NAGE vs NEPBA Lawsuit?

Anyone out there know what happened on this case.... it was scheduled to go to trial on October 3 2010.... can't seem to find any update on this Lowell sun article:

(Copyright (c) 2010 ANG Newspapers. Cannot be used or repurposed without prior written permission.)

DEDHAM
-- A three-year feud between a police union and the breakaway union
formed by its former members is scheduled for trial on Monday.

In
2007, the National Association of Government Employees sued six former
officials, accusing them of secretly working behind the scenes to form a
new union and breaching their fiduciary duties to NAGE.

The
suit named Gerald Flynn and Bryan McMahon of the Lowell Police
Department, Andrew Ray of the Tyngsboro police, Martin Conway of the
Billerica police, Ronald Scaccia of the Nashua police, and Sean McArdle
of Cape Cod. McMahon now serves at president of New England Police
Benevolent Association, Flynn as executive director, Conway as executive
vice president and Scaccia as N.H. state director, according to NEPBA's
website. Ray has since died.

Flynn has been adamant from the start that he will not settle this lawsuit, describing it as "sour grapes" and "frivolous."

NEPBA
has 4,000 members in 100 local unions throughout New England, including
Lowell, Billerica, Dracut, Chelmsford, Tyngsboro, Tewksbury, Dunstable,
Wilmington, and Salem and Nashua, N.H., Flynn said.

In
December 2008, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara
dismissed allegations of misappropriation of trade secrets because,
simply, there were no trade secrets. She also dismissed a complaint of
"unjust enrichment" against the six officers, saying there was no
evidence that they profited from dues going to NEPBA instead of NAGE.

Five
other issues remain for trial. Dortch-Okara refused to dismiss the
allegation of breach of fiduciary duty, writing, "Rather than notifying
NAGE of the unions' discontent, Flynn took advantage of the situation
and encouraged these local unions to choose NEPBA as their bargaining
agent."

She also kept alive an allegation for civil conspiracy.

Dortch-Okara
wrote, "a jury could find that Flynn, Ray, Conway and McMahon
participated in a common plan to substantially assist and encourage each
other to breach their fiduciary duty."

In
the lawsuit, NAGE alleges that the six officers served as national
representatives of NAGE, a national labor union, at various times from
1998 to 2006.

In 2001, Flynn approached
NAGE's national vice president about forming a new union in 2001 due to
dissatisfaction with NAGE, according to the lawsuit. NAGE's constitution
and bylaws impose a high level of responsibility on its
representatives, including the duty to notify NAGE if a local union
wants to disaffiliate from NAGE, the judge wrote.

In
2005, Flynn led a meeting at NAGE's Billerica office with McMahon,
Conway and others to discuss starting a new union, NEPBA, and
decertifying NAGE.

NEPBA registered its website and arranged for space in the same building as NAGE.

Flynn
resigned from NAGE on Nov. 28, 2005. The next day, Flynn and McMahon
flew to Florida to meet with Samuel Cabral, president of the
International Union of Police Associations, about affiliation.

"At
this meeting, Flynn and McMahon presented to Cabral a 13-page proposal,
as well as a bag, shirt and jacket with New England PBA logos printed
on them," the judge wrote.

On Dec. 5,
2005, Conway, Ray and McMahon resigned as NAGE national representatives.
The lawsuit alleges they took NAGE contracts and membership lists.
McArdle resigned in October 2006.

Even
before the election to decertify NAGE as their union, the six former
NAGE officers were aware that some of the local unions had stopped
paying NAGE dues and shifted those dues payments to NEPBA, the suit
alleges.

The other officers, while still NAGE representatives, participated in meetings about the new union.

Credit: Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com