Counsel for the City of Bayonne and former Mayor Jimmy Davis in ex-Business Administrator Melissa Mathews’ discrimination case want a slew of evidence about drinking, drugs, sex, and lewd behavior barred from the trial currently scheduled for September.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
A 34-page brief filed in Essex County Superior Court on Friday by Lisa Barré-Quick, a partner with Warren-based law firm Apruzzese, McDermott, Mastro, and Murphy, and Boris Shapiro, of the same firm, seeks to bar evidence in 10 different instances.
They argue that Mathews was not appointed in 2022 since she campaigned for Davis’ opponent, then-Council President Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski, who is now the mayor and Davis is now the Hudson County sheriff.
“At that time, she also declined to be returned to her previous civil service role. Defendants maintain, and the evidence at trial will abundantly demonstrate, that Plaintiff was not reappointed because she actively opposed and campaigned against the Mayor during the 2022 election and vocally championed his opponent,” the brief says.
In limine arguments then begin by seeking to bar deposition questions and answers about Davis’ drinking, drug use, or sexual relations since they “serve no purpose other than to harass and/or embarrass the mayor and tarnish his image before the jury.”
The attorneys assert that Mathews’ hostile work environment and political retaliation claims have no relevance to anything in Davis’ personal life, noting that her counsel, Juan Cervantes, asked Davis a number of provocative questions during depositions.
For example, in response to questioning, Davis said he never did cocaine at the Vic Tavern (he replied he “never did drugs in my life”), that he never sent a picture of his genitalia to a City Hall employee, and that he’d never thrown a party at City Hall with alcohol.
However, when asked if he had ever drank inside the Mayor’s Office during the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, he replied “I may have.”
“First and foremost, these topics of inquiry have absolutely no relevance to whether [Tim] Boyle and [Mark] Bonamo allegedly harassed Plaintiff on the basis of her gender, as alleged in Count I,” Barré-Quick and Shapiro wrote.
“They also have absolutely no relevance to whether she was allegedly stripped of her responsibilities and non-reappointed in retaliation for voicing objections to practices at City Hall which she reasonably believe constituted a violation of law, rule, regulation, or mandate of public policy, as alleged in Count III. In fact, Plaintiff does not, and has not ever, alleged that she voiced objections about any of the above alleged conduct or that same led to any adverse action or her non-reappointment …”
They argue that for these same reasons, the deposition of another former business administrator, Joe DeMarco, should also not be admissible at trial.
DeMarco said under oath that he was under the impression Davis was part of a group text with other city officials “including Mayor Davis that featured inappropriate language” that included off color memes about “something sexual with a woman” or “something derogatory regarding ethnicity.”
Reiterating that this has nothing to do with Mathews’ legal claims, counsel for the city and Davis added that DeMarco did not speak in absolutes.
“Introduction of his testimony would be especially prejudicial given that Mr. DeMarco’s testimony was speculative at best and he admittedly could not say for sure that 1) there was a text message group; 2) that Mayor Davis was part of the group text; 3) whether Mayor Davis sent any memes; 4) the content of the memes and/or what was inappropriate about the memes sent by some of the group members,” they wrote.
Further, Barré-Quick and Shapiro assert that it’s irrelevant if any City Hall employees used words like c*nt or b*tch since Mathews did not hear these words directed at her or any other female worker during her tenure, and once again, it’s not part of her legal claims.
“Given that Plaintiff has never heard Boyle, Bonamo, or Mayor Davis refer to anyone as a ‘c*nt’ or ‘b*tch’, whether they said it (and at whom it was directed) is entirely irrelevant to her hostile work environment claim, and as such, Plaintiff should be precluded from introducing evidence or testimony from any witness on the subject matter,” they claim.
“In fact, it is undisputed that Plaintiff did not learn about that such language allegedly being used in the workplace until after she had left the City. Finally, since Mayor Davis is not alleged to have subjected Plaintiff to a hostile work environment, anything he allegedly said about another employee is insulated by an extra layer of irrelevance, requiring it to be excluded pursuant to Rule 402.”
Other salacious comments the defense counsel is seeking to have barred from Mathews’ upcoming trial include Ashe-Nadrowski saying that Davis told her Mathews was being hired because she was married to a Black man and has biracial children (Davis denies he said or intimated this in any way).
They’re also seeking to halt the testimony of Mathews’ psychiatric and forensic economics experts, the latter, Royal Bunin, estimates that she lost out on a total of $2,362,07 if she worked at City Hall until the standard retirement age of 65.
“In sum, Mr. Bunin’s calculation of future lost earnings was based on the faulty premise that Dr. [Jarrett] Tosk concluded in his report that Ms. Mathews would be unable to return to the labor market for the foreseeable future due to alleged harassment she claims during her employment with Bayonne,” defense counsel wrote.
“However, no such conclusion was reached by Dr. Tosk. In fact, she worked without restrictions as the Business Administrator for the City from January 2021 until June 30, 2022, when she preemptively resigned in response to written notice that she was being
non-renewed, effective July 1. As such, Mr. Bunin must be precluded from testifying as to future lost earnings due to an alleged inability to work.”
In a footnote by Barré-Quick and Shapiro, they say that Tosk believed Mathews had been dealing with a ton of stress since leaving City Hall, some of which is due to being an “informant” for the U.S. Department of Justice, who is allegedly looking into her “grandiose” complaints about Bayonne having mafia ties.
In a letter to Essex County Superior Court Judge Thomas R. Vena Jr. yesterday, Cervantes requested to have until July 31st to submit oppositions to the 10 in limine motions made last week.
As of this writing, Vena is expected to rule on the motions on August 14th.
City spokesman Joe Ryan said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
