Couple must pay $125,000 in damages to ex-nanny

Source: Sun-Sentinel

Couple must pay $125,000 in damages to ex-nanny
By Gerardo Reyes
The Miami Herald
6:36 a.m. EDT, September 2, 2009

When Alejandra Ramos received an offer in Peru to work as a nanny for a Key Biscayne couple, she thought it would be a great opportunity to change her life, and especially to have health-insurance coverage to treat her diabetes.

But her aspirations began to unravel after her employers went from failing to keep their promises to making her work exhaustingly long hours while spurning her health complaints, Ramos told El Nuevo Herald.

For $500 a month, Ramos slept in what used to be the apartment's closet next to the garbage chute. She had to work an exhausting shift that began each day at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 1 a.m., or later if the couple had a party at their home, according to court documents.

Besides caring for the couple's son, Ramos had to cook, wash and iron clothes, plus clean the apartment located in one of the exclusive condominium buildings in the exclusive South Florida neighborhood, where hundreds of rich Latin American families try to replicate their own country's lavish lifestyle that afforded servants, chauffeurs and butlers.

~snip~
To take away passports from domestic employees is a generalized practice in Key Biscayne because employers fear other families may lure their domestic help away by offering higher pay, various housewives told El Nuevo Herald.



Read more: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-miami-nanny-bn090209,0,1706479.story

Send a message loud and clear.

I'm so sick of being told how immigrants are "ruining" the country.

Finally, a little justice.

and even though I came from Western Europe and came in legally, I still faced a bunch of nativist crap...I can only imagine what it's like for a poor person of color! Peace-Mike C

Thats slavery

than most of them care to admit...

Oh they're sorry sacks of crap for treating Ms. Ramos like that, and I can't say they don't deserve punishment.

What is unfair about this is that our government pays private corporations to basically do the same thing in Iraq. These contractors lure in people from third world countries, don't tell them where they are going, confiscate their passports, keep them under lock and key all while forcing them to work some 16 hours a day. The corporations profit and it is all with your money.

So why does a couple of private US citizens have to face the music while the corporations paid by our government do not?

Two weeks ago, a federal court jury in Miami found the Key Biscayne couple guilty of various civil charges and granted Ramos and María Onela Maco Castro, the servant who replaced her, $125,000 total in damages as compensation.

Freedumb. Miami style.

The oligarchs who run/ran the kleptocracies in the Latin Americas are concentrated in Miami-Dade's wealthy enclaves, like Key Biscayne.

The high end über realtors just love 'em.

slander, and unpaid wages.

$62,500+ each is in no way adequate compensation for these damages. If I understand this OP correctly, these woman were working 12-18 hours a day presumably 5-6 days a week, for $500 a month!--with no health care. And shitty living conditions. And verbal abuse. So, first of all, their real pay needs to be restored, for all that unpaid work, then damages for breach of contract, slavery, health impacts, suffering and slander. We're talking $17,000 a year (calculated at 8 hrs a day--and they worked more overtime than that--at $7/hr, with one day a week off and a week's vacation) for one person alone. They were basically working double shifts and then some. So, depending on how many 18 hour days they put in, they are owed roughly $20,000 per year, over and above what they actually made.

I'm not sure how long this went on, but one year's back pay that is owed to them reduces the damages award to about $40,000 each. Breach on contract--$5,000 (each)? Slavery--$5,000? Health impacts/suffering--$5,000? Slander--$5,000?

This award is beginning to look like a gift to the employers. And the headline is false: no nanny is receiving $125,000. Two nannies are receiving $85,000 split between them, plus one year's wages owed to them for overtime (at a nominal rate of pay). And if they worked under these conditions for more than one year, their award is even smaller. ($20,000 per year, per worker, in unpaid wages.)

Also, for extremely poor people to file a suit like this is exhausting, time-consuming and very expensive--with many hidden costs (travel, loss of income, anxiety, stress). If you work for an hourly wage, you don't get paid for the time that the lawsuit requires (meetings with attorneys, depositions, providing evidence, court appearances), IF you can even get work after filing such a lawsuit. (The likelihood of being blacklisted as nannies/housekeepers is very great.) I presume their attorneys' fees and costs had to be paid (since they won the suit), but what of the hidden costs? And what of their futures? Education? Re-training? Health care? Travel to and establishment in another area (re-location costs)?

I would say the award is about a 10th of what it should have been, for simple justice and repair of damages--and probably should have been even higher than that, as a warning to other employers. It may be a pioneering lawsuit, and certainly was a courageous one, but the small award sets a bad precedent which I hope gets corrected.

The employers should additionally be charged with crimes, but that ain't likely to happen to rich, fascist Latin Americans in Florida. And they have the nerve to sue to lower the award! I trust that that will get thrown out of court--unless they judge-shop successfully and find themselves a Bush appointee.

These poor women could end up with nothing.

Wasn't that Nixon's hangout with Bebe Rebozo?