Soooo... this leaves me with a lot of questions and mixed feelings.
First of all - good to see the justice.
Second - its clear the real winner is the IRS, who gets to collect a lot of random cash for doing absolutely nothing, when no actual work was performed by anybody, especially since as noted its a giant lump sum putting the receiver in a higher bracket.
Third - wtf is the expected annual income value of a Starbucks manager? How many years are they assuming this career would have lasted? Seems like a lot of conjecture, and a really inflated value. Maybe they are anticipating a lot of inflation too
Fourth - this person has already received a snotpile of cash in settlements. I'm struggling to understand the logic of piling this on, aside from lawyers, IRS, and individual greed.
Finally - Starbucks has a valid point in their complaint IMO. They are paying out the assumed amount the person would have made had they kept working there. OK, that's fine, but if they just get another job that pays the same or higher, then the plaintiff has no real case about a loss and is just double-dipping. You'd really need to prove they are now unemployable.