Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC is opposing a former employee\u2019s request for default judgment in the amount of over $27 million. <\/p>\n
IPI, through its lawyer, Hannah A Bogen, filed its opposition in the U.S. District Court for the NMI against ex-employee Joshua Gray, who is suing IPI over alleged discriminatory hiring practices, and his motion for default judgment of over $27 million. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile plaintiff has asserted that IPI retaliated and discriminated against him by terminating him, he has not provided any admissible evidence on which the court could conclude that he has proven damages against IPI. Accordingly, the court should not award the damages claimed and should decline to enter a default judgment,\u201d the lawyer said. <\/p>\n
In addition, IPI has sought the dismissal of Gray\u2019s request for punitive damages because the plaintiff has failed to provide admissible evidence that he was terminated for discriminatory reasons. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo warrant punitive damages, IPI\u2019s conduct must be (1) intentional, and (2) engaged in \u2018with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally protected rights\u2019 of the plaintiff,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The lawyer also argued that taking into account other cases within the Ninth Circuit seeking damages, the plaintiff\u2019s claim for $27,578,376 in punitive damages is out of line and warrants immediate dismissal. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the event that the court determines to award punitive damages, it should consider the approach taken by the Ninth Circuit in Bains LLC v. Arco Prod. In that case, a jury awarded $5 million in punitive damages based on findings that, on the basis of their national origin, Indian-born truckers were regularly called remarkably offensive names by a business partner, who also caused them to lose compensation, forced them to stand outside in the rain while refueling, and terminated their contract when they made a complaint. Despite this offensive and repeated behavior, the Ninth Circuit overturned the award as excessive, finding that such conduct \u2018did not involve a threat \u2018to life or limb\u2019 as the damages suffered were primarily economic\u2019 and remanded the case to state court with a suggested $300,000 to $450,000 damages range. Plaintiff\u2019s claim for $27,578,376 in punitive damages should thus be quickly dismissed as thoroughly out of line with damages awarded in Ninth Circuit cases involving more severe and repeated conduct,\u201d she stated. <\/p>\n
Gray, who previously sued IPI on the grounds of wrongful termination in violation of public policy (immigration violations), wrongful failure to hire, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, has filed a motion for default judgment in the amount of over $27 million.<\/p>\n
Gray, through his lawyer, Bruce Berline, claims that he is entitled to compensatory damages of back pay, front pay, lost future earnings\/reputational harm, emotional distress, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, and attorneys\u2019 fees and costs.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Gray] requests back pay damages of $464,083.00, front pay damages of $1,475,685.00, [and] emotional distress damages of $2 million,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition, Berline asks that the court grant his client punitive damages that is seven times the amount of compensatory damages he is asking for. That\u2019s roughly $27,578,376.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC is opposing a former employee\u2019s request for default judgment in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":378851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12497],"class_list":["post-378831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}