Court Upholds $5-Million Award to Ex-Target Workers

Declaring that the company’s “conduct was reprehensible,” an appellate court on Tuesday unanimously upheld a $5-million damage award to four former employees of a Target store in Oxnard who claimed that they were falsely accused of theft and then forced to leave the company.

“The trial court characterized the evidence as ‘nausea-producing’ and ‘terrifying,’ ” said the opinion by the state Court of Appeal’s 2nd Appellate District in Ventura. “We agree.”

George Hite, a vice president for Minneapolis-based Target Stores, said the company would have no immediate comment on the decision or a possible appeal to the state Supreme Court.

James E. Doles, a Ventura attorney representing the employees, said the appellate decision delivered a national message that “corporations can go wrong in the treatment of their most valuable resource--the employees who work for them.”

Throughout the trial of a lawsuit filed by the four, Target’s position was that the complaints should have been filed under California’s workers’ compensation laws and not argued before a jury, Doles said.

Target “denied any wrongdoing but conceded that similar investigation tactics are used in other Target stores,” according to the opinion.

A Ventura County Superior Court jury had awarded $5,099,350 to the four employees, who had worked in Target’s auto servicing department.

“I’m bitter at Target because they allowed this to happen to their personnel,” said Ivor Benci-Woodward, 47, of Ojai, one of the four forced to leave their jobs.

Target is a national chain of discount department stores that recorded $9 billion in sales during its 1991 fiscal year. The chain has three stores in Ventura County; the Oxnard store opened in 1983.

The litigation evolved as the result of Target’s efforts to ferret out employees that the company perceived to be stealing merchandise from its stores and violating corporate policies.

A principal target of the lawsuit was Dana Pereau, who in 1984 was a district investigator for the chain. He no longer works for Target.

“Pereau, an imposing man who weighed 270 pounds, was trained by Target to aggressively investigate internal losses no matter how trivial the employee misconduct,” the appellate opinion said.

Pereau was so good at his job that although “district investigators were expected to terminate one employee every 18 hours they were on the job, Pereau . . . averaged one termination every 6.62 hours,” the opinion said.

One of Pereau’s techniques, the court said, was to summon an employee into a small room, sit in front of the door to block the exit, then proceed to frighten the employee into signing statements that he or she had stolen merchandise.

Sometimes interrogating an employee over a two-day period, Pereau would lock the door, turn off the air conditioning, threaten to call police, shout at the employee and slam furniture around the room, the opinion said. One employee was physically restrained during 45 minutes of questioning, it said.

“Respondents were falsely accused of crimes, threatened with arrest and made to believe they could not leave until they made a written statement,” the opinion said.

In this way, the four employees who filed the lawsuit--Larry Mangum of Ventura, Jose Ragatz of Santa Paula, Paul Reyes of San Juan Capistrano and Benci-Woodward--lost their jobs through terminations and forced resignations.

Reyes was questioned by Pereau for 90 minutes and eventually signed a statement admitting that he spent 30 seconds of company time checking the ignition on a colleague’s truck, the opinion said.

“Pereau called the incident a theft,” the opinion said.