A Merrimack County Superior Court judge has tacked on an additional $12,946 to the bill the town of Chichester owes to Gilbert Vien, who won a wrongful termination suit against the town earlier this year.
In a Dec. 13 order, judge Richard McNamara calculated that Chichester owed Vien an extra $8,260 in lost wages and $3,686 to pay back penalties Vien incurred when he withdrew money from his state retirement account after being fired in retaliation by the town. The order amends a prior judgment in Vien’s favor from September awarding him $166,587 – $59,680 of which would reimburse legal fees and experts.
Vien had originally sought $1.5 million in damages from the town. His attorney, Bruce Marshall, filed a motion to contest the earlier judgment, arguing Vien was owed more on several grounds – including that he couldn’t be expected to work for the town again, and that officials weren’t willing to let him come back to work anyway.
The town told McNamara that wasn’t true, according to court filings, and Vien was ordered reinstated to his old job at the highway department at a Nov. 1 hearing. Two weeks later, Vien’s lawyer filed a new motion with the court, arguing the town should be held in contempt of court. The motion alleged that Vien was stalked and harassed by people in town, and that the select board and the town’s road agent had refused to help.
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“Vien and his family are genuinely in fear for his safety and well-being,” the motion states.
But McNamara concluded that Vien offered no proof of the threats, and chastised him for not doing enough to repair relations with his employer.
“His decision to wear a body camera upon return to work, to put it charitably, is hardly indicative of a willingness to have a good working relationship with his employer but is suggestive of a bad faith attempt to provoke further conflict,” the judge wrote in his December order.
Daniel Mullen, Chichester’s attorney, said that while “obviously the town doesn’t like the case,” it had “no issue” with the judge’s orders and was not planning to contest the damages.
“The town was ready to move forward after it got the order in September,” he said.
Vien’s fight with the town dates back to 2010, when he was fired as the town’s fire chief after he accused a sitting selectman of wrongdoing.
That case was initially settled – with neither side admitting fault – but reopened in August 2014 after Vien was fired again, this time from the highway department, according to prior Monitor reports. A stipulation of the original $27,000 settlement Vien received was that he wouldn’t be retaliated against in his position at the highway department.
But McNamara concluded in June that the town did just that, using “an extraordinarily weak” case to fire Vien for alleged misuse of town equipment.
Neither Vien nor his attorney could be reached for comment.
(Lola Duffort can be reached at 369-3321 or lduffort@cmonitor.com.)