City not Entitled to Offset for Work. Comp. Benefits Paid to Former Employee

Alonzo Echols was fired by the City of Riverside in October of 2007. Mr. Echols claimed his discharge was in retaliation for a complaint of discrimination he made to the Missouri Human Rights Commission. A jury found that the City did retaliate against Mr. Echols and awarded him $463.00, which amounted to one week's salary.

The City then sought to offset the $463.00 verdict by the amount of unemployment benefits already paid to Mr. Echols. At a subsequent hearing, the trial court denied the City's request to amend its answer to add the affirmative defense of offset for unemployment benefits paid to Mr. Echols but nevertheless reduced Mr. Echols' award by the amount of unemployment benefits he had already received which reduced his actual damages verdict to zero.

On appeal, Mr. Echols argued that the trial court erred in reducing his $463.00 verdict to zero using unemployment benefits received as an offset because an offset is an affirmative defense that was waived by the City because it was not pled. The reviewing court agreed and further held that even if the affirmative defense of offset had been properly pled unemployment benefits received should not serve to mitigate a jury award for back pay where the employer is being punished for illegal conduct.

Echols v. The City of Riverside, No. WD 71560 (W.D.Mo. Dec. 21, 2010).