Socking It to a Rough Union

Earl Lassitter's transgression was to cross a picket line. When he later appeared at another Florida construction site, he was told to take off by Dennis Walton, a burly six-footer who also happens to be a member of Operating Engineers Local 675. Lassitter apparently did not move fast enough, so Walton knocked him down and pummeled him so badly that he still suffers a partial hearing loss.

Lassitter filed an assault charge against Walton in Fort Lauderdale criminal court, but the case was dismissed. He then sued for damages in civil court. The result was gratifying indeed. The six-member jury awarded him $1,250,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

More significant, the jury decided that Walton had been acting as an agent of his local union, and that the local in turn had been an agent of the International Union of Operating Engineers. The verdict held both the local and the international liable for most of the damages.

The local Operating Engineers, a union of construction workers, have a history of violence in the Fort Lauderdale area. Five times in recent years they have been enjoined from rioting. Only four days before the attack on Lassitter, union members had apparently helped to smash up a partially built

Volkswagen showroom. At the Walton trial, one witness testified that he had been at a union meeting when the local president urged the members to "tear 'em up" and that the union's business agent reminded men to pick up weapons before leaving. Other testimony established that the international had been informed of the Fort Lauderdale incidents and had failed to intervene.

Lassitter's lawyer originally asked for only $447,000 in damages, and Lassitter himself said, "I don't care if we get anything. I'm satisfied that we just got these guys in court." Both men were more than satisfied. They not only won three times what they had asked, but they accomplished the very difficult task of persuading a jury that an international union can be held responsible for acts by an individual member.

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