Kennedy v. Supreme Forest Prods., Inc.

295 F. Supp. 3d 113
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedDecember 15, 2017
DocketNo. 3:14–cv–01851 (JAM)
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 295 F. Supp. 3d 113 (Kennedy v. Supreme Forest Prods., Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kennedy v. Supreme Forest Prods., Inc., 295 F. Supp. 3d 113 (D. Conn. 2017).

Opinion

Jeffrey Alker Meyer, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Michael Kennedy filed suit against defendant Supreme Forest Products, Inc., alleging that it violated the federal Surface Transportation Assistance Act, 49 U.S.C. § 31105, by terminating his employment for refusing to drive trucks of mulch that were loaded beyond the federal weight limit. After a five-day trial, a jury found in favor of plaintiff and awarded $11,900 in compensatory damages and $425,000 in punitive damages. Defendant now moves for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial, while plaintiff in turn moves for an award of attorney's fees and costs. For the reasons below, I will deny defendant's motions except that I will reduce the punitive damages award to the statutory limit $250,000. I will otherwise grant in part and deny in part plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees and costs.

BACKGROUND

The facts set forth below are based on evidence introduced at trial and presented in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict in plaintiff's favor. Defendant is a company that was in the business of selling mulch and similar earth-and-forest-related products. Plaintiff worked for defendant as a truck driver for about 12 years to deliver loads of the company's product to customers.

The Surface Transportation Assistance Act ("STAA") protects employees from retaliation by their employers on account of a complaint of a violation of federal safety regulations in the transportation industry. The Act provides in relevant part that a person may not discharge an employee who refuses to operate a vehicle because the operation violates a federal safety regulation. 49 U.S.C. § 31105(a)(1)(B)(i). Plaintiff alleged that he *117was discharged on April 3, 2014, after he refused to operate trucks that were loaded in violation of a federal safety regulation that limits the weight of trucks on interstate highways to no more than 80,000 pounds. See 23 C.F.R. § 658.17(b).

Plaintiff's trial evidence showed that for many months prior to his discharge the company routinely loaded its trucks in excess of 80,000 pounds. In 2013, defendant hired Martin Paganini as general manager to help the company improve financially after a period of low sales. Until Paganini's arrival, defendant had generally loaded its delivery trucks with not more than 60 yards of mulch at a time. With Paganini's arrival, however, the company began loading trucks with more mulch, frequently up to 70 yards. Loading trucks with more mulch was more profitable for the company because it decreased the total number of loads necessary to drive to fulfill orders.

The evidence showed a 70-yard load of mulch would violate the federal weight limit. Plaintiff himself testified that based on his lengthy experience and on the basis of his truck's mechanical suspension gauge, a load of 70 yards of mulch would put a truck over 80,000 pounds. Similarly, Walter Whitbeck-a former company employee who had loaded trucks for many years-also testified that 70 yards of mulch would weigh over 80,000 pounds.

Plaintiff covertly recorded Paganini making statements that a jury could have reasonably understood to mean that he not only knew but also required that the company's trucks haul loads over the legal weight limit. A covert tape recording of one of the company's meetings included the voice of plaintiff and another employee who raised concerns about the truck loads being overweight. Paganini said: "There's going to be times that-we all know that we are heavy haulers, we're going to haul, you know, 86, 85, you know." Doc. # 77-11 at 38. Plaintiff voiced his concerns to Paganini about how an overweight load "changes the whole dynamics of your piece of equipment," and how "you're constantly biting your nails all day long" with an overweight load. Id. at 42. Plaintiff asked: "[I]f I get pulled over and I go to jail, are you going to bail me out?" Id. at 43. Paganini replied: "Absolutely.... [N]ow, listen, this discussion can open a can of worms." Ibid.

Another employee said that it was "gross negligence" to haul a load of more than 80,000 pounds. Ibid. Paganini responded:

Listen, we are heavy-we're haul heavy over here. We've done it that way for the last 20 to 30 years, and it's not going to be asked of you to do it every day, every load, but there are going to be times that you're going to haul heavy.

Ibid. Paganini went on to explain how the company had lost money before by hauling loads that were too light and that it had to haul heavy loads in order to make money:

Nobody-nobody has ever sat down to figure out where our margins of profit were, and so I did. I figured it out as far as where the weight was, where the profits were, and what we need to haul in order to s[t]ay solvent as a company.

Id. at 44.

Beyond these highly inculpatory statements of Paganini, there was additional documentary evidence that a reasonable jury could have found to be conclusive corroboration of plaintiff's claim. The company had its own scale that was used to weigh its trucks, and hundreds of weight tickets from the company's own scale showed overweight loads for defendant's trucks from December 2013 into April 2014. Doc. # 77-14; Doc. # 209 at 52.

Defendant's own website corroborated plaintiff's claim that a 70-yard load of *118mulch would put a truck in violation of federal weight limits. The company's website listed a range of weights for mulch-between 800 to 1,000 pounds per yard, depending on the mulch's moisture content.

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Bluebook (online)
295 F. Supp. 3d 113, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kennedy-v-supreme-forest-prods-inc-ctd-2017.