UFW Puts $2.5 Million in Trust While It Appeals Damage Award

The United Farm Workers Union has placed $2.5 million in a trust account to meet bond requirements while it appeals a landmark multimillion-dollar damage judgment, Imperial County officials said Tuesday.

A union spokeswoman declined to specify the source of most of the bond money, although the union pleaded in court last month that the bond requirement was a financial hardship.

Rosemary Jernigan, assistant county clerk in Imperial County, said the union sent a letter stating that the $2.5 million had been lodged with Imperial Trust Co. The money will be held there under court supervision while the UFW appeals a judge’s January order that the UFW pay nearly $1.7 million in damages to Maggio Inc., a large vegetable grower, for damages sustained during a 1979 strike.

Lawyers for both the union and Maggio expressed confidence Tuesday that they would prevail on the appeal. Pat Crowell, one of Maggio’s lawyers, said he thought the appeal process could take two years.

The judgment, the largest ever rendered against the UFW, was issued by Imperial County Superior Court Judge William E. Lehnhardt following a lengthy trial.

The case stemmed from a violence-marred vegetable strike that began in the Imperial Valley in January, 1979, and lasted through the early summer. During the strike, Rufino Contreras, a UFW striker, was killed by an unknown assailant, several other pickets were wounded by gunfire and another was injured when struck by a pickup truck.

Videotapes Shown at Trial

During the trial, Maggio’s lawyers presented videotapes showing large numbers of strikers rushing into the fields carrying clubs and throwing rocks at strikebreakers and farm vehicles. In May, 1986, the judge ruled that the the union was responsible for the violence.

The UFW tried unsuccessfully to have Lehnhardt disqualified from handling the case, contending he had a conflict of interest. During the strike, Lehnhardt’s wife was one of a number of people who responded to appeals from Imperial Valley growers to fill in for striking workers.

Originally, the required bond was set at $3.3 million (twice the amount of the judgment). But in late May, Lehnhardt said he would accept 1.5 times the amount of the judgment--roughly $2.5 million. Lawyers for the union unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the judge to set a substantially lower bond.

Barbara Macri, a UFW lawyer, said Tuesday that the bond posting “makes things a bit tougher” for the union. She said that $274,000 of the $2.5 million came from the sale of property the union owned in Fresno, but declined to identify the source of the rest of the funds as proprietary information. She did say a union fund-raising effort received “a tremendous response from people around the country.”

The union’s latest financial statement--covering 1986--is on file with the U.S. Department of Labor and shows net assets of $4,448,172. The report also states that the union collected $2,208,802 in dues last year and had other receipts of $2,064,062. Those other receipts included $811,460 in contributions, according to the report.