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slander, and unpaid wages.
$62,500+ each is in no way adequate compensation for these damages. If I understand this OP correctly, these woman were working 12-18 hours a day presumably 5-6 days a week, for $500 a month!--with no health care. And shitty living conditions. And verbal abuse. So, first of all, their real pay needs to be restored, for all that unpaid work, then damages for breach of contract, slavery, health impacts, suffering and slander. We're talking $17,000 a year (calculated at 8 hrs a day--and they worked more overtime than that--at $7/hr, with one day a week off and a week's vacation) for one person alone. They were basically working double shifts and then some. So, depending on how many 18 hour days they put in, they are owed roughly $20,000 per year, over and above what they actually made.
I'm not sure how long this went on, but one year's back pay that is owed to them reduces the damages award to about $40,000 each. Breach on contract--$5,000 (each)? Slavery--$5,000? Health impacts/suffering--$5,000? Slander--$5,000?
This award is beginning to look like a gift to the employers. And the headline is false: no nanny is receiving $125,000. Two nannies are receiving $85,000 split between them, plus one year's wages owed to them for overtime (at a nominal rate of pay). And if they worked under these conditions for more than one year, their award is even smaller. ($20,000 per year, per worker, in unpaid wages.)
Also, for extremely poor people to file a suit like this is exhausting, time-consuming and very expensive--with many hidden costs (travel, loss of income, anxiety, stress). If you work for an hourly wage, you don't get paid for the time that the lawsuit requires (meetings with attorneys, depositions, providing evidence, court appearances), IF you can even get work after filing such a lawsuit. (The likelihood of being blacklisted as nannies/housekeepers is very great.) I presume their attorneys' fees and costs had to be paid (since they won the suit), but what of the hidden costs? And what of their futures? Education? Re-training? Health care? Travel to and establishment in another area (re-location costs)?
I would say the award is about a 10th of what it should have been, for simple justice and repair of damages--and probably should have been even higher than that, as a warning to other employers. It may be a pioneering lawsuit, and certainly was a courageous one, but the small award sets a bad precedent which I hope gets corrected.
The employers should additionally be charged with crimes, but that ain't likely to happen to rich, fascist Latin Americans in Florida. And they have the nerve to sue to lower the award! I trust that that will get thrown out of court--unless they judge-shop successfully and find themselves a Bush appointee.
These poor women could end up with nothing.
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