A Merrimack Superior Court judge has ordered the town of Chichester to pay $166,587 to the the former highway department employee who successfully sued the town for wrongful termination.
Of that total, $106,907 would go directly to Gilbert Vien in damages – $57,230 would go to legal fees, another $2,450 would reimburse experts.
Vien, who sought $1.5 million from the town, has filed a motion to reconsider. The damages were calculated in part on the assumption that Vien
Vien’s tussle with the town dates back to 2010, when he was fired from a different job as the town’s fire chief after accusing a sitting selectman of wrongdoing.
That case was initially settled – with neither side admitting wrongdoing – but reopened in August 2014 after Vien was fired again, this time from the highway department. A stipulation of the original $27,000 settlement was that Vien wouldn’t be retaliated against in his position at the highway department.
But Merrimack Superior Court judge Richard McNamara found in June that the town did just that, using “an extrordinarily weak” case to fire him for alleged misuse of town equipment.
“The Town has been in contempt of this Court’s prior Orders, to one degree or another, for more than three years. As noted by the Court in Chambers this past June, it is not reasonable that Mr. Vien could return to work with the Town given the Town’s conduct towards Vien,” Vien’s attorney, Bruce Marshall, wrote in a Sept. 23 brief.
McNamara ruled in his judgement that Vien could not recoup the $750,000 in damages he sought for “slander, libel, and resulting humiliation” because the case in question was a breach of contract suit.
“Damages for torts such as defamation do not flow from a breach of contract, and must be seperately alleged and proved,” the judge wrote Sept. 1.
Marshall argued in his brief that evidence brought forward in the suit clearly proved that Vien’s reputation was “effectively destroyed,” and that such damages were allowed under the suit originally settled with the town.
Marshall also contests that Vien withdrew funds from his retirement account by choice – which McNamara found in denying him certain damages – and argues the town should cover the entire legal cost of Vien’s defense surrounding his firing.
Chichester responded Oct. 3, saying a position was available for Vien in the highway department and he could return to work. The town, which in a previous filing calculated Vien was owed $120,000, said in its most recent brief the judge’s order should stand as-is.
A hearing on Vien’s motion to reconsider has been scheduled for Nov. 1.
(Lola Duffort can be reached at 369-3321 or lduffort@cmonitor.com.)