Miniace, PMA settle lawsuit.(settlement of case between Joseph Miniace and Pacific Maritime Association )

BYLINE: BY BILL MONGELLUZZO

A bitter, complicated legal dispute that followed the dismissal of Joseph Miniace as president of the Pacific Maritime Association has been quietly settled after three years of litigation in a federal court in San Francisco.

More than $1 million in alleged damages and unpaid bonuses were at stake, but Miniace and the West Coast waterfront employers' organization dropped countercharges against each other under an agreement that omitted any payment between the two sides.

The PMA, however, is still trying to collect a $10.2 million insurance payment that the association claimed Miniace improperly helped steer to the widow of the PMA's former chief financial officer.

The case arose after Miniace resigned from the PMA in March 2004 on what he said were amicable terms. As it turned out, the PMA had fired him. Miniace later filed suit, charging that the PMA board wrongfully terminated his employment and owed him more than $1 million in bonuses, severance pay and punitive damages.

The PMA quickly countersued, charging that Miniace participated in a scheme to defraud the organization of nearly $10 million in insurance benefits for a "key man" insurance policy covering Thomas McMahon, the PMA's former chief financial officer. According to the PMA's lawsuit, the association had taken out an executive insurance policy on McMahon that would pay a death benefit of $10.2 million to the PMA and $1 million to McMahon's widow, Jeannette Coburn.

McMahon was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2002. Shortly before his death, according to the PMA lawsuit, Miniace participated in a scheme, without notifying the board, to alter the benefit plan so that Coburn would receive $10.2 million and the PMA $1 million.