When you’ve been discriminated against, you suffer some emotional harm just by virtue of the discrimination. So one category of damages are emotional distress damages, where a jury can award you for pain and suffering, embarrassment, humiliation, for having suffered discrimination. If you’ve lost income as a result of the discriminatory act, you can receive economic compensation. You would also get attorney’s fees paid if you prevail, so essentially you would have the employer pay for your attorney. And then in real serious cases, punitive damages which are punishment damages are available under some statutes.
