There was no workplace harassment based on race or sex that Addelina Lucero faced in working for The Acequia Institute, but then-Executive Director Devon Peña did intentionally interfere with her employment contract and for that a jury awarded her backpay and damages.
A four-day civil trial that sorted out these issues came to a close in the Costilla County Courthouse on Friday evening when a jury of three women and three men delivered their decision. The jury took the case at 3:30 p.m. and was back in the courtroom at 6:05 p.m. with their decision.
Lucero was awarded $58,213 in total damages – $38,213 in back pay; $10,000 for non-economic damages due to emotional stress she suffered; and $10,000 in punitive damages since the interference of her contract was done with malice, the jury ruled.
Peña said the monetary award will be appealed.
“They were grasping for straws,” he said of the case Lucero brought against him and The Acequia Institute. “I’m very passionate about the work. Once I get started and I get triggered, it’s hard to stop me. That’s my wound. It doesn’t mean I’m a racial, sexual asshole.”
The trial zeroed in on Peña as the nonprofit’s executive director as he and The Acequia Institute worked a $1.5 million grant from the Colorado Health Foundation to purchase and renovate the R&R Market as well as initiate a young farmers program to bring fresh food into the grocery store.
Preparation for the grant proposal brought Lucero into the project as an expert in the indigenous food movement. Once the grant was awarded in December 2021, she stayed on as the part-time community outreach and education coordinator with a two-year contract to help the nonprofit implement its “food sovereignty” strategy with food grown that is native to the region.
As the organization worked to fulfill the mission of the grant, behind the scenes there was growing tension and disagreements between Peña and Lucero, which came to a head during a staff meeting in the summer of 2022.
The Acequia Institute had successfully held its first community event at the end of June 2022, with participants learning about native plants, how to forage food, and lessons on the indigenous way of farming and living.
The following week, during a July 5 staff meeting, Peña acknowledged on the witness stand that he “called out” Lucero because he felt she had disrespected him as an elder in the community during the June event.
She said she felt harassed and humiliated by Peña during the staff meeting, which she was attending remotely, and disconnected from it. She followed up with an email to board members of the nonprofit complaining about Peña’s conduct.
The Acequia Institute, in a letter 10 days later, informed her she was being terminated because the nonprofit was shifting to an “all local” staff for the project, and since she worked remotely from Taos, the decision was made to move on from her.
Lucero saw the termination differently. She alleged that Peña and The Acequia Institute fired her because she was Native American and a woman of color and the work environment was hostile to her. She also claimed Peña interfered with her employment contract which caused her to lose her job.
The jury found that she only proved interference with her employment.
The lawsuit and resulting civil trial has had the effect of dividing the community of San Luis as some residents have boycotted the remodeled market, now called the San Luis Peoples Market, out of disdain for Peña and his perceived conduct toward Lucero.
He said he is planning to remove himself from the equation of the San Luis Peoples Market and focus on his own farming and eventual travel. He retired this year as a tenured professor from the University of Washington.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I do worry about how this is going to affect our fundraising even though we had a big victory,” he said. “I feel a lot of sadness.”