After two trials, two appeals, dozens of motions and more than five years of litigation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory officials and lawyers for 130 workers laid off from the lab in 2008 are headed to the negotiating table to try to reach a settlement. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman has delayed the start of a third trial involving a new subset of the employees—10 scientists and engineers that claim they were the victims of age discrimination and breach of contract—from May until October to give time for the sides to meet with a mediator. The sides will meet April 8 and April 10 in San Francisco with mediator David Rotman. “We intend to make a good faith effort to resolve this,” said Gary Gwilliam, a lawyer with Oakland-based Gwilliam, Ivary, Chiosso, Cavalli & Brewer.
Rotman oversaw unsuccessful talks between the sides three years ago, but that was before the first two trials. An Alameda County jury found in favor of a group of five former employees in a breach of contract case in early 2013, awarding the former employees $2.7 million, but a separate jury rejected the same employees’ claims of age discrimination in connection to their layoffs last year. Both sides have appealed the decisions. The employees are part of a group of 130 workers suing the lab over the 2008 layoff of 440 lab employees. Gwilliam declined to specify how much the workers are seeking in the settlement negotiations and it’s unclear how much the lab would agree to. Based on the jury decision to award the first five plaintiffs $2.7 million for lost wages and economic loss, with interest the average award per employee could be about $600,000—or a total settlement of around $78 million.
