RICHMOND, Va. – After a Black man with intellectual disabilities was enslaved, beaten and forced to work more than 100 hours a week without pay in a South Carolina restaurant, his manager was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $273,000 in restitution.
But a federal appeals court recently ruled the man is entitled to double that amount under federal labor laws. A three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals found that a U.S. District Court judge erred when he failed to include an additional $273,000 as “liquidated damages” in his order of restitution.
Under the April 21 ruling, the court said John Christopher Smith is entitled to total restitution of $546,000. The appeals court sent the case back to the lower