Ex-Rota employees awarded $370K in damages

The Superior Court yesterday awarded total damages of over $370,000 to eight Rota Municipal Council employees who were terminated three years ago.

Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama said the 10th Rota Municipal Council, together with former council members Richard Manglona, Jeffrey Manglona, and Balbina Taisacan, should compensate the employees for violating their civil rights and causing them emotional distress.

Lizama ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiffs $270,197 for lost back pay and benefits and $106,250.57 in front pay. The latter is given in situations where an employee is wrongfully terminated and then obtains new employment at a lower wage rate.

The plaintiffs are Sylvan T. Atalig, Francisca S. Barcinas, Robert Calvo, Esperansa Toves Cruz, Maria O. Manglona, Martin Q. Quitugua, Francisco Ayuyu Taga, and Ray Julian Taitague.

Individually, they stand to receive between $3,088.81 and $110,238.28.

The civil action stemmed from the workers’ termination on Jan. 17, 2002.

The employees were in the process of being converted to the Civil Service system at the time.

Court documents show that, either shortly before or after assuming office on Jan. 16, 2002, Richard Manglona received the workers’ conversion papers.

Instead of sending the documents to the Office of Personnel Management and completing the process, then Council chair Richard Manglona ordered each of the employees not to return to work until the processing of their employment documents was completed.

According to Richard Manglona, he sent the letter because he wanted the plaintiffs out of the positions as he and the other board members preferred to fill them with people of their choosing.

Subsequently, Richard Manglona was told on numerous occasions that he needed to re-employ the plaintiffs, as they had civil service rights and their employment could not be terminated without incurring liability for the government.

In late February 2002, the council attempted to convince the employees to waive conversion to Civil Service in exchange for a lump-sum payment of their annual leave. Some of the plaintiffs signed the waiver, while others did not.

Still, the council failed to re-employ the workers.

By Jan. 1, 2003, all of the plaintiffs except Richard Calvo had found employment. Francisca Barcinas was re-employed by the council, at a lower salary on March 12, 2002, while most of the others found work in December 2002.

Richard Calvo remained unemployed for more than another year before reaching retirement age and retiring.