|
An injured party has a duty to take steps to minimize its loses, but the burden falls on the non-injured party to prove the injured party failed to mitigate.
Here is the Washington State Pattern Jury Instruction on mitigation: "A person who is liable for damages to another person's [property] [business] is not liable for any damages arising after the original [injury] [event] that are proximately caused by failure of the injured person to exercise ordinary care to avoid or minimize such new or increased damages." "(Insert name of applicable party) has the burden to prove (insert name of other party's) failure to exercise ordinary care and the amount of damages, if any, that would have been minimized or avoided." In the context of a wrongful termination of employment lawsuit, this means the terminated employee must take steps to find a new position; he or she cannot refuse to look for work, or refuse to accept a reasonable job offer, in hopes of recovering lost wages from the prior employer. Contact Mark D. Walters Comments are closed.
|