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In a historic development a U.S. federal jury awarded $14 million in compensatory and punitive damages on Feb. 18, to five Indian guest workers in their case against a U.S. marine services company charged with human trafficking. The case, David v. Signal International, is one of several filed against Signal International, the company accused of running a scheme engineered with the help of an immigration lawyer and an Indian labor recruiter to bring hundreds of workers to a Mississippi shipyard with promises of permanent U.S. residency.
After a four-week trial that began Jan. 12, before U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, the jury ruled that Signal International, New Orleans lawyer Malvern C. Burnett, and India-based recruiter Sachin Dewan engaged in labor trafficking, fraud, racketeering and discrimination. The jury also found that one of the five plaintiffs was a victim of false imprisonment and retaliation.
“The defendants exploited our clients, put their own profits over the lives of these honorable workers, and tried to deny them their day in court,” lead attorney Alan Howard, board chairman of the leading American civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center, is quoted saying in a release. “But they persevered and after seven long years have received the justice they so well deserve.”
“It’s a fantastic result for our clients and certainly the largest verdict in a case under the Anti-Trafficking Law,” Dan Werner, senior supervising attorney at SPLC told News India Times.
The plaintiffs in the case, Jacob Joseph Kadakkarappally, Hemant Khuttan, Andrews Issac Padaveettiyl, Sony Vasudevan Sulekha and Palanyandi Thangamani jointly issued a statement saying, “It’s a great day for justice. We are thankful that we had our day in court and grateful that a jury in an American court of law heard our stories and understood the discrimination and deceit that caused us so much pain.”
This first trial is one in a series that will take place over the next two years as 230 workers out of the 500 or so that worked with Signal, had decided to sue the company individually because of a judgment handed down two years ago which did not allow plaintiffs to sue as a class. That prompted SPLC to find attorneys from top law firms to give pro-bono legal assistance to the plaintiffs. The SPLC’s co-counsel in this case was Crowell & Moring, LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sahn Ward Coschignano & Baker, and the Louisiana Justice Institute.
“This historic verdict puts American companies on notice that if they exploit the flaws in our temporary worker program, they will be held accountable and punished,” said Chandra Bhatnagar, co-counsel in the case and senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program.
“Signal strongly disagrees with rulings from the court in the case which impacted its ability to present defenses and is disappointed with the verdict,” said a statement sent to News India Times by its attorney Brian Roux. “Signal is evaluating all of its options including an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit,” the statement added. The company has consistently held it was not responsible for hiring the Indian workers and that it paid them $18 an hour.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Signal brought close to 500 Indian welders, pipefitters, and others under the H-2B guest worker program to repair damaged oil rigs and related facilities. Under the guest worker program, workers are not allowed to change jobs if they are abused but face the loss of their investment if they are fired or quit.
The workers say they paid huge amounts to labor recruiters and a lawyer, anything between $10,000 and $20,000 or more in recruitment fees and other costs after being promised good jobs, green cards and permanent U.S. residency for them and their families. Most sold property or plunged their families into deep debts SPLC noted in its arguments.
When the men arrived at Signal shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, beginning in 2006, they discovered that they wouldn’t receive the green cards or permanent residency that had been promised. They also had to pay Signal $1,050 a month to live in virtual labor camps that were guarded, and as many as 24 men shared a space the size of a double-wide trailer. None of Signal’s non-Indian workers were required to live in the company housing, plaintiffs contended.
“That was the minute where all my expectations were shattered,” plaintiff Sony Sulekha testified, according to a release from SPLC. “The time that I went into the camp and I looked, I was shocked. Where all my expectations and my happiness all got destroyed, that was the minute that it happened.”
According to Werner, the workers experienced “constant stress and humiliation,” but were stuck and the company showed “shocking disregard” for their basic human rights. When some men tried to find their own housing, Signal officials told them the “man camp” fee would still be deducted from their pay. Workers said visitors were rarely allowed into the camps. Company employees searched workers’ belongings. And workers who complained were threatened with deportation.
“I had borrowed so much money to come here,” Sulekha testified. “And then if I am returned [to India by Signal for standing up for my rights], then my entire family would [be in] the streets.”
These abuses silenced plaintiff Andrews Issac Padavettiyil. “Until today, I have not told anything to any other person about all of the difficulties that I had,” he testified before the jury. “In the future, I don’t want anybody to go through these same problems. I had to say Signal was a big part of this.”
According to SPLC, in March 2007, some of the SPLC’s clients were illegally detained by Signal’s private security guards during a pre-dawn raid of their quarters in Pascagoula. Two were detained for the purpose of deporting them to India in retaliation for complaining about the abuses and meeting with workers’ rights advocates. One worker who is a plaintiff in a separate suit was so distraught he attempted suicide, SPLC said.
Signal CEO Richard L. Marler was also cross examined during the jury trial.
“Human trafficking is a complex human rights issue, and this case demonstrates how male immigrants with visas can be victims and survivors of trafficking,” Ivy O. Suriyopas, director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund’s Anti-Trafficking Initiative is quoted saying in the release. “The jury understood this nuance and has helped these men to finally achieve some measure of justice.”
The other lawsuits facing Signal International and its agents, representing more than 200 additional workers, were filed after a judge did not grant class action status in this case, which would have benefited most of Signal’s 500 Indian workers if a favorable judgment was delivered.
The SPLC then went about to successfully bring together nearly a dozen of the nation’s top law firms and civil rights organizations to represent, on a pro bono basis, hundreds of workers excluded from the original SPLC suit by the denial of class action status, Werner told News India Times.
The next trial will begin in Beaumont, Texas April 7, Werner said. After that a case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, also against Signal, will start in June in New Orleans in the court of the same judge who ruled on this first case, Judge Susie Morgan. Following that will be another trial in New Orleans in July, followed by another in Texas. “So trials are going to go on for pretty much the next two years,” Werner said.