Ex-Cambridge city worker is awarded $4.5m in suit
A Middlesex Superior Court jury has decided that the City of Cambridge should pay a former employee more than $4.5 million, after the jury found that the city retaliated against the woman for filing a discrimination case nearly 10 years ago.
Malvina Monteiro lost her job in September 2003 as executive director of the city's Police Review and Advisory Board, a civilian oversight group. The city had recently informed her of its intention to fire her, so she resigned from the job.
"It is really gratifying for me," Monteiro said in a telephone interview. "I am deeply humbled the jury understood my experience."
The total amount, once legal fees and statutory interest are factored in, could climb to $6 million or more, said Monteiro's lawyer, Ellen Zucker. She said the amount shows how incensed the jury was by the retaliation.
"As a lawyer, I view Malvina as my hero," Zucker said. "It takes someone with that kind of integrity and grit to stand up and, in this case, take on City Hall."
The jury on Friday found the city's five-year retaliation effort so egregious in nature that the payout includes $3.5 million in punitive damages. Awarding punitive damages is rare in Massachusetts, and high amounts are usually about $2 million for employment law cases, said David Yas, editor in chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.
"This must be an extreme case," Yas said.
Judge Bonnie H. MacLeod-Mancuso has not yet ruled on the verdict and its dollar amounts.
Robert Healy, the city manager, said in a prepared statement that Cambridge intends to aggressively pursue posttrial motions and an appeal, if necessary. The city believes the judge unfairly ruled against allowing the city to tell the jury the outcome of the case when it was first tried three years ago.
The previous jury found that Monteiro failed to prove the city discriminated against her before she filed her complaint, but the jury deadlocked on three other counts dealing with whether Cambridge discriminated or retaliated against her after filing the complaint.
"The city believes that the plaintiff introduced no evidence of retaliatory animus, that the jury had no legitimate basis on which to reach any such finding, and that the award of punitive damages in a case in which a previous jury was unable to reach a verdict on the retaliation claim at all was improper," Healy said.
Massachusetts state law, however, protects employees from retaliation, regardless of whether an employee prevails in a discrimination claim or not.
Monteiro, who is Cape Verdean and was hired by the City of Cambridge in July 1990, filed a racial and national origin discrimination complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in September 1998 and later moved the case to Superior Court.
Four other women of color, who held city management jobs, were also involved in filing the case, which is being tried separately for each woman. The women said they felt they were not being treated the same way as their white colleagues and not given the same opportunities.
Monteiro said yesterday she thought the city would simply sit down with the women and resolve the issues without going to court. She said she never expected the city to respond with the force it did, causing her to endure five years of having her performance picked apart as the city searched for a way to oust her.
The city's criticism began almost immediately, Monteiro said. Monteiro, who secured a hefty pay raise a year earlier, received her first complaint about two months after filing the complaint, and others followed at the encouragement of Healy. He eventually kept her out of the process of selecting new board members. After two new members complained about her, Healy embarked on an extensive investigation, during which he stripped Monteiro and the board of its meaningful duties.
When that failed to turn up grounds for termination, Healy sought to fire Monteiro in 2003, after another investigation determined she violated city policy by taking daytime classes five years earlier at Tufts University's Fletcher School, while earning a master's degree. She took those classes before filing her discrimination complaint, and the city says it only learned of her participation in that program during the deposition of the discrimination complaint.
"You don't collide with Mr. Healy and survive the accident," said Laura Studen, who tried the case with Zucker.
Monteiro, now a self-employed translator, said that losing her job was devastating. She said she had always worked since she arrived in this country three decades ago at the age of 17, not speaking a word of English. She eventually earned a high school diploma and a college degree.
When the jury delivered its verdict about 11 a.m. Friday, after nearly 10 years of litigation, a million thoughts went through her mind, but one stood out the most, Monteiro said. "I got my dignity back."
James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com. 