Sony exec now singing quite a different tune
By GENEVA WHITMARSH Daily Press Staff Writer
SM COURTHOUSE — Nena Jimeno Ruiz wept on Friday after a jury awarded her more than $1.6 million for the year she spent enslaved in a Sony Pictures executive’s home.
Santa Monica jurors found that James Jackson and his wife Elizabeth lured Ruiz to the United States under false pretenses, then forced her to sleep on a dog bed and work long hours with little pay for more than a year.
“I’m very grateful to the jurors for the wonderful judgment,” Ruiz said as she wiped away tears. “Now (I’m) looking forward to seeing my family who are waiting for me (in the Philippines) for last four years.”
Ruiz, 60, on Thursday was awarded $551,000 in back wages, penalty and other damages. On Friday — after hearing a detailed accounting of the Jacksons’ assets — the jury found that Elizabeth and James Jackson will each pay $137,872.92 in punitive damages.
Those amounts will double by state statute, explained Ruiz’s attorney, Dan Stormer.
“We’re ecstatic,” he said. “This is an important victory for Nena and an important victory for people who are exploited.”
James Jackson is currently on leave as the vice president of legal affairs at Sony Pictures, according to a company spokeswoman. He appeared drained and stared forward as the jury announced its verdict.
Elizabeth Jackson, who like Ruiz is of Filipino descent, was not present in the courtroom.
The Jacksons’ attorney, Jack Daniels, said he will ask Santa Monica Superior Court Judge James Bascue for a new trial in the next month. If denied, he will file for an appeal.
The jury agreed that the Jacksons were liable for each of the claims Ruiz filed in a 2003 lawsuit: Involuntary servitude, violation of the California Labor Code, false imprisonment and invasion of privacy, as well as fraud, assault and battery, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Ruiz’s lawyers spent more than a week describing her year-long plight to jurors. They said she originally came to the United States in early 2001 to work as a traveling companion for Elizabeth Jackson’s sick mother. A few days after arriving in the country, she was moved to the Jacksons’ Culver City condominium, where she was forced to work more than 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and sleep on a dog bed in the living room.
Stormer said Ruiz was the victim of physical and emotional abuse and was afraid to approach local authorities because the Jacksons told her she’d face jail time for an expired visa.
“I don’t have a passport,” Ruiz said after the verdict. “I don’t have money, and I don’t know where to go. I’d just be crying in the street. I’d be locked up, and I didn’t want that to happen to me.”
The defense argued that Ruiz’s accusations made little sense since the Jacksons had never retained a live-in maid before or after Ruiz’s stay. Lawyers also claimed the Jacksons urged Ruiz to return to the Philippines with Elizabeth Jackson’s mother a few months after they arrived in the United States, but she refused.
Daniels said his clients signed an affidavit of support when they initially applied for Ruiz’s visa and allowed her to continue in their home after the visa expired.
They contend that her work as a maid slowly evolved, with the Jacksons providing her with room and board and $400 a month. They subtracted money from her monthly paycheck for phone calls she made and items they bought her.
Daniels also argued that there was no proof of the physical abuse Ruiz claims she endured, or of the mental anguish she says she suffered since leaving the Jacksons’ home in early 2002.
Both sides called several witnesses during trial. A neighbor of the Jacksons testified Ruiz approached her in early 2002 to ask for help, while another neighbor told the jury she heard someone being physically abused from within the Jacksons’ home.
Ruiz’s attorneys also called an expert in human trafficking, who told the jury that most victims of the crime seek a better life or enhanced economic opportunities and are vulnerable to false promises.
The issue of human trafficking has garnered publicity in recent years. In 2001, the State Department issued a “Trafficking in Persons Report” in an effort to raise awareness of the crime. Congress has noted at least 700,000 people each year are brought across international borders.
According to the report, the problem is “in many ways a modern day form of slavery that has persisted into the 21st Century, (and) all acts of trafficking have a common thread — they occur by fraud, deception and coercion in all of these acts.”
Figures released by the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) show that a woman or child is trafficked into the United States every 10 minutes. Men also are trafficked into forced labor in agriculture, restaurants and other unregulated industries.
“It’s a (triumph) for domestic workers in the U.S.,” Ruiz said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 28, 2004. Read the original PDF.