A whistleblower fired by former Gov. Deval Patrick in 2014 for interfering with a state resolution that allowed Patrick’s brother-in-law to remain off the intercourse offender registry isn’t entitled to punitive damages, a Superior Court decide dominated Tuesday.
Essex Superior Court Judge James Lang wrote that whereas Patrick’s resolution to fireplace Saundra Edwards, former chair of the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board, “constituted an unlawful act of retaliation,” it was not completed “out of an evil motive or any intent to hurt the plaintiff’s profession.
“The court concludes that the evidence does not support a finding that Governor Patrick’s actionable conduct was undertaken in reckless indifference to the plaintiff’s rights,” Lang wrote.
Upon turning into SORB chair, Edwards allegedly sought to vary a 2007 resolution from listening to officer A.J. Paglia, who dominated that Bernard Sigh’s 1993 spousal rape conviction in California — involving Patrick’s brother-in-law and sister — was “more akin” to indecent assault and battery than rape underneath Massachusetts legislation.
As a results of this ruling, Sigh didn’t need to register as a intercourse offender, court docket paperwork present.
Edwards, who was fired three months earlier than Patrick left workplace, was awarded greater than $800,000 in compensatory damages final 12 months, after a jury decided that Gov. Patrick’s conduct violated her rights underneath the Whistleblower Act — for defamation and wrongful termination.
She filed a subsequent movement, searching for to “treble” or triple the damages awarded by the jury, to greater than $2.46 million. The Commonwealth opposed the movement, which was denied by Essex Superior Court following a non-evidentiary listening to held on March 6, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
“Based on the evidence presented at trial, the plaintiff is fully entitled to the jury’s significant and appropriate award of compensatory damages,” Lang wrote. “She is not, however, entitled to punitive damages.”
Edwards explored methods to vary the end result of Paglia’s ruling, which stored Patrick’s brother-in-law off the intercourse offender registry, however in the end really helpful that the listening to officer’s ultimate written resolution be issued “without substantive change,” court docket paperwork present.
However, she “did require that Paglia undergo certain remedial training, and removed him from hearing certain kinds of cases,” actions that Paglia alleged constituted illegal retaliation in a lawsuit he filed in opposition to the commonwealth upon leaving the SORB.
SORB’s chief authorized counsel, now-Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden, really helpful that the case be settled for $60,000.
The administration and finance secretariat accepted the settlement, upon which former Gov. Patrick was concurrently notified and have become conscious of Edwards’ alleged makes an attempt to vary the favorable final result for his household, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
“Upon learning of the settlement and of Paglia’s allegations that the plaintiff had pressured Paglia to change his decision and had then punished and demoted him, Gov. Patrick considered removing the plaintiff as SORB chair,” Lang wrote.
“He tasked his appointments office with looking into the functioning of SORB and its leadership, which that office then did over a period of many months.”
Patrick testified at trial that he fired Edwards for her failure to replace SORB rules and for low office morale on the company, however stated the “last straw” was her alleged interference with the listening to officer’s resolution relating to the Sigh intercourse offender classification case.
“That candor made the causation element of the plaintiff’s whistleblower complaint a slam dunk, and it was instrumental to the overall success of that claim,” Lang wrote.
The court docket concluded that Patrick’s resolution to exchange Edwards was pushed by his “aggrievement at what he perceived to be the devastating impact that the Sigh classification matter and the related press coverage of it had had upon his sister and her children,” Lang wrote.
Patrick believed that Paglia’s resolution to stop Sigh from having to categorise as a intercourse offender was the most effective final result for his sister and her household, and Edwards’ try to change that call added to the publicity on the time, “which he viewed as detrimental to the family,” Lang wrote.
Lang stated, nonetheless, that the court docket didn’t discover proof supporting Edwards’ declare that the previous governor’s conduct was undertaken in reckless indifference to her rights, pointing to “material gaps in the governor’s knowledge.”
For instance, Patrick was unaware that the work to replace SORB rules had already been accomplished underneath Edwards’ management. Two of her direct supervisors had he spoken to them, would have described her management as excellent.
“And, perhaps most significantly, as it went to the principal reason for his termination decision, Governor Patrick apparently did not know that ultimately the plaintiff directed that Paglia’s decision be issued without any material alterations or substantive change in the result,” Lang wrote.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”