The former highway department employee from Chichester who successfully sued the town for wrongful termination says he’s owed $1.5 million in damages, a figure that represents almost three-quarters of the annual municipal budget.
The town, meanwhile, argues that many of the damages Gilbert Vien alleges are invalid. Through its attorney, Daniel Mullen, the town said Vien is due less than one-tenth of what he seeks: $120,000.
In a memo filed Monday at Merrimack County Superior Court, Vien’s attorney wrote that his client lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of pay and retirement benefits as a result of his unjust firing three years ago, as well as accruing unnecessary legal fees and medical bills.
In addition to those costs, Vien, who earned $18 an hour as a highway department employee, said he “quickly realized he was in effect unemployable after potential employers were made aware of the false allegations surrounding his termination.” He instead operated his own landscaping business that made a net profit over three years of about $1,000, according to the town’s assessment.
Half of Vien’s request is attributable to his personal pain and suffering, according to the court document.
“A damage amount for the three plus years of public ridicule, humiliation and destruction of Vien’s reputation at the hands of the Town has also been included in the amount of $750,000,” wrote his attorney, Bruce Marshall.
Vien was accused of misusing town property for personal gain, but a superior court judge ruled after a February trial that the town used an “extraordinarily weak” case to fire him in retaliation.
Vien’s tussle with the town dates to 2010, when he was fired from a different job as chief of the volunteer fire department after accusing the previous chief – a sitting selectman – of wrongdoing. He sued and was paid $27,500 in a 2013 settlement that included two stipulations: the town couldn’t retaliate against him in his highway department job, and his departure would be recorded as a resignation in the following town report.
But soon thereafter, in May 2013, Vien was fired from the highway department without proper reason, a judge ruled. And the agreed-upon resignation note “was put in perhaps the most obscure place in the entire Town Report it could have been placed,” wrote Judge Richard McNamara, making it “patently obvious that the town carried out its obligations under the Settlement Agreement in a grudging manner.”
McNamara ordered Vien and the town to write memos proving how much Vien is owed in damages, both of which were filed Monday.
Instead of seeking reinstatement in his old job, Vien requested “pay in lieu of return to work” in the amount of $174,000, his attorney wrote, “based on the undisputed reality that it is unlikely that it would be possible for Vien to return to work at this point in time, given the continued contemptuous conduct of the town.”
Mullen, the town’s attorney, wrote that Vien overestimated how much he would have made if he stayed employed with the town, didn’t do enough to find alternative employment and overbilled for legal fees, among other contested costs. He also wrote that some aspects for which Vien sought payment – such as for his retirement and unused sick time – would be reinstated if he resumes his job.
Vien “should not be allowed to use the Town of Chichester as an insurer of his failing or unsuccessful business,” Mullen wrote. “There is little to no evidence that plaintiff did anything to look for other work other than his self-employment in his landscaping business. . . . Given the fact that he expended little effort in trying to find other work, plaintiff should be penalized for doing so for failure to mitigate the damages.”
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)