Japanese Firm Must Pay Huge Wage Award:...
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Japanese Firm Must Pay Huge Wage Award: U.S. District Court Judge Jack Tanner in Seattle ordered Inui Steamship Co. to pay $40 million to $43.5 million in damages to 21 Filipino seamen for coercing them into signing false contracts and receipts for wages they never received. Lawyers said the judgment was the largest maritime wage award in U.S. history. Inui is wholly owned by Mitsui, Japan’s second-largest shipping company. The sailors accused the firm of engaging in a double-bookkeeping scheme that defrauded them of promised wages.
