Jury slaps ILWU with $1.2M penalty
By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer
Nicanor E. Casumpang Jr. won an election to be the ILWU Local 142's top officer for Maui in 1997, but never took office.
The union said Casumpang violated union rules by doing outside work. But Casumpang said the real reason was his criticism of union leadership.
Casumpang
On Thursday, a federal jury agreed with Casumpang in its verdict, which awarded him $1,240,000.
The award against Local 142 of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union includes $1 million in punitive damages, believed to be the among the highest against a union here. Casumpang was also awarded $90,000 for damage to his reputation and $150,000 for emotional distress.
"I'm not surprised because I know they did terrible," Casumpang said yesterday.
He said he and his lawyer, Shawn Luiz, asked the jury to send a strong message that the way he was treated should not be tolerated by the ILWU or any other union.
Luiz said he will ask the judge to order the union to also pay his legal fees for the past seven years — about $500,000.
The union plans to appeal.
Fred Galdones, Local 142 president since last year, said the union is "bewildered and shocked" by the verdict.
"We believe that the union acted fairly and did not violate the plaintiff's rights in any way," Galdones said.
Dan Purtell, a San Francisco lawyer who represented the union, said the punitive damages award was "grossly excessive." He said that under the law, punitive damages should not punish the union members, but the award might do that.
The Hawai'i chapter of the ILWU is one of the state's most powerful unions, with about 20,000 members. Its history goes back to the 1930s when it organized laborers on the plantations and the docks here. The union represents longshore and agricultural workers as well as a range of other private employees.
The federal jury reached its verdict after about a day and a half of deliberations following a three-week trial in Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Kay's courtroom.
Luiz said his client won the election as the union's Maui division director, a $65,000-a-year post representing the island's 9,000 members.
But a five-member panel of the union found that Casumpang was in a conflict of interest by taking an outside job doing electrical contracting, Luiz said.
Casumpang was also stripped of his union rights such as voting in union elections, Luiz said.
Purtell said the union constitution prohibits organization officials who get paid by the membership to hold outside employment to avoid conflicts of interest and ensure that the officials be available for union work at all times. The union chose to enforce a rule that all other officials must follow, Purcell said.
But Luiz said Casumpang maintained that the reason for the action was his criticism. According to Luiz, it included his objection to members' pay going to a health and welfare fund for the leadership; his belief that too many lawyers were involved in collective bargaining negotiations, and his questioning of what happened to the union's political action funds during nonelection years.
The union denied any wrongdoing.
"We presented what we believed to be overwhelming evidence that the ILWU has a long tradition as a democratic and open union," Galdones said. "Our members have always been free to speak their minds. It is a right guaranteed under our union's constitution and bylaws.
"Retaliation against any member would never be tolerated within this union."
But Luiz said the verdict vindicates his client.
"He felt he was finally justified, that finally someone believed that these things happened to him," Luiz said.
Casumpang, a Maui electrician who lives with his wife of 22 years in Kahului, has been an ILWU member since the early 1980s. He later became involved in union activities and was a business agent before he ran for Maui division director in 1997.
He has a job with a Maui sugar company as an electrician.
"I don't blame the union itself," Casumpang said. "I think the union is good for the workers."
He said that with the money, he wants to offer his 21-year-old son, the eldest of their three children, a chance to go to college. He said he wasn't able to afford it earlier because of bills and the cost of litigation.
"I want to give him the opportunity," Casumpang said.
Reach Ken Kobayashi at 525-8030 or kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
