Part 2 of Mental Anguish case question.?
First off iam new on here so I don't know how to respond to peoples responces, so I'm doing it here. First off the dicrimination case is because iam disabled not due to color. Second off I really don't think color would be an issue with me since I am married to a BLACK Man and all 3 of my children are Mixed. Next I don't need to get a job, Iam retired from the Marine Corps, I have served my country with HONOR and Now fully retired.
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Your original question was:
"The fair housing of KY has filed a suit for me, now the man wants to settle out of court and they want to know what I think is a fair amount for my mental anguish. So how much should I ask for?"
In a disability case, the quantification of damages is based partly on the ADA statute, and the state's equivalent of it.
Typically a jury will decide based on the length of time it took to remediate the injury.
For instance, if you're disabled and the landlord refuses to install a ramp where it could've been installed and the cost of the ramp was negligible, then the length of time, say 12 months for example, would quantify the amount of frustration every day for 365 days. That could be several thousand dollars or whatever amount of extra work you had to go through just to get to your front door.
Now that was just an example. I would say the fair housing people who filed suit on your behalf should be able to give you better advice than us. Typically awards are usually small, several thousand dollars for the anguish, but much more to remediate the lack of access.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a pretty tough law to get around these days. Its been around for decades and so landlords and property owners should have already changed their properties to make them ADA compliant.
In either event, not knowing the details of your case, its hard to say how much.
I always advise people to settle for what they need, not what they want, in order to avoid the hazards of going to trial. If you go to trial there's always a chance you could lose, or you might win but get next to nothing for damages.
Mental anquish is very hard to quantify, especially in a case like this. If this went before a jury, they would have a hard time understanding how this sort of discrimination woud put you in such a state that you could not function as a normal un-anguished person. I can see how you would be royally pi**ed, but not reduced to a hand-wringing, sobbing, emotional wreck.
I would think you would have more success quantifying any economic loss you might have incurred due to the discriminatory activity.