PORT ANGELES — The city is seeking a new trial on Yvonne Ziomkowski’s termination, claiming the jury that April 8 awarded the former city finance director $1.5 million in damages for sex discrimination acted on passion or prejudice, not evidence.
Seattle lawyer Shannon Ragonesi, representing the city, filed the motion for a new trial or remittance of the award April 15.
City Attorney Bill Bloor said Tuesday the decision to seek a new trial was made by the Washington Cities Insurance Authority, a municipal risk pool, without objection by the city.
“It’s a fairly routine matter,” he said.
Bloor said the city has coverage that exceeds the amount of the Clallam County Superior Court jury’s award.
Ziomkowski was terminated by then-City Manager Kent Myers on March 15, 2012, for violating the city’s general-leave cash-out policy.
Ragonesi asked Clallam County Superior Court Judge Erik Rohrer, who presided over the civil trial, to hear her motion May 6.
Ragonesi said Rohrer allowed Ziomkowski to give unsupported testimony that “indicated and implied” that her debilitating eye condition, blepharospasm, was caused by the city firing her.
The attorney also said Rohrer allowed a juror to improperly question a witness about concerns over testifying at the trial, saying this indicated the jury had a concern about the impact of the case on other city employees, an improper basis for a monetary award.
Ragonesi also said Ziomkowski, now 62, was allowed to infer, without submitting evidence, that she had planned to work after her 2012 retirement.
Ziomkowski’s attorney, Karen Unger, said in answer to Ragonesi’s motion that the city “woefully fails to produce any credible argument to support this claim, other than to argue that it is not happy with the judgment, or to infer that somehow counsel for the plaintiff used The Force to convince jurors to decide as they did.”
As an alternative to ordering a new trial, Ragonesi asked that Rohrer reduce or remit the $1.5 million in noneconomic damages it awarded to Ziomkowski, who also was awarded $113,471 in economic damages.
“This blatant disparity in the amount of economic and noneconomic damages awarded is clearly the result of passion or prejudice,” Ragonesi said in her written motion.
“The extremely excessive amount of the noneconomic award indicates the jury’s obvious intent to ‘punish’ the city,” she said.
“However, punitive damages are not authorized or recoverable under Washington law.”
Ragonesi also reargued points heard by the jury during the civil trial.
She said there was “scant evidence” of a gender-related hostile work environment and said Ziomkowski was the target of just “a handful of comments” during her more than two decades with the city.
In addition to the hostile-work-environment claim, Ziomkowski also said she was treated in a disparate manner because of her gender.
After hearing three weeks of testimony and examining 174 exhibits, the eight-woman, four-man jury took about two hours to reach its decision.
The jury returned its verdict in about two hours because the evidence was “overwhelming,” Unger said.
Unger said the jury was instructed that there are no fixed standards to measure emotional distress, humiliation, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
“By all accounts, the jury did exactly what the jury instructions instructed them to do,” she said.
Unger said the award of $164 a day for 25 years, or $1,496,500 — about $60,000 a year — is “more than reasonable” given that Ziomkowski can no longer drive due to her “stress-exacerbated” eye condition.
She said a doctor who testified about Ziomkowski’s eye condition said “with reasonable medical certainty, this condition was made worse by stress.”
Unger said the city did not challenge that assertion.
“Any remarks made by the doctor were in response to questions put forth by the defendant themselves, and now they are sorry that they asked, and insists that any award based on the plaintiff’s medical condition is based on ‘passion or prejudice,’ ” Unger said.
“Obviously, not the case.”
Ziomkowski was terminated for cashing out — and putting into her retirement account — what the State Patrol had said in an investigation was $28,674 in general leave without Myers’ authorization.
She paid that amount back to the city but got it back when she was dismissed.
Unger argued that other city managers had violated city policy in cashing out their general leave but that Ziomkowski was singled out for being strong-willed and female in a male-dominated City Hall hierarchy.
Ragonesi, representing the city, had said that Ziomkowski knew what she was doing when she violated city policy and that her disagreements with other city managers were professional, not gender-based.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
