Domestic dispute: Jury begins its deliberations
By GENEVA WHITMARSH Daily Press Staff Writer
SM COURTHOUSE — A Santa Monica jury here heard closing arguments Tuesday in the case of a Filipino woman who claims a Sony Pictures executive and his wife forced her into domestic slavery.
Jurors will begin deliberations today and will decide whether to award Nena Jimeno Ruiz, 60, backpay and damages in her claim that James and Elizabeth Jackson brought her 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.
James Jackson is employed as the vice president and assistant general counsel for the corporate legal department at Sony Pictures. His wife, Elizabeth Jackson, is of Filipino descent.
The lawsuit, filed in early 2003, claims involuntary servitude, violation of the California Labor Code, false imprisonment and invasion of privacy. It also claims fraud, assault and battery, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Lawyers for both sides addressed hotly contested issues in the case, while Ruiz and the Jacksons sat nearby. Ruiz, dressed in a blue suit, looked down through most of the closing arguments on Tuesday, while Elizabeth Jackson sat upright and seldom glanced at the jury.
Ruiz’s attorney, Dan Stormer, told the court his client was forced to work more than 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Ruiz alleges that she got paid $300 for the entire year she worked for the Jacksons. He also said she 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.
“What (the Jacksons) did was take away this woman’s dignity... so they could save a few bucks,” Stormer said. “You can’t give her dignity back, but our system deals in dollars. Can it be $1 million? Yes. Can it be $2 million? Yes.”
The case “makes no sense,” according to the Jacksons’ lawyer, Jack Daniels.
“Does it make sense that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson — who never had a live-in maid before or after — would go through this elaborate scheme to bring a woman from the Philippines?” he said.
Daniels also argued that there is no proof of the physical abuse Ruiz claims she endured or the mental anguish she says she suffered since leaving the Jacksons’ home in early 2002.
“If you assume what she said is true, you have a split lip and a bruise on the head,” he said in reference to her alleged injuries. “There are absolutely no medical bills for anything my clients allegedly did to this woman.
“These people are dog lovers, when their family comes to visit, everyone joins in, and they’re taking care of (Elizabeth Jackson’s) sick mother,” Daniels told the jury. “They’re good people, and (Ruiz) is making them out to be some kind of monsters.”
The lawsuit alleges that Ruiz was originally told she would be coming to the United States to work as a traveling companion for Elizabeth Jackson’s ill mother. She was granted a four-month visa and accompanied the ailing woman to the U.S. in early 2001.
The two women moved into a cramped apartment in Sacramento, but Ruiz was later told that a lack of space made it necessary for her to live at the Jacksons’ Culver City condominium, Stormer said. Elizabeth Jackson’s mother would stay in Sacramento because she was unable to navigate the stairs in her daughter’s home.
The plaintiff’s attorneys say the Jacksons were simply looking for a maid and used the traveling companion job as a ploy to lure Ruiz to the United States.
How she was treated after arriving in the country is the subject of intense debate in the courtroom. The Jacksons say Ruiz was given a futon pad and comforter in the upstairs guest bedroom, while Ruiz says she slept on a dog bed on the dining room floor. Ruiz she was allowed one haircut in the year she worked for the Jacksons, was never taken to a doctor, was prohibited from talking to people outside the home and was often given 3-day-old leftover food to eat, her attorneys said.
Stormer told the jurors that, by contrast, the Jacksons’ dogs were constantly fussed over to the point where Ruiz’s duties included cooking dinner for them, brushing their teeth and cleaning out their ears. An enlarged list of the duties given to Ruiz were shown to jurors.
“You’ve seen the demeanor of Mrs. Jackson in this courtroom,” Stormer said. “Do you think those are simply guidelines? They are not.”
Daniels said the Jacksons paid Ruiz $400 a month, plus room and board. But subtracted money for phone calls she made and items they bought her.
“There are so many different answers to what she was paid, and they’re all illegal...,” said Stormer, adding that California law states Ruiz was entitled to minimum wage and overtime, without deductions. “Either (James Jackson) is the worst vice president of corporate legal affairs in the history of a corporate entity, or he’s simply not telling the truth.”
Daniels said 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. They had signed an affidavit of support when they initially applied for Ruiz’s visa and allowed her to continue in her home after the visa expired.
“They were trying to help,” Daniels said. Law enforcement officials became involved after Ruiz approached a neighbor, Sandra Sheridan. According to Sheridan’s earlier testimony, Ruiz was visibly shaken and upset.
Stormer asked jurors to consider Sheridan’s testimony, as well as the testimony of her then 13-year-old daughter, who said she heard someone being physically abused from within the Jacksons’ home.
“The Sheridans, who have absolutely no stake in the outcome of this case, have said they always saw her in uniform, and she was always working,” Stormer said.
Ruiz is requesting unpaid minimum wages, overtime premiums with penalties and interest, liquidated damages, general, compensatory and special damages, and punitive damages, according to court documents.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 25, 2004. Read the original PDF.