Ramon Cuevas v. Wentworth Group(075077) , 226 N.J. 480 ( 2016 )


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  •                                                      SYLLABUS
    (This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the
    convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the
    interest of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized).
    Ramon Cuevas v. Wentworth Group (A-30-14) (075077)
    Argued March 15, 2016 -- Decided September 19, 2016
    ALBIN, J., writing for a unanimous Court.
    At issue is whether the trial court properly denied defendants’ remittitur motion.
    Plaintiffs Ramon and Jeffrey Cuevas are brothers who were employees of defendant Wentworth Property
    Management Corporation (Wentworth). In May 2005, Michael Mendillo, president and chief executive officer of
    Wentworth, hired Ramon to serve as a regional vice president -- the only one of Hispanic descent. In December 2005,
    Wentworth hired Ramon’s brother Jeffrey as a portfolio manager. Jeffrey was promoted to executive director in July
    2007. In the new position, Jeffrey reported directly to defendant Arthur Bartikofsky, Wentworth’s executive vice
    president of operations. Ramon also reported to Bartikofsky.
    Plaintiffs claim that they encountered racial discrimination and a hostile work environment while under
    Bartikofsky’s supervision. Many of the degrading remarks directed at Ramon occurred at senior executive meetings,
    where Mendillo, Bartikofsky, Alan Trachtenberg (in-house counsel), other executives, and regional vice presidents were
    present. For example, Ramon recalled that when lunch was served, Bartikofsky, and others, would comment about the
    lack of “Mexican restaurants in the area” and the inability to “get burritos or tacos.” When Ramon talked about his cat,
    someone quipped, “I figured you had a little Taco Bell Chihuahua dog.” Jeffrey corroborated most of his brother’s
    account. When Jeffrey complained to Trachtenberg, he replied that Jeffrey should “calm down” and that the remarks
    should not be taken “so seriously.”
    Within the next month, both Ramon and Jeffrey were terminated. Plaintiffs filed an action under New Jersey’s
    Law Against Discrimination (LAD) claiming that they were victims of race-based discrimination, a hostile work
    environment, and retaliatory firings. Ramon also claimed that Wentworth failed to promote him based on his race. In
    its defense, Wentworth contended that plaintiffs were terminated for poor work performance. Mendillo and
    Bartikofsky, as well as other Wentworth employees, testified that they neither made nor heard any racially inappropriate
    remarks concerning plaintiffs. The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict against defendants on all
    claims other than Ramon’s failure-to-promote claim. The jury awarded overall damages in the amount of $2.5 million
    to the two brothers, including $800,000 in emotional-distress damages to Ramon and $600,000 in emotional-distress
    damages to Jeffrey. The trial court rejected defendants’ post-trial motions to vacate the jury’s verdict and the damages
    award. In particular, the court denied defendants’ motion for a remittitur of the emotional-distress damages. In doing
    so, the court distinguished the comparable cases and verdicts selected by defendants. In the court’s view, the award fell
    far short of one that would be shocking to the conscience. The trial judge also stated that she would refrain from
    applying her own feel for the case under He v. Miller, 
    207 N.J. 230
    (2011).
    Defendants appealed. In an unpublished opinion, a panel of the Appellate Division affirmed the emotional-
    distress damages awards essentially for the reasons expressed by the trial court. The panel rejected defendants’
    argument that, in a LAD case, only nominal damages may compensate for emotional distress when there is no
    independent corroborative proof or a showing of resulting physical or psychological symptoms. It maintained that, in a
    discrimination case, a plaintiff may recover damages for emotional distress and mental anguish damages arising out of
    embarrassment, humiliation, and other intangible injuries without accompanying medical proof. The Court granted
    defendants’ petition for certification limited to the issue of whether the trial court erred in denying defendants’ request
    for remittitur. 
    220 N.J. 266
    (2015).
    HELD: A judge should not rely on personal knowledge of other verdicts or comparative-verdict methodology when
    deciding a remittitur motion. In this case, the trial judge did not rely on personal knowledge of other verdicts or
    comparable verdicts presented by the parties in deciding the remittitur motion, but rather on the record before her. The
    denial of remittitur here conforms to the deferential standard of review of a jury’s award of damages.
    1. When a court is persuaded that a new trial must be granted based solely on the excessiveness of the jury’s damages
    award, it may enter a remittitur reducing the award to the highest amount that could be sustained by the evidence. The
    plaintiff may either accept the award as remitted by the court or proceed with a new damages trial before another jury.
    Courts must exercise the power of remittitur with great restraint because the jury is charged with the responsibility of
    deciding the merits of a civil claim and the quantum of damages to be awarded. Determining an award that properly
    compensates an accident victim for pain and suffering or the victim of racial discrimination for emotional distress is not
    susceptible to scientific precision. A permissible award may fall within a wide spectrum of acceptable outcomes. (pp.
    22-24)
    2. A jury’s verdict is cloaked with a presumption of correctness. That presumption is not overcome unless a defendant
    can establish, clearly and convincingly, that the award is a miscarriage of justice. In deciding whether to grant a new
    trial or remittitur, the court must give due regard to the opportunity of the jury to pass upon the credibility of the
    witnesses. A court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. The standard for reviewing a
    damages award that is claimed to be excessive is the same for trial and appellate courts, with one exception -- an
    appellate court must pay some deference to a trial judge’s “feel of the case.” That is because it is the judge who sees the
    jurors wince, weep, snicker, avert their eyes, or shake their heads in disbelief, who may know whether the jury’s verdict
    was motivated by improper influences, and who may be privy to observations that could not have been made by the
    jury. (pp. 24-26)
    3. Here, the trial judge said she would refrain from applying her own feel of the case. Apparently, she was reluctant to
    assess whether the jury returned an excessive damages award based on her personal experiences as a practicing attorney
    or as a judge. The trial judge made the right decision by not injecting her own experiences as a benchmark for
    evaluating the damages award. She observed that the jurors were attentive throughout the trial, understood their charge,
    and carefully apportioned and set the amount of punitive damages. She concluded that the jury had the opportunity to
    assess the testimony of all witnesses and that the jury evidently found plaintiffs to be more credible. The Court agrees
    with defendants that the trial judge’s findings are not entitled to any special deference, but also agrees with the trial
    judge that the jury’s findings must be accorded deference. (pp. 26-27)
    4. In 
    He, supra
    , the Court expressed approval of a trial judge relying on his own experience with personal-injury
    verdicts as a litigator and judge in determining whether a pain-and-suffering award returned by a jury shocked the
    judicial conscience. That approach may have been suggested by prior case law. However, the Court now concludes
    that a trial judge’s reliance on her personal experiences as a practicing attorney or jurist in deciding a remittitur motion
    is not a sound or workable approach. The shock-the-judicial-conscience standard is objective and transcends any
    individual judge’s personal experiences. If the trial judge’s personal experiences as a private practitioner and jurist
    were to be given weight in deciding a remittitur motion, then the same collective experiences of the appellate judges and
    Supreme Court Justices engaged in a de novo review would likewise be given weight. If that standard applied, then,
    arithmetically, the experiences of seven members of this Court would always outweigh those of a single trial judge.
    To the extent possible, judges must administer an objective judicial standard. Accordingly, a judge’s personal
    experiences with seemingly similar cases while in practice and on the bench are not relevant in deciding a remittitur
    motion. (pp. 27-31)
    5. The comparison of supposedly similar verdicts to assess whether a particular damages award is excessive is a futile
    exercise that should be abandoned. Courts should focus their attention on the record of the case at issue in determining
    whether a damages award is so grossly excessive that it falls outside of the wide range of acceptable outcomes. The
    facts and plaintiffs in every personal-injury or LAD case are fundamentally different and therefore a true comparative
    analysis is illusory. The accounts of jury verdicts reported in the New Jersey Law Journal and other publications, and
    even unreported decisions of the Appellate Division, are just summaries. Summaries cannot compare to what a jury
    hears from a witness on the stand. Juries and judges will often have different opinions about what constitutes a
    sufficient monetary award to compensate a victim for pain and suffering following a tortious injury. The realization that
    a wide range of potential awards is permissible counsels for judicial restraint. At oral argument before this Court,
    counsel suggested that attorneys are inundating trial courts with comparable verdicts on remittitur motions. Having trial
    courts review snippets of information about cases that are not truly comparable is not a worthwhile use of judicial
    resources, nor likely to bring greater justice to either plaintiffs or defendants. Therefore, the Court disapproves of the
    comparative-case analysis in deciding remittitur motions. Judges know the nature of emotional distress and the function
    of money and that correlating the two to arrive at a fair and reasonable award of damages requires a high order of
    human judgment. In the end, a thorough analysis of the case itself; of the witnesses’ testimony; of the nature, extent,
    and duration of the plaintiff’s injuries; and of the impact of those injuries on the plaintiff’s life will yield the best record
    on which to decide a remittitur motion. (pp. 31-39)
    6. The Court agrees that the trial court properly denied defendants’ remittitur motion. Because of the special harm
    caused by willful discrimination in the workplace, compensatory damages for emotional distress, including humiliation
    and indignity, are remedies that require a far less stringent standard of proof than that required for a tort-based
    emotional distress cause of action. Plaintiffs in this case were entitled to recover all natural consequences of
    defendants’ wrongful conduct, including emotional distress and mental anguish damages arising out of embarrassment,
    humiliation, and other intangible injuries. Plaintiffs did not offer expert testimony to buttress their emotional-distress
    damages claims, and because they did not do so, the court correctly did not charge the jury on emotional-distress
    damages projected into the future. Although both plaintiffs held important positions at Wentworth, they were referred
    to as Chihuahuas, Latin lovers, and the “Rico Suave brothers.” The mental anguish and humiliation here were sustained
    over a long period, and were not fleeting or insubstantial. Although these awards are probably on the high end, they
    were not so wide of the mark that they shock the judicial conscience. (pp. 39-42)
    The judgment of the Appellate Division, which upheld the trial court’s denial of defendants’ remittitur motion,
    is AFFIRMED.
    CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER; JUSTICES LaVECCHIA, PATTERSON, FERNANDEZ-VINA, and
    SOLOMON; and JUDGE CUFF (temporarily assigned) join in JUSTICE ALBIN’s opinion.
    2
    SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY
    A-30 September Term 2014
    075077
    RAMON CUEVAS and JEFFREY
    CUEVAS,
    Plaintiffs-Respondents,
    v.
    WENTWORTH GROUP, WENTWORTH
    PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
    CORPORATION, and ARTHUR
    BARTIKOFSKY,
    Defendants-Appellants.
    Argued March 15, 2016 – Decided September 19, 2016
    On certification to the Superior Court,
    Appellate Division.
    John D. North argued the cause for
    appellants (Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis,
    attorneys; Mr. North, Paul A. Rowe, Gary K.
    Wolinetz, and Maja M. Obradovic, on the
    briefs).
    Darren J. Del Sardo argued the cause for
    respondent Ramon Cuevas (Damico, Del Sardo &
    Montanari, attorneys; Mr. Del Sardo and
    Jayna B. Patel, on the brief).
    John J. Piserchia argued the cause for
    respondent Jeffrey Cuevas.
    Natalie H. Mantell argued the cause for
    amicus curiae New Jersey Defense Association
    (Gibbons, attorneys; Ms. Mantell, Christine
    A. Amalfe, Suzanne H. Brock, and Mario J.
    Delano, of counsel and on the brief).
    1
    Amos Gern argued the cause for amicus curiae
    New Jersey Association for Justice (Starr,
    Gern, Davison & Rubin, attorneys; Mr. Amos
    and Robert C. Sanfilippo, on the brief).
    Richard M. Schall argued the cause for
    amicus curiae National Employment Lawyers
    Association of New Jersey (Schall & Barasch,
    attorneys).
    JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.
    The preeminent role that the jury plays in our civil
    justice system calls for judicial restraint in exercising the
    power to reduce a jury’s damages award.   A court should not
    grant a remittitur except in the unusual case in which the
    jury’s award is so patently excessive, so pervaded by a sense of
    wrongness, that it shocks the judicial conscience.
    In He v. Miller, 
    207 N.J. 230
    (2011), this Court restated
    familiar principles that animate our remittitur jurisprudence.
    The He Court expressed that a jury verdict is presumed to be
    correct and entitled to substantial deference, that the trial
    record underlying a remittitur motion must be viewed in the
    light most favorable to the plaintiff, and that the judge does
    not sit as a decisive juror and should not overturn a damages
    award falling within a wide acceptable range -- a range that
    accounts for the fact that different juries might return very
    different awards even in the same case.
    At issue in this case are not those fundamental principles
    governing remittitur jurisprudence, but rather how those
    2
    principles found expression in the He decision.   The He Court
    held that a trial judge could rely on both his personal
    knowledge of verdicts as a practicing attorney and jurist and
    “comparable” verdicts presented by the parties in deciding a
    remittitur motion.
    Although this Court’s pre-He decisions may have opened the
    door to a judge’s reliance on personal knowledge of other
    verdicts and on purportedly comparable verdicts presented by the
    parties in deciding whether to remit a pain-and-suffering
    damages award, we now conclude that such an approach is not
    sound in principle or workable in practice.
    A judge’s personal knowledge of verdicts from experiences
    as a private practitioner or jurist is information outside the
    record and is not subject to the typical scrutiny evidence
    receives in the adversarial process.   The cohort of cases within
    a judge’s personal knowledge may not be statistically relevant
    and the reliability of the judge’s knowledge cannot be easily
    tested.   A judge therefore should not rely on personal knowledge
    of other verdicts.   The standard is not whether a damages award
    shocks the judge’s personal conscience, but whether it shocks
    the judicial conscience.
    We also disapprove of the comparative-verdict methodology
    that allows parties to present supposedly comparable verdicts
    based on case summaries.   The singular facts and particular
    3
    plaintiffs in different cases that lead to varying awards of
    damages are not easily susceptible to comparison.    That is
    especially so because the information about other seemingly
    similar verdicts is very limited.    A true comparative analysis
    would require a statistically satisfactory cohort of cases and
    detailed information about each case and each plaintiff.       That
    information is unlikely to be available, and therefore any
    meaningful comparative approach would be impracticable to
    implement.
    With those constraints in mind, remittitur remains a
    judicial remedy to correct a grossly disproportionate damages
    award, which, if left intact, would constitute a miscarriage of
    justice.
    In this case, the trial court denied a remittitur motion to
    reduce the jury’s award of emotional-distress damages to two
    victims of workplace discrimination.    The trial judge did not
    rely on personal knowledge of other verdicts or comparable
    verdicts presented by the parties in deciding the remittitur
    motion but rather on the record before her.
    The Appellate Division upheld the emotional-distress
    damages award, and we affirm.   The denial of remittitur here
    conforms to the deferential standard of review of a jury’s award
    of damages.
    I.
    4
    Plaintiffs Ramon and Jeffrey Cuevas are brothers who were
    employees of defendant Wentworth Property Management Corporation
    (Wentworth).     During their employment at Wentworth, plaintiffs
    claim that they were routinely subject to racially disparaging
    and humiliating remarks by Wentworth executives, and
    particularly by Arthur Bartikofsky, Wentworth’s executive vice
    president of operations.     They contend that after complaining
    about this debasing treatment, they were terminated from their
    employment.
    Plaintiffs filed an action under New Jersey’s Law Against
    Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -49, claiming that they
    were victims of race-based discrimination, a hostile work
    environment, and retaliatory firings.     Ramon additionally
    claimed that Wentworth failed to promote him based on his race
    in violation of the LAD.     Named as defendants in this action are
    Wentworth, the Wentworth Group (the parent company), and
    Bartikofsky.
    The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict
    against defendants on all claims other than Ramon’s failure-to-
    promote claim.    The jury awarded overall damages in the amount
    of $2.5 million to the two brothers, including $800,000 in
    emotional-distress damages to Ramon and $600,000 in emotional-
    distress damages to Jeffrey.     The trial court denied defendants’
    motion for a remittitur of the emotional-distress damages, and
    5
    the Appellate Division affirmed.       The only issue before this
    Court is whether the trial court properly denied the remittitur
    motion.
    Judicial review of the correctness of a jury’s damages
    award requires that the trial record be viewed in the light most
    favorable to plaintiffs.   Besler v. Bd. of Educ. of W. Windsor-
    Plainsboro Reg’l Sch. Dist., 
    201 N.J. 544
    , 577 (2010).       We
    present the facts in accordance with that deferential standard.
    A.
    Wentworth is a property-management company, and the
    Wentworth Group is the parent entity.       Michael Mendillo was the
    president and chief executive officer of Wentworth and the owner
    of the Wentworth Group.    In May 2005, Mendillo hired Ramon to
    serve as one of Wentworth’s regional vice presidents -- the only
    one of Hispanic descent.   In that role, Ramon managed high-rise
    buildings and townhouse developments.       Over time, Ramon’s role
    grew from managing nine to eventually twenty-four properties.
    In December 2005, Wentworth hired Ramon’s brother Jeffrey
    as a portfolio manager overseeing six Wentworth properties.
    Jeffrey’s success in that position led to his promotion to
    executive director in July 2007.       In that new position, Jeffrey
    reported directly to defendant Bartikofsky, who several months
    earlier had begun supervising Ramon.       According to Ramon,
    Wentworth was “thrilled” with the profits and growth that he
    6
    brought to the company, that is, before Bartikofsky became his
    supervisor.
    Plaintiffs claim that they encountered racial
    discrimination and a hostile work environment during
    Bartikofsky’s supervisory reign over them.    During this period,
    they routinely faced biting remarks that invoked racially
    demeaning stereotypes.    Many of the degrading remarks directed
    at Ramon occurred at senior executive meetings.    Present at
    those meetings were Mendillo, Bartikofsky, Alan Trachtenberg
    (in-house counsel), other executives, and regional vice
    presidents.
    Ramon recalled that when lunch was served at meetings,
    Bartikofsky, and others, would comment about the lack of
    “Mexican restaurants in the area” and the inability to “get
    burritos or tacos.”    At a meeting when music was played, someone
    interjected, “Do you think we could get a little Mariachi or
    salsa music in the background” -- “something a little more to
    Ramon’s taste?”   At a conference to discuss entertainment, a
    participant chimed in that Ramon should look through his Rolodex
    because he might know “a salsa band, a Mariachi band that can
    perform.”     Although Ramon attempted to deflect these hurtful
    comments, he was embarrassed, particularly when they were made
    in the company of people he supervised.
    7
    At one meeting at a restaurant, one of the participants
    joked that a Hispanic busboy looked like Ramon’s “twin” brother.
    On such an occasion, Bartikofsky stated that if he did not pick
    up the check, “Ramon can join his father [in the back] and you
    guys can wash dishes.”   In such an instance, Ramon explained he
    would offer a comeback line, such as “[M]y dad happens to have
    his own business,” but if you need help with the check, “I have
    my credit card.”   On some occasions, however, he did not want to
    sound defensive and said nothing, and on other occasions he
    said, “Enough.”
    The abuse, however, continued.     When Ramon came to the
    office explaining that he had to fix a flat tire, someone
    suggested that if a “Puerto Rican” were observed with a crowbar
    kneeling by a car, he might be mistaken as “trying to steal the
    car or the hubcaps.”   When Ramon talked about his cat, someone
    quipped, “I figured you had a little Taco Bell Chihuahua dog.”
    After a networking event in Newark, a person stated, “I’m going
    to walk with Ramon . . . because he’s with his people, and . . .
    I’m sure he has a switchblade[.]”    Two former property managers
    for Wentworth testified that Bartikofsky made comments that they
    would be safe in bad neighborhoods when accompanied by Ramon
    because “he’s one of them” and because he was “Spanish.”
    Ramon testified that the stream of belittling remarks
    “chopped [him] down day by day, month by month,” leaving him
    8
    “feeling helpless.”    Instead of focusing on his accomplishments,
    the Wentworth executives turned him into a punch line.     He did
    not file a formal complaint because the offensive remarks were
    made by or in the presence of senior executives in the company,
    including the company’s president, the executive vice president,
    the human resources officer, and the in-house counsel.     Ramon
    felt he had nowhere to go and was afraid of losing his
    livelihood and insurance coverage.
    Jeffrey corroborated much of his brother’s account.
    Jeffrey testified that Wentworth executives made many ethnically
    disparaging remarks about his Hispanic heritage.    According to
    Jeffrey, the executives joked that they would have to order
    twice as much Mexican food and hire a salsa band because of
    plaintiffs.   In addition, they referred to Ramon and Jeffrey as
    the two Chihuahuas.    Jeffrey stated that Bartikofsky called
    Ramon and him the “Rico Suave brothers,” and that Darlene
    Rasmussen, the director of human resources, referred to them as
    “Latin lover[s].”1    To his mind, that last remark was
    particularly “grotesque” and demeaning because it came from the
    human resources director.
    1 “Rico Suave” is a song performed by Gerardo that describes the
    tribulations of a “Latin lover.” Gerardo, Rico Suave, on
    Mo’Ritmo (Interscope 1991).
    9
    By November 30, 2007, Jeffrey had reached his boiling
    point.     On that day, he told Trachtenberg, the in-house counsel,
    “I really would like it if those comments at these executive
    meetings could stop.”     In speaking with Trachtenberg, Jeffrey
    described the repetitive offensive remarks as “silly,”
    “childish,” and “degrading.”     Trachtenberg replied that Jeffrey
    should “calm down” and that the remarks were “good[-]natured
    ribbing,” not “that big a deal,” and should not be taken “so
    seriously.”    Jeffrey made it clear that he and his brother took
    the matter seriously and wanted the harassing behavior to end,
    and warned, “I’d really rather not have to take this to the next
    level.”2
    Four days later, on December 4, Bartikofsky and Wentworth’s
    vice president of business development walked into Jeffrey’s
    office and fired him.     Shocked, Jeffrey responded that he was
    given a performance-based raise of $10,000 just four weeks
    earlier.     Bartikofsky stated that “the company [was] going in a
    different direction” and ordered him to clear out his desk and
    leave the premises immediately.
    Ramon was “stupefied” to learn of his brother’s firing.
    Ramon called Mendillo to complain about the lack of “process” in
    the decision to terminate Jeffrey.
    2   Trachtenberg denied that Jeffrey ever complained to him.
    10
    On New Year’s Day 2008, Ramon received a telephone call
    from Bartikofsky, who said that they needed to meet at the
    Cheesequake Rest Area located off the Garden State Parkway.
    Ramon dutifully went there.    On his arrival, Bartikofsky,
    accompanied by a Wentworth associate, walked up to Ramon and
    handed him an envelope.   Bartikofsky told Ramon not to “bother
    sitting down, you’re terminated.”     The letter inside the
    envelope indicated that Ramon was fired for losing five accounts
    and for soliciting a kickback from one of Wentworth’s vendors.
    Ramon denied any involvement in a kickback scheme and indicated
    he had never received a reprimand while employed at Wentworth.
    Ramon and Jeffrey testified concerning the emotional
    distress they suffered as a result of the workplace harassment
    and the retaliatory firings.
    Ramon stated that, while working at Wentworth, he felt
    “beaten down,” “despondent,” and a loss of self-confidence.       He
    was too “embarrassed” to discuss the daily humiliations with his
    wife, and he became edgy, and the two would fight.     Just months
    after Wentworth fired him, his wife filed for divorce.    After
    his termination, he became depressed and worried about his
    financial security and the effect the firing would have on his
    reputation.   Ramon, however, never received treatment from a
    mental health professional.
    11
    Jeffrey testified that the shabby treatment he received at
    Wentworth was “extremely degrading,” affected his “psyche,” and
    ruined his “self-confidence.”   He questioned whether people
    would judge him based on his skills and ability or merely based
    on his nationality and skin color.     He expressed that the firing
    tarnished his reputation and that he felt as though he was
    “limping” his way through life.    He described the firing as “so
    humiliating, so embarrassing” and recalled the pain of returning
    home to his wife and daughter, just weeks before Christmas,
    without a job to support his family.     He fell into a depression
    but did not seek mental-health counseling.
    In its defense, Wentworth contended that plaintiffs were
    terminated for poor work performance.     Mendillo, however, could
    not produce any documents to substantiate his claim that
    Wentworth had received client complaints about Ramon.     Mendillo
    also disputed that Jeffrey’s pay raise -- given just weeks
    before his termination -- was performance related.    Mendillo
    also asserted that Ramon’s termination was based on his
    solicitation of a kickback from one of its vendors, Premier
    Security.   The former vice president of that company testified
    that Ramon sought a percentage from Premier’s account for work
    with Wentworth.
    Mendillo and Bartikofsky, as well as other Wentworth
    employees, testified that they neither made nor heard any
    12
    racially inappropriate remarks concerning plaintiffs.     Mendillo
    stated that twenty percent of Wentworth’s employees and forty
    percent of Wentworth Group’s employees were Hispanic.     He denied
    that Hispanic employees were subject to discrimination.
    B.
    The jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs on their
    racial discrimination, hostile-work-environment, and retaliation
    claims, but found against Ramon on his failure-to-promote claim.
    The jury awarded Ramon $632,500 for past lost earnings;
    $400,000 for future lost earnings; $800,000 in emotional-
    distress damages; and $52,500 in punitive damages ($50,000
    allocated to Wentworth and $2500 allocated to Bartikovsky).     The
    court also awarded Ramon $253,284 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
    The jury awarded Jeffrey $150,000 for past lost earnings;
    $600,000 in emotional-distress damages; and $32,500 in punitive
    damages ($30,000 allocated to Wentworth and $2500 allocated to
    Bartikovsky).   The court also awarded Jeffrey $276,243 in
    attorneys’ fees and costs, and an additional $6213 to account
    for the negative tax impact resulting from Jeffrey’s back-pay
    award.
    The trial court rejected defendants’ post-trial motions to
    vacate the jury’s verdict and the damages award.    In particular,
    the court denied defendants’ motion for a remittitur of the
    emotional-distress damages awarded to plaintiffs.   In doing so,
    13
    the court distinguished the “comparable” cases and verdicts
    selected by defendants.    The court began its analysis with the
    presumption of correctness that attaches to a jury verdict.       The
    court determined that, given the evidence presented, the
    emotional-distress damages award did not shock the judicial
    conscience and dismissed the notion that this was “a case of a
    runaway jury.”   In the court’s view, the award fell far short of
    one that would be “shocking to the conscience.”
    The court observed that the jury was composed of seven
    individuals of diverse backgrounds, who were “extremely
    attentive throughout the trial” and who “fully understood” their
    charge.   It pointed out that the jury failed to find in favor of
    Ramon’s failure-to-promote claim and acted reasonably in
    apportioning and fixing an amount for punitive damages.     The
    court noted that both the court and the jury “had the
    opportunity to observe both plaintiffs and assess their
    credibility.”    Both plaintiffs, according to the court,
    “presented extremely well.   They appeared to be genuine,
    earnest, and credible in their presentation of their testimony.
    They were articulate and extremely well spoken.”    According to
    the court, the verdict indicated that “the jury found plaintiffs
    to be more likely than not credible.”
    The trial judge stated that she would “refrain from
    applying [her] own feel for the case under He v. Miller.”     She
    14
    explained:   “I’ve been a proud member of the judiciary for only
    a year and a half, which I believe hardly leaves me in a
    position where I can appropriately apply my feel of the case.”
    She expressed that she was certainly “qualified to hear this
    case” and, in fact, had handled a number of LAD cases as an
    attorney practicing in the field of labor and employment law.
    Nevertheless, she concluded, “I simply do not think that as a
    judge I can apply . . . my feel for the case.”
    Defendants appealed.
    C.
    In an unpublished opinion, a panel of the Appellate
    Division affirmed the emotional-distress damages awards
    essentially for the reasons expressed by the trial court.3    The
    panel rejected defendants’ argument that, in a LAD case, only
    nominal damages may compensate for emotional distress when there
    is no “independent corroborative proof or a showing of resulting
    physical or psychological symptoms.”   It emphasized that “the
    Legislature intended victims of discrimination to obtain redress
    3 The panel also addressed a number of issues that are not
    relevant to the appeal before this Court. The panel entered a
    judgment in favor of defendants on Jeffrey’s back-pay award,
    notwithstanding the verdict. The panel also vacated Ramon’s
    back- and front-pay awards and remanded for a new trial on those
    claims. Additionally, the panel remanded the issue of counsel
    fees and costs to await the outcome of the new trial. The panel
    affirmed the punitive-damages award.
    15
    for mental anguish, embarrassment, and the like, without
    limitation to severe emotional or physical ailments,” quoting
    Tarr v. Ciasulli, 
    181 N.J. 70
    , 81 (2004).
    The panel explained that the standard of proof for
    recovering emotional-distress damages in discrimination cases is
    less stringent than the standard for recovering such damages in
    a common-law intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress case.
    It maintained that, in a discrimination case, a plaintiff may
    recover damages for “‘emotional distress and mental anguish
    damages arising out of embarrassment, humiliation, and other
    intangible injuries’ without accompanying medical proof,”
    quoting 
    Tarr, supra
    , 181 N.J. at 82.   Thus, according to the
    panel, plaintiffs were entitled to a recovery on their
    emotional-distress claims, even in the absence of medical or
    expert testimony supporting those claims.
    Last, the panel noted that, “[d]espite the myriad of cases
    cited by defendants where courts reduced damage awards in
    discrimination cases, the Supreme Court has cautioned against
    engaging in such comparisons and ruled that the Appellate
    Division ‘must refrain from merely substituting its differing
    opinion without appropriate deference to the trial court[,]’”
    quoting 
    He, supra
    , 207 N.J. at 236.    Although the panel
    acknowledged that the emotional-distress damages awards were
    16
    “generous,” the awards were not “so excessive or so high as to
    shock the judicial conscience.”
    We granted defendants’ petition for certification “limited
    to the issue of whether the trial court erred in denying
    defendants’ request for remittitur.”   Cuevas v. Wentworth Grp.,
    
    220 N.J. 266
    (2015).4   We also granted the motions of the New
    Jersey Defense Association, the National Employment Lawyers
    Association of New Jersey, and the New Jersey Association for
    Justice to participate as amici curiae.
    II.
    A.
    Defendants contend that the trial court and Appellate
    Division erred in not granting their remittitur motion on the
    emotional-distress damages.   First, they argue that the
    “insensitive” remarks attributed to Wentworth’s personnel were
    just “teasing” and “joking” and not “the type of behavior that
    constitutes harassment and merits damages.”
    Second, they maintain that, by failing to consider
    comparable verdicts, the trial court did not follow the dictates
    of 
    He, supra
    , 
    207 N.J. 230
    .   Defendants also fault plaintiffs
    for not attempting to distinguish “the numerous decisions cited
    4 We declined to grant certification on a number of other issues
    raised by defendants in their petition. See 
    Cuevas, supra
    , 
    220 N.J. 266
    . We also denied plaintiffs’ cross-petition for
    certification. Cuevas v. Wentworth Grp., 
    220 N.J. 269
    (2015).
    17
    by Wentworth where [excessive] emotional distress awards were
    vacated or remitted” and for not pointing to any comparable LAD
    award.
    Third, defendants suggest that because the trial judge
    refrained from “imparting her ‘feel of the case,’” her ruling
    should be accorded less deference.   In this light, defendants
    insist that “the brevity of the trial judge’s experience [made]
    the comparison to similar cases . . . even more important.”
    Last, defendants submit that the Appellate Division
    disregarded the mandate of He by not mentioning that comparable
    cases from the judge’s own experience will provide guidance in
    determining whether a damages award shocks the judicial
    conscience.5
    B.
    5 Despite this Court’s limited grant of certification, defendants
    have made part of their challenge to the denial of remittitur an
    attack on the charge to the jury and plaintiffs’ summations to
    which no objections were made at trial. Defendants claim that
    the emotional-distress damages award should be vacated because
    the court’s instructions and plaintiffs’ summations suggested
    that the jury could consider the permanency of the emotional
    harm caused to plaintiffs, even though no expert testimony
    supported permanent harm. Notably, defendants’ attorney at
    trial expressly approved of the court’s charge on emotional-
    distress damages: “[T]he court’s emotional distress charge, as
    written by the court, accurately indicates to the jury what
    exactly they should be looking at when they’re assessing this
    concept of emotional distress damages.” Additionally, the
    Appellate Division found that any erroneous summation remarks by
    plaintiffs’ counsel regarding the scope of emotional-distress
    damages were harmless and that the jury charge was correct. In
    any event, these issues are not before us.
    18
    Amicus New Jersey Defense Association submits that a
    remittitur analysis must involve a comparison of awards in
    similar cases found in reported and unreported opinions and
    published in the Law Journal’s Verdict Reports to “safeguard
    against excessive verdicts and ensure predictability of damages
    in civil litigation.”   Amicus contends that an emotional-
    distress claim supported by only the testimony of the victim and
    family members -- and not by medical testimony -- should be
    limited to nominal damages.   It describes the emotional-distress
    claims in this case as “garden variety,” warranting nothing more
    than nominal damages, because plaintiffs did not seek medical
    treatment or present expert testimony to support their claims.
    C.
    Plaintiffs counter that this is not a case of harmless
    teasing or offhand comments but of actionable racial harassment
    and discrimination and that sufficient credible evidence in the
    record supports the jury’s award of emotional-distress damages.
    Plaintiffs submit that the trial judge followed the dictates of
    
    He, supra
    , 
    207 N.J. 230
    , by explaining her reasons for not
    granting a remittitur of the jury award.   Furthermore, according
    to plaintiffs, although the trial judge mentioned that she would
    not impart her “feel of the case” because of her “limited
    judicial experience,” she, in fact, conveyed her “feel of the
    case” by commenting on the credibility of plaintiffs’ testimony
    19
    and on the jury’s attentiveness during the trial.   Plaintiffs
    urge this Court to accord deference to the trial judge’s
    explanation for finding that the damages award did not shock the
    judicial conscience.
    D.
    Amicus National Employment Lawyers Association of New
    Jersey asserts that, in amending the LAD to allow recovery for
    emotional-distress damages caused by discrimination, the
    Legislature intended the remedy plaintiffs received in this
    case.   Amicus notes that “this Court has repeatedly upheld very
    significant emotional distress damage award[s]” in LAD cases,
    even when employees victimized by discrimination did not seek
    medical or psychological treatment.   Last, it argues that this
    is not the unusual case envisioned by He that meets the shock-
    the-conscience standard.
    E.
    Amicus New Jersey Association for Justice argues that a
    court’s discretion to set aside a supposedly excessive award
    should be based on the objective record of the case.   Amicus
    submits that a judge’s “feel of the case” should be afforded
    “minimal weight” and should not serve as an opportunity for a
    judge to substitute her observations for those that could
    equally be made by the jury.
    20
    Amicus also proposes that trial judges should not rely on
    their personal experiences in considering remittitur motions
    because those experiences are outside of the record and cannot
    be scrutinized through the adversarial process.    It maintains
    that the fate of a remittitur motion should not depend on the
    fortuity of the personal experiences of the judge sitting on the
    case.
    Last, amicus urges this Court to abandon the practice of
    having trial courts rely on “similar verdicts” to assess the
    merits of a remittitur motion.    It contends that information
    relating to a comparable verdict is not part of the trial record
    and is typically based on such limited facts that a proper
    comparison is not possible.   Amicus states that a grossly
    excessive award will often be so glaring and obvious that a
    comparative-verdict methodology is unnecessary.
    III.
    A court has the power to grant a remittitur of a grossly
    excessive damages award returned by a jury.    Here, we must give
    guidance to courts on the standards that will govern review of a
    jury’s award of emotional-distress damages in deciding a
    remittitur motion.   We begin with a brief description of
    remittitur.
    A.
    21
    When a court is persuaded that a new trial must be granted
    based solely on the excessiveness of the jury’s damages award,
    it has the power to enter a remittitur reducing the award to the
    highest amount that could be sustained by the evidence.       Fertile
    v. St. Michael’s Med. Ctr., 
    169 N.J. 481
    , 500 (2001).     The
    plaintiff has the choice either to accept the award as remitted
    by the court or to proceed with a new damages trial before
    another jury.   
    Id. at 491.
      A damages award that is so grossly
    excessive that it shocks the judicial conscience cannot stand,
    and therefore remittitur allows the parties the option of
    avoiding the unnecessary expense and delay of a new trial.      
    Id. at 491-92.
    Courts, however, must exercise the power of remittitur with
    great restraint.    That is so because in our constitutional
    system of civil justice, the jury -- not a judge -- is charged
    with the responsibility of deciding the merits of a civil claim
    and the quantum of damages to be awarded a plaintiff.     Johnson
    v. Scaccetti, 
    192 N.J. 256
    , 279 (2007); see also N.J. Const.
    art. I, ¶ 9 (“The right of trial by jury shall remain
    inviolate[.]”).    The drafters of our Constitution placed their
    “trust in ordinary men and women of varying experiences and
    backgrounds, who serve as jurors, to render judgments concerning
    liability and damages.”    
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 279.
    22
    Determining an award that properly compensates an accident
    victim for pain and suffering or the victim of racial
    discrimination for emotional distress is “not susceptible to
    scientific precision.”    See 
    ibid. There is no
    neat formula for
    translating into monetary compensation an accident victim’s pain
    and suffering or the mental anguish of a victim of invidious
    racial discrimination in the workplace.      See 
    id. at 280.
      In a
    case of workplace discrimination in violation of the LAD, jurors
    are asked to exercise a high degree of discernment, through
    their collective judgment, to determine the proper measure of
    damages for emotional distress, which includes “embarrassment,
    humiliation, indignity, and other mental anguish.”      Model Jury
    Charges (Civil) § 2.36, “Past and Future Emotional Distress in
    an Employment Law Case” (2014).    Our model jury instruction on
    emotional-distress damages in discrimination cases recognizes
    the inexact nature of calculating such damages.     Jurors are
    informed:
    You each know from your common experience the
    nature of emotional distress and you also know
    the nature and function of money. The task of
    equating the two so as to arrive at a fair and
    reasonable award of damages requires a high
    order of human judgment. For this reason, the
    law can provide no better yardstick for your
    guidance than your own impartial judgment and
    experience.
    [Ibid.]
    23
    Although a successful plaintiff in a discrimination action
    “is entitled to fair and reasonable compensation for any
    emotional distress,” ibid., “reasonable people may differ on
    what is fair compensation in any particular case,” see 
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 280.   Because no two juries likely will award
    the same damages for emotional distress in a discrimination
    case, a permissible award may fall within a wide spectrum of
    acceptable outcomes.   Within that acceptable broad range, even a
    seemingly high award should not be disturbed; only if the award
    is one no rational jury could have returned, one so grossly
    excessive, so wide of the mark and pervaded by a sense of
    wrongness that it shocks the judicial conscience, should a court
    grant a remittitur.    
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 279-83; see
    also Jastram v. Kruse, 
    197 N.J. 216
    , 235 (2008) (“To be sure . .
    . this was a high verdict, but that does not mean it was
    excessive.”).
    A jury’s verdict, including an award of damages, is cloaked
    with a “presumption of correctness.”   Baxter v. Fairmont Food
    Co., 
    74 N.J. 588
    , 598 (1977).   The presumption of correctness
    that attaches to a damages award is not overcome unless a
    defendant can establish, “clearly and convincingly,” that the
    award is “a miscarriage of justice.”   
    Id. at 596
    (quoting R.
    4:49-1(a)).   In deciding whether to grant a new trial or
    remittitur based on a purportedly excessive damages award, the
    24
    court must give “due regard to the opportunity of the jury to
    pass upon the credibility of the witnesses.”     
    He, supra
    , 207
    N.J. at 248 (quoting R. 4:49-1).     A “judge may not substitute
    his judgment for that of the jury merely because he would have
    reached the opposite conclusion; he is not a . . . decisive
    juror.”   
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 598 (quoting Dolson v.
    Anastasia, 
    55 N.J. 2
    , 6 (1969)).
    Because a jury’s award of damages is presumed to be
    correct, when considering a remittitur motion, a court must view
    “the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.”
    
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 281 (quoting Taweel v. Starn’s
    Shoprite Supermarket, 
    58 N.J. 227
    , 236 (1971), overruled on
    other grounds by 
    Fertile, supra
    , 
    169 N.J. 481
    ).
    B.
    The standard for reviewing a damages award that is claimed
    to be excessive is the same for trial and appellate courts, with
    one exception -- an appellate court must pay some deference to a
    trial judge’s “feel of the case.”    
    Id. at 282
    (quoting 
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 600).   That is so because “[i]t is the judge
    who sees the jurors wince, weep, snicker, avert their eyes, or
    shake their heads in disbelief,” 
    Jastram, supra
    , 197 N.J. at
    230, who may know “whether the jury’s verdict was motivated by
    improper influences,” 
    He, supra
    , 207 N.J. at 250 (quoting
    Pellicer v. St. Barnabas Hosp., 
    200 N.J. 22
    , 58 (2009)), and who
    25
    may be privy to observations that could not have been made by
    the jury, 
    He, supra
    , 207 N.J. at 255.   Under the guise of “feel
    of the case,” however, a trial judge cannot overthrow the jury’s
    credibility determinations and findings of fact and then
    substitute her own.   Ultimately, the jury’s “feel of the case”
    controls the outcome of the issues in dispute.     A judge’s “feel
    of the case” based on observing a party or a witness in the
    courtroom is entitled to minimal weight if the jury had the same
    opportunity to make similar observations.   
    Baxter, supra
    , 74
    N.J. at 600.
    In the present case, the trial judge expressed that she
    would “refrain from applying [her] own feel for the case under
    He v. Miller.”   By that comment, the trial judge apparently
    meant that she was reluctant to assess whether the jury returned
    an excessive damages award based on her personal experiences as
    a practicing attorney in the field of employment law or as a
    judge with eighteen months’ service on the bench.    For reasons
    we will discuss, the trial judge made the right decision by not
    injecting her own professional experiences as a benchmark for
    evaluating the correctness of the damages award.
    Although eschewing the term “feel of the case,” the trial
    judge observed that the jurors were “extremely attentive
    throughout the trial,” “fully understood” their charge, and
    carefully apportioned and set the amount of punitive damages.
    26
    She also remarked that plaintiffs “presented extremely well,”
    appearing “genuine, earnest, and credible.”   Most importantly,
    perhaps, the judge concluded that the jury had the opportunity
    to assess the testimony of all witnesses and that the jury
    evidently found plaintiffs to be more credible.
    We agree with defendants that the trial judge’s findings
    are not entitled to any special deference.    That would be so
    even had the trial judge characterized her findings as “feel of
    the case.”   But we also agree with the trial judge that the
    jury’s findings must be accorded deference.
    We now turn to the issue of whether the trial judge’s
    personal experiences with seemingly comparable cases should play
    any role in deciding a remittitur motion.
    C.
    In 
    He, supra
    , the Court expressed approval of a trial judge
    relying on his own experience with personal-injury verdicts as a
    litigator and judge in determining whether a pain-and-suffering
    award returned by a jury shocked the judicial 
    conscience. 207 N.J. at 256
    , 258-59.   Although that approach may have been
    suggested by prior case law, see, e.g., 
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J.
    at 281 (“[T]he court may rely on its knowledge of other injury
    verdicts[.]”), we now conclude that a trial judge’s reliance on
    her personal experiences as a practicing attorney or jurist in
    27
    deciding a remittitur motion is not a sound or workable
    approach.
    As already mentioned, a jury’s damages award should not be
    overturned unless it “shock[s] the judicial conscience.”
    
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 281.      An award that shocks the
    judicial conscience is one that is “wide of the mark,” “pervaded
    by a sense of wrongness,” ibid. (quoting 
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J.
    at 598-99), and “manifestly unjust to sustain,” 
    ibid. The shock-the-judicial-conscience standard
    is objective in nature
    and transcends any individual judge’s personal experiences.      See
    
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 597-98.     That is a notion that Chief
    Justice Hughes conveyed in addressing this subject:
    [A]ll judges, whether trial or appellate, are
    human and . . . the judgment of each is
    inevitably affected by subjective prejudices
    or predispositions relating to properties or
    specific tendencies of the individual mind, as
    distinguished from general or universal
    experience.       These   natural   subjective
    inclinations derive from the particular
    background or experience of the individual
    judge, whether from tenure on the bench in
    examining or recalling other cases, from
    previous activity in law practice in diverse
    fields or, for that matter, from any human
    experience, such as a youthful background of
    poverty or wealth or the like.            Such
    individuality of approach extends of course to
    the field of admeasuring damages flowing from
    injuries caused by negligence, as in the
    present case, or other wrong. It is for the
    merging of such individualized propensities of
    mind into an amalgam of common judicial
    experience related to the doing of justice
    that judges are admonished to resist the
    28
    natural   temptation  to   substitute   their
    judgment for that of the jury.
    [
    Id. at 596
    -97 (footnote omitted).]
    A number of practical reasons caution against a trial judge
    injecting personal experiences of other verdicts into a
    remittitur analysis -- a caution followed by the judge in the
    present case.   The trial judge’s personal experiences, as a
    litigator or on the bench, are not part of the record.     Those
    experiences are not subject to testing through the adversarial
    process.   The judge cannot be examined to determine whether her
    recollection is accurate, whether the facts are sufficiently
    similar to the unique circumstances of the case tried, or
    whether the cohort of cases in the judge’s mind is a
    statistically significant number from which to draw any
    definitive judgment.   In short, “the process of using these
    personal experiences defies greatly valued attributes of our
    judicial system, namely, a party’s right to discovery and the
    right to confront and cross-examine information used to
    adjudicate the dispute.”   Mickens v. Misdom, 
    438 N.J. Super. 531
    , 540-41 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 
    221 N.J. 287
    (2015).
    If the trial judge’s personal experiences as a private
    practitioner and jurist were to be given weight in deciding a
    remittitur motion, then the same collective experiences of the
    appellate judges and Supreme Court Justices engaged in a de novo
    29
    review would likewise be given weight.    If that standard
    applied, then, arithmetically, the experiences of seven members
    of this Court would always outweigh those of a single trial
    judge.   Such an idiosyncratic approach is the antithesis of the
    objective approach articulated by Chief Justice Hughes in
    
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 597.
    Moreover, trial judges, believing that their personal
    experiences matter in deciding a remittitur motion, have
    disclosed their curriculum vitae as evidence of their ability to
    render a judgment.   In 
    He, supra
    , the trial judge, who had been
    on the bench less than a year, announced that he had practiced
    personal injury law for twenty-two years and had been a
    Certified Civil Trial 
    Attorney. 207 N.J. at 244
    .   In 
    Mickens, supra
    , the trial judge related that he had practiced as a trial
    attorney for twenty-nine years; that during twenty of those
    years he had handled almost exclusively personal-injury cases
    and tried 100 civil jury trials; that he had been a Certified
    Civil Trial Attorney, served on several Supreme Court
    committees, lectured, and written two books on personal-injury
    law; and, that as a civil trial judge in the last year, he had
    presided over forty-one 
    trials. 438 N.J. Super. at 542-43
    .   The
    trial judge in the present case disclosed that she practiced in
    the field of labor and employment law, even though she did not
    30
    rely on her personal experience in denying the remittitur
    motion.
    The grant or denial of a remittitur motion cannot depend on
    the happenstance of the personal experiences of the trial or
    appellate judges assigned to a particular case.    To the extent
    humanly possible, judges must administer an objective judicial
    standard.    Accordingly, a judge’s personal experiences with
    seemingly similar cases while in practice and on the bench are
    not relevant in deciding a remittitur motion.
    We next address the claim that the trial judge erred in not
    considering the purportedly comparable verdicts defendants
    presented in support of the remittitur motion.
    D.
    We conclude that the comparison of supposedly similar
    verdicts to assess whether a particular damages award is
    excessive is ultimately a futile exercise that should be
    abandoned.    Rather, courts should focus their attention on the
    record of the case at issue in determining whether a damages
    award is so grossly excessive that it falls outside of the wide
    range of acceptable outcomes.
    Although 
    He, supra
    , 207 N.J. at 256-57, endorsed the use of
    comparable verdicts in remittitur motions, we had already opened
    the door to an analysis of comparable awards in remittitur
    cases.    See 
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at 281 (“Although the court
    31
    may rely on its knowledge of other injury verdicts, if it does
    so, it must give a factual analysis of how the award is
    different or similar to others to which it is compared.”
    (internal citation omitted)); 
    Jastram, supra
    , 197 N.J. at 234
    (same); 
    Fertile, supra
    , 169 N.J. at 501 (upholding trial court’s
    grant of remittitur, which was based, in part, on court’s
    “experience with other injury verdicts”).    What we have come to
    learn, perhaps too slowly, is that the facts and plaintiffs in
    every personal-injury or LAD case are fundamentally different
    and therefore a true comparative analysis is illusory.
    Here, the trial judge did not find “comparable” cases and
    verdicts selected by defendants to have sufficient factual
    similarities to plaintiffs’ case to allow for a true comparison.
    However, if the court found a true comparable case, the next
    question would be, which jury conferred the right monetary
    award?   Any true comparative analysis would require a
    statistically satisfactory class of cases, and the class would
    have to be composed of not only factually similar cases but also
    similarly constituted plaintiffs.    Then, the court would have to
    announce the broad range of acceptable emotional-distress
    awards, given that no two juries would likely return the same
    award.   Stating the issue suggests the futility of that process.
    The jury in the case before us sat through days of trial
    and heard the testimony of many witnesses.    The jury presumably
    32
    made credibility assessments and determined the extent of the
    emotional injuries suffered by plaintiffs, including how long
    those injuries afflicted their lives and damaged their
    relationships.   The accounts of jury verdicts reported in the
    New Jersey Law Journal and other publications, and even
    unreported decisions of the Appellate Division, are just
    summaries.   Summaries cannot compare to what a jury hears from a
    witness on the stand; to the timbre of a voice that recalls the
    emotional cuts and slashes felt from racially animated
    discrimination; to in-depth descriptions of daily workplace
    humiliations that mentally beat down an employee; and to first-
    hand accounts of mental anguish -- anguish that leads to
    depression and frays personal relationships.    The Appellate
    Division, in 
    Mickens, supra
    , moreover, expressed concern over
    the use of jury-verdict summaries in the New Jersey Law Journal
    and similar publications because they “are based on hearsay or
    multiple levels of hearsay” and often times are 
    “one-sided.” 438 N.J. Super. at 543
    n.9.
    The unique nature of each case and the suffering of each
    plaintiff is the reason why juries are told that, in fixing a
    monetary amount for emotional-distress damages, there is “no
    better yardstick for your guidance than your own impartial
    judgment and experience.”     Model Jury Charges (Civil) § 2.36,
    33
    “Past and Future Emotional Distress in an Employment Law Case”
    (2014).
    Juries and judges will often have different opinions about
    what constitutes a sufficient monetary award to compensate a
    victim for pain and suffering following a tortious injury.
    There is no better example than He itself.       In 
    He, supra
    , the
    first jury awarded the plaintiff-wife $1,000,000 in pain-and-
    suffering damages and the plaintiff-husband $100,000 in loss-of-
    consortium 
    damages. 207 N.J. at 239
    .      The trial judge granted
    the remittitur motion, reducing the wife’s award to $200,000 and
    her husband’s award to $20,000.     
    Ibid. The plaintiffs chose
    a
    new trial rather than accede to the remittitur.      
    Mickens, supra
    ,
    438 N.J. Super. at 537 n.3 (citation omitted).       The second jury
    awarded the plaintiff-wife $500,000 for her pain and suffering
    and her husband $100,000 for loss of consortium.      
    Ibid. (citation omitted). The
    second trial judge found that the jury
    award was not excessive and denied the remittitur, and the
    Appellate Division affirmed.     
    Ibid. Two different juries
    in He decided that the husband was
    entitled to $100,000 in loss-of-consortium damages. The first
    trial judge found that amount excessive, the second trial judge
    did not.   The first jury awarded the plaintiff-wife pain-and-
    suffering damages in the amount of $1,000,000, the second jury
    in the amount of $500,000.     The first trial judge set the
    34
    remittitur at $200,000, the second trial judge found the
    $500,000 award not excessive.
    The two trials in He suggest that different juries and
    judges may have different views on the issue of adequate
    compensation for pain and suffering -- all reasonable and
    falling within a broad range of acceptable outcomes.
    In LAD cases, courts have remitted or vacated emotional-
    distress awards.   See, e.g., Abrams v. Lightolier, Inc., 841 F.
    Supp. 584, 594 (D.N.J. 1994) (remitting $100,000 award to
    $2500), aff’d in part and rev’d in part on other grounds, 
    50 F.3d 1204
    (3d Cir. 1995); Grasso v. W. N.Y. Bd. of Educ., 
    364 N.J. Super. 109
    , 115 (App. Div. 2003) (upholding trial court’s
    remittitur of emotional-distress award from $110,000 to
    $11,000), certif. denied, 
    179 N.J. 312
    (2004); Spragg v. Shore
    Care, 
    293 N.J. Super. 33
    , 62-63 (App. Div. 1996) (vacating
    $42,500 emotional-distress award in LAD gender-discrimination
    wrongful-termination case).
    On the other hand, courts have upheld assertedly high
    emotional-distress LAD awards, even in the absence of expert
    testimony from mental-health professionals.   See, e.g., Rendine
    v. Pantzer, 
    141 N.J. 292
    , 311-13 (1995) (affirming trial court’s
    denial of remittitur and upholding jury’s emotional-damages
    awards of $105,000 and $125,000 for two plaintiffs in LAD
    gender-discrimination wrongful-termination case); Quinlan v.
    35
    Curtiss-Wright Corp., 
    409 N.J. Super. 193
    , 217 (App. Div. 2009)
    (upholding emotional-distress damages of $187,128 in LAD gender-
    discrimination failure-to-promote case), rev’d on other grounds,
    
    204 N.J. 239
    (2010); Lockley v. Turner, 
    344 N.J. Super. 1
    , 12-14
    (App. Div. 2001) (upholding $750,000 emotional-damages award
    where “[p]laintiff and his wife were excellent credible
    witnesses on the effect of sexual harassment on their marriage
    and family life, and the emotional distress that the marital
    tensions caused the plaintiff” (alteration in original)), aff’d
    in part and modified in part on other grounds, 
    177 N.J. 413
    (2003).
    The cases cited above may reveal nothing more than that the
    unique circumstances of each case must guide the outcome.    The
    realization that a wide range of potential awards is permissible
    counsels for judicial restraint.    That is why the remittitur
    standard is set so high -- a jury award must be so grossly
    excessive that it shocks the judicial conscience.
    A number of states do not allow a collateral attack on a
    jury’s damages award for pain and suffering or emotional
    distress through the use of purportedly comparable cases.    See,
    e.g., McKissick v. Frye, 
    876 P.2d 1371
    , 1388 (Kan. 1994)
    (“[T]here is no provision in current law for comparison of one
    plaintiff’s recovery with another’s to serve as the basis for
    overturning a jury’s verdict.”); Seltzer v. Morton, 
    154 P.3d 36
    561, 588 (Mont. 2007) (“[W]e reject the notion that a
    compensatory award for emotional distress upheld in one case is
    in any way relevant to the propriety or size of an emotional
    distress award in another case.”); Allied Concrete Co. v.
    Lester, 
    736 S.E.2d 699
    , 708 (Va. 2013) (“Although a trial court
    may grant remittitur on the grounds that the award is
    disproportionate to the injuries suffered, we have specifically
    rejected comparing damage awards as a means of measuring
    excessiveness.” (internal citation omitted)).
    At oral argument before this Court, counsel suggested that
    attorneys are inundating our trial courts with comparable
    verdicts on remittitur motions.    We do not believe that having
    our trial courts review snippets of information about cases that
    are not truly comparable is a worthwhile use of judicial
    resources or likely to bring greater justice to either
    plaintiffs or defendants.   We therefore disapprove of the
    comparative-case analysis in deciding remittitur motions.
    We are confident that the instances in which a remittitur
    should be granted will be glaring and obvious from the record.
    For example, in 
    Besler, supra
    , a school board president violated
    the civil rights of the plaintiff, a child’s parent, by not
    allowing him to complete a statement critical of the board at a
    public 
    meeting. 201 N.J. at 555
    .     The plaintiff offered
    evidence of only “transient embarrassment and humiliation as a
    37
    consequence of the abrupt manner in which he was prevented from
    completing his remarks.”    
    Ibid. We vacated the
    $100,000
    emotional-distress award because it was based on “de minimis
    mental anguish, or fleeting embarrassment, or mere shock and
    bewilderment.”    
    Id. at 580.
    Ultimately, a damages award cannot stand if it is so
    grossly disproportionate to the injury suffered that it shocks
    the judicial conscience.    We cannot envision here the various
    scenarios that may call for the application of remittitur.
    Suffice it to say, remittitur remains a judicial remedy to
    correct miscarriages of justice caused by grossly excessive
    damages awards.
    To guide judges in carrying out their duties in deciding
    remittitur motions, we can give no better instruction than the
    one given to juries in the model jury charge.      See Model Jury
    Charges (Civil) § 2.36, “Past and Future Emotional Distress in
    an Employment Law Case” (2014).      Judges know the nature of
    emotional distress and the function of money and that
    correlating the two “to arrive at a fair and reasonable award of
    damages requires a high order of human judgment.”      
    Ibid. Judges also know
    that, among different juries, there will be a wide
    range of acceptable damages awards.      In determining whether a
    particular award shocks the judicial conscience, judges must
    38
    rely on that “amalgam of common judicial experience related to
    the doing of justice.”   
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 597.
    In the end, a thorough analysis of the case itself; of the
    witnesses’ testimony; of the nature, extent, and duration of the
    plaintiff’s injuries; and of the impact of those injuries on the
    plaintiff’s life will yield the best record on which to decide a
    remittitur motion.
    IV.
    Based on our de novo review of the record, we agree with
    the Appellate Division that the trial court properly denied
    defendants’ remittitur motion.    The jury returned a verdict
    finding that defendants violated New Jersey’s Law Against
    Discrimination by discriminating against plaintiffs on the basis
    of race, by subjecting plaintiffs to a hostile-work environment,
    and by firing them in retaliation for their complaints about
    their treatment.
    In passing the LAD, the Legislature specifically found that
    victims of discrimination “suffer personal hardships” among
    which are “physical and emotional stress”; “severe emotional
    trauma”; “anxiety”; and “career, . . . family and social
    disruption.”   N.J.S.A. 10:5-3.    The Legislature understood the
    psychological toll that discrimination may have on victims.6
    6 Following the dictates of the LAD, this Court found that a
    singularly vile and vulgar remark made by a chief executive to
    39
    Indeed, “the Legislature intended victims of discrimination
    to obtain redress for mental anguish [and] embarrassment,” even
    when their emotional and physical ailments cannot be
    characterized as severe.     
    Tarr, supra
    , 181 N.J. at 81.   Because
    of the special harm caused by willful discrimination in the
    workplace, “compensatory damages for emotional distress,
    including humiliation and indignity . . . , are remedies that
    require a far less stringent standard of proof than that
    required for a tort-based emotional distress cause of action.”
    
    Id. at 82.
       Specifically, in a LAD case, a plaintiff is not
    required to provide “expert testimony or independent
    corroborative evidence . . . to support [an] award of emotional
    distress damages.”     
    Id. at 79
    (citing 
    Rendine, supra
    , 141 N.J.
    at 312).     Plaintiffs in this case were entitled to “recover all
    natural consequences of [defendants’] wrongful conduct,
    including emotional distress and mental anguish damages arising
    out of embarrassment, humiliation, and other intangible
    injuries.”    
    Id. at 82;
    cf. Ostrowski v. Azzara, 
    111 N.J. 429
    ,
    438 (1988) (“[D]efendant must take plaintiff as he finds him.”
    (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Frame v. Kothari,
    
    212 N.J. Super. 498
    , 501 (Law Div. 1985), aff’d in part and
    an employee injected such hostility into the working environment
    and so altered the conditions of employment that it gave rise to
    a cause of action under the LAD. Taylor v. Metzger, 
    152 N.J. 490
    , 506 (1998).
    40
    rev’d in part, 
    218 N.J. Super. 537
    (App. Div. 1987), aff’d, 
    115 N.J. 638
    (1989)).
    Plaintiffs did not offer expert testimony to buttress their
    emotional-distress damages claims, and because they did not do
    so, the court correctly did not charge the jury on emotional-
    distress damages projected into the future.     See Battaglia v.
    United Parcel Serv., Inc., 
    214 N.J. 518
    , 554 (2013) (holding
    that, without expert testimony, emotional-distress damages are
    limited to past emotional-distress damages through time of
    trial).    The jury was permitted to quantify the emotional-
    distress damages suffered by plaintiffs up to the time of trial.
    Plaintiffs detailed in their testimony a nine-month period
    of racial harassment and hostility in the workplace carried out
    by and in the presence of the highest-ranking officers of
    Wentworth.   Plaintiffs were subjected to crude and degrading
    remarks that invidiously stereotyped them and their heritage --
    remarks that cast them in an inferior light and that made
    plaintiffs feel that they were judged by their appearance and
    race rather than by their talents and skills.    Although both
    plaintiffs held important positions at Wentworth, they were
    referred to as Chihuahuas, Latin lovers, and the “Rico Suave
    brothers.”   They were the subject of repeated disparaging
    Hispanic stereotypes from food and music to busboys and stealing
    hubcaps.
    41
    Ramon testified that he felt “chopped down day by day,
    month by month,” “helpless,” “despondent,” and “exhausted.”       He
    was beset by anxiety over his financial security and his
    professional reputation, particularly after the retaliatory
    firing.     Jeffrey described how Wentworth’s degrading conduct
    toward him affected his “psyche” and ruined his “self-
    confidence,” how humiliated he was to be fired several weeks
    before Christmas for complaining about discriminatory treatment,
    how anxious he became about whether he could support his family,
    and how he fell into a depression.
    The jury returned an award of $800,000 for Ramon and
    $600,000 for Jeffrey in emotional-distress damages suffered from
    April 2007, when the harassment began, until July 2011, the time
    of trial.    The mental anguish and humiliation here were
    sustained over a long period, and were not fleeting or
    insubstantial.    Although these awards are probably on the high
    end, like the trial court and the Appellate Division, we cannot
    say that they are so “wide of the mark,” so “pervaded by a sense
    of wrongness,” so “manifestly unjust to sustain,” that they
    shock the judicial conscience.     See 
    Johnson, supra
    , 192 N.J. at
    281 (quoting 
    Baxter, supra
    , 74 N.J. at 598-99).
    V.
    42
    For the reasons expressed, we affirm the judgment of the
    Appellate Division, which upheld the trial court’s denial of
    defendants’ remittitur motion.
    CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER; JUSTICES LaVECCHIA, PATTERSON,
    FERNANDEZ-VINA, and SOLOMON; and JUDGE CUFF (temporarily
    assigned) join in JUSTICE ALBIN’s opinion.
    43