Posted on 09/08/2001 2:21:07 AM PDT by kattracks
Judge cites bias & vulgarity,
orders new restaurant union trial
A Manhattan judge has taken the unusual step of overturning a jury verdict after determining that racial and sexual hostility among jurors resulted in an illegal compromise verdict.
Civil Court Judge Lucy Billings took the action in a case involving the owners of two prominent Chinatown restaurants and a group of activists seeking to unionize the restaurants' workers.
The activists, Wing Shung Lam and his Chinese Staff and Workers Association, charged that the restaurant owners had defamed them in Chinatown newspapers during their unionizing attempts.
The restaurants involved are Jing Fong and the Silver Palace.
According to Billings' decision, during the 23-day trial and deliberations, the six-person jury split along sexual and racial lines, with three black women and one Hispanic woman repeatedly denigrating jury foreman Milton Garrison's race and calling him vulgar names.
Billings said the four women complained that Garrison was "a white male motivated by racial animus who conspired with the plaintiff's white male counsel to produce a verdict for the plaintiff."
The women claimed that Garrison had a homosexual encounter with the lawyer in the men's bathroom in the courthouse.
And when Demetrius Daniel, a black juror, sided with Garrison, the four women assailed him as an Uncle Tom.
The jury found that the owners of the Jing Fong restaurant made a defamatory statement about Lam but, by a 5-to-1 vote, concluded there were no damages and therefore he should not get any of the $20 million he sought.
The same was true for the owners of the other restaurant.
Garrison was the sole minority vote in every claim. Daniel ultimately joined the women.
Billings said "indecorous" jury deliberations are not a basis for overturning a verdict, but "indications of racial bias and a compromise verdict warrant closer scrutiny.
"These invectives were more than vulgarities of personal animus," the judge wrote, "they were invoked with the purpose to malign Garrison's and Daniel's view of the evidence and compel their conformity."
Billings ordered a new trial.
The Chinese Staff and Workers Association helped organize protests and strikes by Chinese workers in the late 1980s against restaurant owners who they charged paid less than minimum wage and withheld tips.
In 1997, Wing Fong paid back wages and tips of $1.1 million to settle a suit brought by the New York State attorney general.
Those who are for jury nullification , here, couldn't care less about this sort of trial.
It goes without saying that had the roles been reversed the following would have happened:
Forgive me for being cynical, but this has happened too many times before so it's not difficult to figure out the script. As it is now, expect the judge to come under intense fire for the race baiters (Jackson, Sharpton, Mfume at al) claiming this white guy silenced "thier people"
It's only a matter of time before there is a backlash. I can only pray that there will be no violence.
I thought it already had.
Above the fold coverage in the NY Times
Great minds think alike.
See my reply #4 here: LINK
It has...the majority have just not realized it yet.
Looks like we're about done here, folks. Anybody still convinced that the judicial system works for us?
You don't say. Were they in the room?
-ccm
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