Garcia v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Garcia (plaintiff) was injured when a Wal-Mart (defendant) employee's cart knocked her down, aggravating pre-existing chronic degenerative-disc disease and forcing her to give up personally running her burrito shop. At trial, evidence showed some of her pain might be psychological, but she could not afford psychological treatment; an economist testified to her business losses, and Wal-Mart's only rebuttal evidence was a doctor saying she could do light work, without evidence of any actual available jobs. The district court declined to instruct the jury on mitigation, reasoning Garcia wasn't required to seek unaffordable psychological treatment or hire others to run a business requiring her personal involvement; Wal-Mart did not object to this refusal before the jury retired. The jury awarded Garcia $350,000, and Wal-Mart appealed the mitigation-instruction refusal.