City officials reach $400,000 settlement with Danbury 11 day laborers

Dirk Perrefort, Staff Writer
Updated 11:37 p.m., Tuesday, March 8, 2011



DANBURY -- Both Danbury officials and attorneys representing the day laborers known as the Danbury 11 claimed victory Tuesday after reaching a $400,000 settlement in the four-year-old civil rights case.

Both parties confirmed Tuesday that an agreement has been reached, but it has yet to be filed in U.S. District Court.

"Frankly, we view this as a vindication for the city and the actions of the police officers," said Dan Casagrande, the attorney representing Danbury in the lawsuit.

Crystal Robles, a student intern with Yale Law School, however, said the settlement represents the largest amount ever awarded in a civil-rights case involving day laborers.

"The settlement represents a real victory, given comparable jury awards," Robles said. "It is perplexing that the city of Danbury would say it was `vindicated,' as the city is paying our clients the largest financial settlement in the history of civil-rights actions brought by day laborers."

In their lawsuit, the day laborers claimed they were the victims of racial profiling when an undercover city police officer posing as a contractor picked them up in a van near Kennedy Park on Sept. 19, 2006, and delivered them to federal agents waiting nearby.

Mayor Mark Boughton said Tuesday the city's insurance carrier recommended the settlement, given the potential cost of taking the case to trial.

"Would I have liked to go to trial and have a judge rule in our favor? Of course, but I feel this is a good resolution," Boughton said.

As part of the settlement, Boughton said, the city will not admit any wrongdoing and there will be no changes in the city's policies or procedures.

"I know we were right," Boughton said. "If someone's civil rights were violated, as they allege, you wouldn't settle for a cash payment, but you would want some changes in policy."

Chris Newman, general counsel and legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said most civil-rights cases involving immigrants result in some type of injunctive relief that requires the local governments involved to make policy changes.

"Almost all cases I'm familiar with, the plaintiffs received only injunctive relief and attorneys' fees," he said Tuesday. "What's extraordinary in this case is that the day laborers themselves are receiving a monetary award."

Boughton said the city's insurance carrier will pay the settlement, as well as the city's attorney fees, minus a $100,000 deductible.

He added that the city's legal fees alone probably reached nearly $1 million, while court documents indicate the plaintiffs' attorneys racked up more than $5.9 million in costs.

Robles said the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services organization at Yale Law School, as well as attorneys with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, took the case pro bono, which means they will not charge their clients a fee.

Local immigration attorney Michael Boyle said he doesn't believe the settlement represents an "out-and-out victory for either side."

Boyle added that the case was certainly "a very expensive misadventure."

While the settlement isn't a "staggering amount," Boyle said, the money could go far in the day laborers' native countries.

"That's a lot of money to put your life back together," he said.

Boyle added that he would have loved for the city to acknowledge its mistakes in the case, but city officials seem to have learned their lesson.

"Of course, there are still people being picked up after normal arrests, but you don't hear about these large-scale raids anymore," he said.

Manuel Bataguas, owner of a local travel agency and a former Danbury mayoral candidate, said he is happy with the settlement.

"The city has to learn a lesson, and paying the money is probably the only way they will learn," he said. "If the city was right, then why is the insurance company paying $400,000?"

Earlier this year, a federal immigration judge rejected an appeal brought by the eight remaining day laborers in the Danbury 11 case in a separate deportation proceeding.

A July 19 decision by the federal Board of Immigration Appeals said because "the solicitation of day labor has a strong correlation to undocumented presence," the arresting officers had "reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts to believe that an immigration violation had occurred."

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