Opinion ID: 483247
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial and the Special Verdict

Text: 11 In the summer of 1985, a jury trial was held on the liability issues with respect to the Sec. 1983 and RICO claims against the Town, the County, and the Town and County Committees. Plaintiffs consented to the dismissal of these claims against all other defendants and to the dismissal of their other claims against all defendants. Detailed interrogatories were submitted to the jury with respect to each category of claim tried; a total of 77 questions were posed. 12 With respect to the Sec. 1983 claims, the jury found, inter alia, that from January 1, 1973, to January 1, 1976, there had been a practice and procedure in Nassau County for the coercive solicitation of contributions from public employees to the County Committee and/or the Town Committee of one percent of the employees' salary. It found that the Town, the Town Committee, and the County Committee had participated in this coercive solicitation of contributions, but that the County itself had not; and it found that the practice and procedure had been a custom and policy of the Town but not of the County. The court concluded that plaintiffs had established that the Town, the Town Committee, and the County Committee, but not the County, had violated plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to associate with the political parties of their choice. 13 Further with respect to the Sec. 1983 claims, the jury found that the practice and procedure had not continued to the relatively recent past,--i.e., as apparently interpreted by the court, past January 1, 1976. And although the jury found that from 1978 to 1984, Michael Limongelli, the Town's Commissioner of Public Safety, had induced employees of his department to purchase tickets to Republican Party fund raising events by threatening that their failure to contribute would result in a loss of overtime and other employment benefits, it concluded that Limongelli's practice was not a custom or policy of the Town and was not within the scope of Limongelli's authority. 14 As to the RICO claims, the jury found, inter alia, that the Town, the Town Committee, and the County Committee were entities that had knowingly and willfully engaged in a pattern of illegal activity and that those three defendants collectively were an enterprise that engaged in or whose activities affected interstate commerce; and it found 13 predicate acts by public officials acting within the scope of their employment in coercively soliciting political contributions. It found, however, that the County was not an entity that had knowingly and willfully engaged in a pattern of illegal activity; and it found no RICO enterprise of which the County was a member. As discussed in greater detail in part V.B. below, the court concluded that plaintiffs had failed to establish any elements of a civil RICO claim against the County and had failed to establish a necessary element of their RICO claims against the other defendants. 15 With respect to the plaintiffs' individual claims, the jury found, inter alia, that Jund's refusal to make a one percent contribution was the proximate cause of his failure to be promoted. 16