Opinion ID: 794672
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Plaintiffs' Terminations

Text: 24 On January 6, 1998, Mr. Gaffney received a letter from Mr. Gourguechon, notifying him that his employment as Chief Engineer on the M/V Showboat had been terminated, effective immediately. The letter identified the reasons for termination as: 25 Unauthorized communication and correspondence with regulatory bodies having jurisdiction over the operation of the vessel. Unauthorized correspondence and the regulators [sic] response has had a material adverse effect on the company's ability to efficiently run it's [sic] business. 26 R.81, Ex.15. Mr. Gaffney was offered no other explanation, either in writing or verbally, for his termination. According to Mr. Gaffney, upon receiving this letter, he told Mr. Gourguechon, You can't fire me for that. Id., Ex.7 at 84. 27 The other nine plaintiffs were fired over the course of the next two-and-a-half weeks. 12 Unlike Mr. Gaffney's termination letter, the letters received by these individuals did not contain reference to Coast Guard correspondence but, instead, gave no reason for their discharges. When confronted by these plaintiffs, Mr. Gourguechon denied that their discharges were in any way related to the Coast Guard correspondence. 13 28 Mr. Gourguechon testified that, although he drafted and hand-delivered all but one of the plaintiffs' termination notices, he was acting at the direction of Mr. Heitmeier. See Tr.IV at 76-78. Specifically, according to both Mr. Gourguechon and Mr. Heitmeier, in late 1997, Mr. Gourguechon approached Mr. Heitmeier about problems he was having with the plaintiffs' employment on the M/V Showboat. Id. at 36-38. This conversation focused on the plaintiffs' potential connections to the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association (MEBA), the union responsible for picketing near the vessel that was sometimes violent and often disruptive. They also discussed the plaintiffs' involvement in defective rewiring of the M/V Showboat. A number of the plaintiffs had been assigned to assist in repositioning the gaming machines on the vessel; improper wiring later caused a circuit breaker to blow and was responsible for expensive damage to the vessel. Various Riverboat executives, including Mr. Gourguechon and Mr. Heitmeier, believed that the plaintiffs — in cooperation with MEBA — had sabotaged the ship, and they cite this incident as the cause of the plaintiffs' terminations. See Gourguechon Test., Tr.IV at 38-43; Heitmeier Dep., R.81, Ex.2 at 61-63. 29 According to the defense, after this conversation, Mr. Heitmeier approached Mr. Wallace, the President and CEO of Showboat's East Chicago, Indiana, operations. At this meeting, Mr. Heitmeier informed Mr. Wallace of the plaintiffs' connections to MEBA and the suspected acts of sabotage. Mr. Wallace directed Mr. Heitmeier to terminate the individuals involved. As Mr. Wallace later explained, [i]f they had anything to do with the union, I wasn't ... interested in the continued aggravation they were causing. R.81, Ex.3 at 25, 28; see also Heitmeier Dep., id., Ex.2 at 62-63. Mr. Heitmeier in turn conveyed these instructions to Mr. Gourguechon, who drafted the termination notices.