In Glick v. City of Los Angeles, published July 30, 2026, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 2 reversed an order granting a new trial on damages. The plaintiff officers were accused of harassing a suspect in custody. The police agency’s internal affairs department investigated the allegations. It allegedly did not conduct the same searches as to the female officers as it did to the male officers. The plaintiff male officers were removed from field duties and assigned to work at the front desk of the station, while their female partners involved in the suspect’s arrest and custody remained in the field. The chief of police relieved the plaintiffs from duty pending a hearing for termination. The chief later canceled the hearing and officially reprimanded the plaintiffs. When a union representative complained to a police offical about the disparate treatment between the plaintiffs and their female partners, he was told that this was something guys would do, not females. The plaintiffs sued the city under FEHA for gender discrimination and retaliation. The plaintiffs stipulated under Code of Civil Procedure section 2032.320 (allowing a plaintiff to avoid an order of a mental examination) that they were making no claim for mental and emotional distress over and above that usually associated with the physical injuries claimed, and that no expert testimony regarding this “usual mental and emotional distress” would be presented at trial. The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs on both causes of action. They awarded one plaintiff $5 million in past noneconomic damages, $3 million in future noneconomic damages, and $621,358 in future economic damages. It awarded the other $3 million in past noneconomic damages and $1.5 million in future noneconomic damages. The city moved for new trial, arguing the noneconomic damages awarded were “plainly excessive.” It expressly declined to challenge the economic damages awarded. After allowing the parties to file supplemental briefs in response to a tentative ruling, the trial court issued a remittitur conditionally granting new trial on damages unless the officer awarded $8,621,358 agree to reduce his award to $250,000 and the other consent to reduce his $4.5 million to $125,000. The trial court reasoned that plaintiffs had only sought and argued for “garden-variety emotional distress” and characterized the evidence supporting noneconomic damages as “scant.” It noted the absence of any testimony from treating health care providers. It concluded that the evidence was insufficient to support such large awards. It denied making a hard-and-fast rule on the maximum amount awardable for garden-variety emotional distress, but stated that a mid-to-high seven figure award for emotional distress was far above and beyond that usually associated with the discrimination and retaliation suffered in the case. It reduced the one plaintiff’s economic damages to $0 on the ground that, notwithstanding the officer’s own testimony, there was no admissible evidence submitted at trial that would support a finding of any economic damages, dismissing the plaintiff’s testimony that he planned to retire early as speculative and thus inadmissible. The plaintiffs rejected the reduced awards and appealed the order granting new trial.
The appellate court ruled that the trial court had abused its discretion. The appellate court found ample support for the officers’ claims of noneconomic damages from the officers’ own testimony. The trial court did not find any of this testmony inherently improbable or otherwise lacked credibility. The court found it uncorrobrated by testimony from health care providers, but expert testiony is not required where the emotional distress to which a plaintiff testifies is not beyond the common experience of the jurors. The trial court also erred by intimating that the discovery stipulation the plaintiffs entered into under Code of Civil Procedure section 2032.320 serves as a limit on the amount a plaintiff can recover for emotional distress and arbitrarily capping damages in a case in which such a stipulation has been made as rarely exceeding a low five-figure range. The trial court also erroneously placed a limit on the amount of damages a jury can award for emotional distress damages. Its reasoning is incompatible with case law’s rejection of a fixed standard to determine the amount of noneconomic damages. Granting a new trial as to economic damages was also an abuse of discretion. Its statement that no admissible evidence was presented to support the damages was mistaken. While the trial court questioned the credibility of the plaintiff’s testimony about economic losses, that did not render the officer’s testimony inadmissible. In basing its decision on the purported lack of admissible evidence, the court transgressed the confines of the applicable principles of law and so abused its discretion. On the city’s cross-appeal, the appellate court concluded that the amount of noneconomic damages awarded did not shock the conscience, and so should not be reduced. It further rejected the city’s argument that the economic damages awarded were unsupported.
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