Bias Case Takes Toll on Ex-Hughes Workers : Courts: One of the men who share a $89.5-million judgment is struggling to get his life in order. The other blames his health problems on stress.

For 10 years, Jeffrey Lane, a 39-year-old USC physics graduate, worked diligently as a engineer for Hughes Aircraft Co. in its Space and Communications Division in El Segundo.

During that time, Lane said, he received only one promotion, while most of the white male employees received one every three to five years. Lane, who is black, said he found out that he was making only about 60% of the salary his white co-workers were being paid.

In 1991, after years of continuous verbal and written appeals to his supervisors, Lane filed a complaint with Hughes’ Human Resources Department, alleging racial discrimination and asking for pay lost because of failure to receive promotions.

After four months, Lane said, officials from the department responded, saying their investigation showed no discrimination and that the $400,000 he was asking for was excessive.

“How could they say I was asking for too much money if there was no discrimination?” he said.

Finally, David Villalpando, a Latino supervisor, stood up for him and battled the Hughes executives. “I tried to tell them that Jeffery was a superstar employee,” Villalpando said this week. “I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to promote him.”

Villalpando said “racism was running so rampant” at the company that executives forced him to start a smear campaign trying to discredit Lane. Both men said their bosses harassed them to the point that life was unbearable at work.

Villalpando broke down.

“I cried for the first time in 14 years,” he said. “It was a total emotional raping.”

The two men took the case to court, and on Wednesday a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded them $89.5 million. And though there have been other class-action suits in which larger amounts have been awarded, this is one of the largest amounts involving individual plaintiffs. It is also one of the biggest racial bias suits in history.

This is not the first time Hughes has had legal charges of racism leveled against it.

Last year, a black accountant at the company, who also said he was denied promotions because of his race, was awarded $1.4 million. A similar case against Hughes is pending.

*

Richard Dore, a spokesman for Hughes, said the company will not comment until further legal actions are completed.

Both Lane and Villalpando said they never wanted the case to reach the court.

“Never did I want to sue Hughes,” Lane said. “My appeal has always been to resolve this thing with minimal damage.”

Ian Herzog, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said court documents show that Villalpando approached top executives about dealing with the racial problems at Hughes.

“David wrote and met with the president of his division, but was given the cold shoulder,” Herzog said.

Hughes has maintained that Lane’s work ethic was the only reason for his lack of promotion. But Herzog said court documents showed that Hughes had given Lane nearly perfect reviews until he filed the internal complaint.

“No one had ever complained about his abilities until he filed his complaint,” Herzog said.

Hughes also countered that Lane had a physics degree, while the company was predominantly a electrical engineering firm. However, Villalpando said, “We found out during the case that six or seven white managers at the company only had high school diplomas.”

Villalpando said his boss called him in several times inquiring about Lane, even when he was no longer Lane’s supervisor. “He started making threats about me being able to feed my family,” Villalpando said. “He also basically offered me a promotion to write a bad review.”

*

Lane and Villalpando said it was a daily struggle to keep their jobs and feed their families while maintaining their sanity at work. “They punished me psychologically for months because I would not give Jeffery a reprimand,” Villalpando said.

Despite the large judgment, which is being appealed by Hughes, the two men are still feeling the effects of their three-year ordeal.

Villalpando, though working again, is struggling to regain control of his family.

“My life has been so consumed by this case that my wife and children don’t even know who I am,” he said.

Recently, Villalpando was offered a job as a manager at his new job. He declined, saying: “I never want to be a manager of anybody again after what I went through.”

Lane is now disabled by chronic fatigue syndrome and Epstein-Barr virus that he says is the result of the turmoil at Hughes. Lane takes medication to deal with his health problems and helps his wife with a home courier service, which she started to feed the family after Lane left Hughes. Other than that, he does not work.

Lane said he has learned an important lesson from the whole situation.

“I got the sense that the glass ceiling is a concrete ceiling for African Americans,” Lane said.