.19
    Thus, we must decide whether the present treble-damages
    statute partially repealed the prejudgment-interest statute as to
    cases in which a party has been awarded treble damages under the
    former and is eligible for prejudgment interest under the latter.
    Rather than resolve this question ourselves, however, we certify
    the question to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC)
    pursuant        to     Mass.   S.J.C.    Rule    1:03,    as    the    question    is
    determinative of Travers's demand for prejudgment interest on his
    back-pay award, and, for the reasons that follow, the "course [the]
    state court[] would take is [not] reasonably clear" here, given
    the absence of controlling precedent and the "close and difficult
    legal        issues"    involved.       Easthampton      Sav.   Bank   v.   City   of
    Springfield, 
    736 F.3d 46
    , 51 (1st Cir. 2013).
    The key issue is whether the 2008 amendment was intended
    to signal, through the transformation of § 150 from a discretionary
    19
    FSS contends that prejudgment interest under Mass. Gen.
    Laws ch. 231, § 6B may not be awarded on a base amount whenever
    treble damages under § 150 are awarded on that amount. FSS thus
    makes no argument that, to the extent back-pay damages were awarded
    pursuant to the federal claim, our decision in Linn v. Andover
    Newton Theological School, 
    874 F.2d 1
    (1st Cir. 1989), bars the
    recovery of prejudgment interest on the back-pay award. See 
    id. at 7-8
    (barring prejudgment interest where liquidated damages on
    back-pay award arose from federal claim and prejudgment interest
    on back-pay award arose from state claim). We consequently treat
    any argument based on Linn as waived. See 
    Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17
    .
    - 47 -
    to a mandatory trebling regime and the inclusion of the words "as
    liquidated damages," that treble damages serve a compensatory
    purpose rather than a purely punitive one.         If so, then it would
    seem improper to award prejudgment interest on top of the damages
    awarded under § 150 in light of the substantial precedent that
    indicates that compensatory treble damages cover the value of
    prejudgment interest.    See, e.g., Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O'Neil,
    
    324 U.S. 697
    , 707, 715 (1945) (stating that liquidated damages
    under the FLSA "constitute[] compensation for the retention of a
    workman's pay [as a result of "the delay in payment of sums due
    under the Act"] which might result in damages too obscure and
    difficult of proof for estimate other than by liquidated damages"
    and   therefore   duplicate   the   value   of   prejudgment   interest);
    Matamoros v. Starbucks Corp., 
    699 F.3d 129
    , 140 (1st Cir. 2012)
    (stating that, within the context of the FLSA, "liquidated damages
    [awarded under § 150] are not punitive damages"); Powers v.
    Grinnell Corp., 
    915 F.2d 34
    , 41 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[A]n award of
    liquidated damages 'usually will be far greater than would be
    necessary to compensate for delay -- far greater, that is, than an
    award of prejudgment interest.'" (citation omitted)); Feygina v.
    Hallmark Health System, Inc., No. MICV2011–03449, 
    2013 WL 3776929
    ,
    at *6-8 (Mass. Super. July 12, 2013) (collecting cases and noting
    that § 150 "compensate[s] . . . for all direct and consequential
    - 48 -
    damages," including "all harm caused by [the] employer's unlawful
    delay in paying all wages owed to [the employee]").
    A reason to conclude that the 2008 amendment changed the
    nature of treble damages from punitive to compensatory is that the
    Massachusetts legislature may have intended such a transformation
    to help avoid a constitutional concern raised by making trebling
    mandatory rather than discretionary.             This interpretation draws
    support   from    Massachusetts      precedent    that   indicates     that,   to
    comport with the federal guarantee of due process, punitive treble
    damages may be awarded only if there is a finding of heightened
    culpability on the part of the defendant.              See, e.g., Wiedmann v.
    The Bradford Group, Inc., 
    831 N.E.2d 304
    , 313 (Mass. 2005),
    superseded by statute on other grounds, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149,
    § 150 ("[T]reble damages are punitive in nature, allowed only where
    authorized     by     statute,   and       appropriate    where     conduct     is
    outrageous, because of the defendant's evil motive or his reckless
    indifference     to   the   rights   of     others."   (quotation     marks    and
    citation omitted)); Goodrow v. Lane Bryant, Inc., 
    732 N.E.2d 289
    (Mass. 2000) ("To [award punitive damages] absent evidence of
    heightened culpability would very likely constitute an 'arbitrary
    or   irrational     deprivation[]     of    property,'   and   thus    would    be
    constitutionally impermissible." (citation omitted)).                 And such a
    reading of the purpose of the 2008 amendment also would help
    explain the addition of the words "as liquidated damages."                    That
    - 49 -
    addition would then serve as an indication that the legislature
    intended for the treble damages to be compensatory rather than
    punitive.
    Consistent    with   that   conclusion,        in   Matamoros   v.
    Starbucks Corp., we did characterize the amended version of § 150
    as providing for liquidated damages that were compensatory rather
    than   punitive   in   concluding    that    the   new    mandatory   trebling
    statute -- which provides for the award of treble damages without
    a finding of heightened culpability -- did not raise due process
    concerns. See 
    699 F.3d 129
    , 140 (1st Cir. 2012) ("Because an award
    of treble damages pursuant to the current version of [§ 150] is
    neither an award of punitive damages nor fairly analogous to such
    an award, [defendant's] due process concerns are misplaced.").
    And we note that the only Massachusetts precedent that addresses
    this specific question -- whether the treble-damages statute, as
    amended, displaced the mandatory prejudgment-interest statute --
    directly follows this course of reasoning.               See Feygina, 
    2013 WL 3776929
    , at *6-8.
    But were we to construe § 150 in this way, we would be,
    in effect, countenancing an implied repeal of the prejudgment-
    interest statute.        The bar to finding an implied repeal of a
    preexisting statute, however, is high.             Under Massachusetts law,
    "[a] statute is not to be deemed to repeal or supersede a prior
    statute in whole or in part in the absence of express words to
    - 50 -
    that effect or of clear implication."       Com. v. Harris, 
    825 N.E.2d 58
    , 67 (Mass. 2005) (alteration in original) (quoting Com. v.
    Hayes, 
    362 N.E.2d 905
    , 909 (Mass. 1977)).         That is because "it is
    by no means clear that, as between two successive acts whose
    literal interpretations clash, the earlier must yield to the
    latter.   Indeed, the later statute is often intended to defer to
    the earlier."     
    Hayes, 362 N.E.2d at 909
    (alteration in original)
    (citation omitted).       Where the Massachusetts courts "encounter
    legislative silence on how . . . two statutes should relate to
    each other," therefore, they seek to give effect to both "to the
    greatest extent possible."      
    Harris, 825 N.E.2d at 67
    .
    Yet here the "express words" of § 150, as amended, do
    not make any reference to the prejudgment-interest statute or to
    its repeal.     Nor is there any legislative history that provides
    meaningful     guidance   on   this   question.      And   while   we   did
    characterize    the   treble   damages   available   under   the   present
    version of § 150 as compensatory in addressing the federal due
    process claim presented in Matamoros, see 
    Matamoros, 699 F.3d at 140
    , a recent Massachusetts Court of Appeals case -- which post-
    dates Matamoros -- describes these treble damages as punitive and
    thus in terms that arguably would raise no double recovery concern.
    See Weber v. Coast to Coast Medical, Inc., 
    985 N.E.2d 1212
    , 1216
    n.7 (Mass. App. Ct. 2013) (stating in the context of § 150 that
    "an award of treble damages, whether in an exercise of discretion
    - 51 -
    or mandatorily, is nevertheless punitive"); see also Blake v. CRNC
    Operating LLC, No. 15–ADMS–10011, 
    2015 WL 5783645
    , at *1 n.4.
    To be sure, in Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 
    324 U.S. 697
    (1945), the Supreme Court considered the propriety of ordering
    prejudgment interest on a back-pay award where the applicable
    federal statute contained a liquidated-damages provision that
    required the doubling of that award.   And the Court concluded that
    the liquidated damages were intended to compensate for the obscure
    costs that arise from the delay in sums due under the federal act
    and thus did include the value of prejudgment interest.         See
    Brooklyn Sav. 
    Bank, 324 U.S. at 714-15
    . For that reason, the Court
    held that awarding prejudgment interest in that case was improper.
    See 
    id. But Brooklyn
    was not interpreting -- as we must -- the
    potential conflict between a statute mandating treble damages and
    a statute mandating prejudgment interest.    Indeed, Brooklyn does
    not seem to have involved a prejudgment-interest statute at all.20
    20 If prejudgment interest were to have been available in
    Brooklyn, such interest would only have been awarded as a result
    of a traditional common-law remedial doctrine making prejudgment
    interest available for compensatory damages under claims arising
    out of federal law where prejudgment interest would be consonant
    with "an appraisal of the congressional purpose in imposing [the
    obligation]" and where there was no expression of "an unequivocal
    congressional purpose that the obligation shall not bear
    interest." Rodgers v. United States, 
    332 U.S. 371
    , 373-74 (1947)
    (characterizing Brooklyn as a case involving this common-law
    remedial doctrine and making no mention of a prejudgment-interest
    statute).
    - 52 -
    Thus, unlike in Brooklyn, we are faced with a question of state
    law and two mandatory state statutes -- one for liquidating damages
    and another for awarding prejudgment interest -- neither of which
    purport to make an exception for the other.
    In   sum,    a   state   legislature    drafting   a    liquidated-
    damages provision on a clean slate might well intend to compensate
    for the loss due to delay in recovery of a judgment and thereby
    displace an implied common-law remedy of prejudgment interest.
    See 
    id. It is
    less clear to us, however, that the Massachusetts
    legislature did so intend in amending this treble-damages statute,
    which   was    altered     in   the    shadow   of   an   otherwise    applicable
    mandatory prejudgment-interest statute.               Cf. Hutka v. Sisters of
    Providence in Wash., 
    102 P.3d 947
    , 960 n.52 (Alaska 2004) (noting
    Alaska does not follow Brooklyn under state law).                     And that is
    particularly so given that existing law at the time of the 2008
    amendment permitted the application of both treble damages and
    prejudgment interest to a damages award.                  See DeSantis v. Com.
    Energy Sys., 
    864 N.E.2d 1211
    , 1219-22 (Mass. App. Ct. 2007)
    (affirming award of treble damages under § 150 and award of
    prejudgment interest on award of back-pay damages prior to the
    2008 amendment).          Indeed, under an implied-repeal view, the 2008
    amendment would have the odd effect of reducing the amount of
    damages awarded in the cases where the defendant's conduct is most
    egregious.
    - 53 -
    Thus, due to the lack of clarity of the statute and the
    absence of controlling precedent, as well as the potentially far-
    reaching impact that the resolution of this question would have,
    Easthampton   Sav.   
    Bank, 736 F.3d at 52-53
    ,   we   conclude     that
    certification to the SJC is appropriate to determine whether
    Travers may be awarded prejudgment interest on his award of back-
    pay damages, in conjunction with his award of liquidated damages
    on the back-pay damages.           For these reasons, we certify the
    following question to the SJC pursuant to its Rule 1:03:
    Did Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 150 impliedly repeal Mass.
    Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 6B as to cases in which a party was
    awarded liquidated damages under § 150 and is eligible
    for prejudgment interest under § 6B, such that the award
    of prejudgment interest is precluded?
    We would further welcome the advice of the SJC on any other
    relevant aspect of Massachusetts law that it believes would aid in
    resolution of this dispute.
    As noted above, Travers also argues that he should
    receive prejudgment interest on the $50,000 emotional-distress
    award, but this claim fails, notwithstanding our view of how the
    SJC would apply the prejudgment-interest statute.                And that is
    because of Travers's failure to raise this issue below.
    Travers    asked   for    prejudgment     interest    on   both    the
    back-pay and emotional-distress awards in his first motion, Docket
    Entry No. 135, at 2, which the District Court did not decide on
    the merits.    In his renewed motion for prejudgment interest,
    - 54 -
    however, Travers asked only for prejudgment interest on the back-
    pay award.      See Docket Entry No. 195, at 13.       It was this renewed
    motion that the District Court denied and that we are asked to
    review on appeal.          Under these circumstances, we think Travers
    came close to voluntarily waiving his right to prejudgment interest
    on the emotional-distress award.           But even treating his failure as
    forfeiture, we conclude that the District Court did not plainly
    err.
    Assuming it would be clear and obvious error affecting
    Travers's substantial rights not to award prejudgment interest
    under the Massachusetts prejudgment-interest statute, Travers has
    not met his burden of showing that the error resulted in a
    miscarriage of justice.        Travers agreed to remit all but $50,000
    of the emotional-distress damages award, and it is unclear if, in
    doing so, he was also electing to accept that remitted award as
    inclusive of the prejudgment interest that he had requested earlier
    on that award.        That Travers intended such an all-inclusive
    election is made somewhat more likely by the fact that Travers did
    not ask for prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress award
    in his renewed motion, after accepting remittitur, whereas he had
    asked for such prejudgment interest earlier.          And Travers makes no
    argument   to    us   on    appeal   for   why   affirming   the   denial   of
    prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress award would result
    in a miscarriage of justice in his case.             As "it is rare indeed
    - 55 -
    for a panel to find plain error in a civil case," 
    Chestnut, 305 F.3d at 20
    , we conclude, for these reasons, that this case is not
    that rare case.
    IV.
    For these reasons, we AFFIRM the District Court's denial
    of FSS's motions for judgment as a matter of law, the District
    Court's denial of FSS's motion for a new trial, the District
    Court's denial of FSS's motion to further reduce the jury's award
    of   back    pay,   the   District     Court's    remittitur   order   on
    emotional-distress damages, and the District Court's award of
    attorney's fees and costs to Travers.      We also AFFIRM the District
    Court's     decision   not   to   treble    the    remitted    award   of
    emotional-distress damages as well as its decision not to grant
    prejudgment interest on the emotional-distress damages.           But we
    VACATE the District Court's order eliminating front-pay damages
    and we REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
    The Clerk of this court is directed to forward to the
    SJC, under the official seal of this court, a copy of the certified
    question and our opinion in this case, along with copies of the
    briefs and appendix filed by the parties.         We retain jurisdiction
    over this one issue pending the SJC's response.
    - 56 -
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 14-1745

Citation Numbers: 808 F.3d 525, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1365, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 21671, 2015 WL 8756640

Judges: Torruella, Lynch, Barron

Filed Date: 12/15/2015

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 10/19/2024

Authorities (39)

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