Grower Wins Damage Suit Against UFW : Farm labor: Jury awards lettuce producer only one-third of the monetary amount it sought for union’s tactics in boycott. Official predicts group will prevail in federal appeals court.

In a trial permeated by the memory of Cesar Chavez, a jury found the United Farm Workers Union guilty Thursday of outrageous conduct during a lettuce boycott but awarded the grower less than a third of the monetary damages it wanted.

An official with Salinas-based Bruce Church Inc. said the verdict vindicated the company’s view that the union engaged in illegal and malicious conduct in persuading grocery chains to drop Church lettuce in the 1980s.

“We were damaged unfairly and wrongfully,” said company Vice President Vic Lanini. “I think the truth came out finally, even if the damages aren’t what we wanted.”

But UFW supporters and attorneys, gathered at a rally outside the Yuma County courthouse, were buoyed by the jury’s nearly $2.9-million judgment, which was far below the $9.7 million requested by Church and the $5.4 million awarded by a 1988 jury before that decision was overturned and the case returned here for retrial.

Arturo Rodriguez, the union president, predicted that the union will prevail “once the case is taken out of Yuma” and into federal appeals court in Los Angeles, where 1st Amendment arguments can be made.

“We have a duty to Cesar Chavez’s memory and to BCI workers to continue the fight,” Rodriguez said.

Chavez died April 22, just hours after finishing his second day of being grilled by attorneys for Bruce Church. Chavez’s death added to the emotion of the trial, with UFW supporters packing the courtroom in recent weeks and conducting a 24-hour vigil outside the courthouse.

After five hours of deliberation, the jury returned a 9-3 verdict in favor of Church, setting compensatory damages at $2,898,280 and punitive damages at $1,000. In 1988, a jury took three hours for a unanimous verdict of $4.9 million in compensatory and $500,000 in punitive damages.

Judge Joseph D. Howe ordered the names of the jurors sealed. Jurors were whisked from the courthouse while spectators were ordered to remain in their seats, watched by two armed Yuma County deputies.

Later the rally outside the courthouse took on the tones of a victory with cheers of “Cesar Chavez Presente!” translated as “Cesar Chavez Is With Us.”

Lanini said the company brought the lawsuit only to recover damages, not to change history’s evaluation of Chavez, who made the decision to begin a hardball “hi-tech boycott” against Church.

“The other side tried to play on emotions, but all we wanted was to recover the losses we sustained because of illegal conduct,” he said. “History will judge Cesar Chavez. I doubt that this court case will change that.”

One juror who voted with the majority said the jury put punitive damages at only $1,000 as a signal to Bruce Church to treat workers better.

“The union was wrong in what it did, but Bruce Church has done some bad things to workers and should care for them better,” said the juror, who requested anonymity.

Harley Shaiken, a labor issues expert at UC San Diego, said in a telephone interview that the verdict would put a further chill on the use of secondary boycotts by labor unions and other activist groups, even in states like California where such boycotts are legal.

“If you can mount an effective legal campaign against the secondary boycott, the cost and disruption is such that the group attempting the boycott is defeated even if the law is ultimately on its side,” he said.

Michael Bailey, the Phoenix attorney representing Bruce Church, had told jurors that the union’s tactics during the boycott were like a protection scheme and extortion plot. He said the union lied about Bruce Church in an effort to scare grocery stores into dropping Church lettuce. Bailey said that the union’s claims about Bruce Church engaging in child abuse, sexual harassment and misuse of toxics were malicious and reckless.

“The union was lying,” he said. “The union was threatening.”

San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre, representing the union, argued that the boycott was covered by the 1st Amendment. He told jurors to remember Chavez’s dedication to nonviolence.

“You are being asked to judge history,” Aguirre told the jurors. “I hope you don’t find that Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers are a bunch of extortionists who were just out lying to people.”

The jury was required to decide whether the union had violated an Arizona law prohibiting a union from interfering with “the beneficial business relationships” between Bruce Church and the grocery stores.

The union had begun a boycott of Church lettuce in 1979 and by 1984 had helped persuade Lucky Stores and nine other chains to drop Church Red Coach lettuce.