Earlier this summer, former Dearborn Charter Commissioner Raymond Trudeau came before the Dearborn City Council to ask questions about Judge Mark Somers and the more than $1.1 million in damages against him from two lawsuits that the city could end up writing a check for.

In his confrontational style of question asking, Trudeau wanted answers to two questions: would the city would have to pay $1.1 million for the jury awards and why Dearborn didn’t settle these two civil lawsuits for a fraction of the cost rather than going to trial.

City leaders said Dearborn wasn’t responsible for those jury awards.

That appears not to be the case now.

The Michigan Court of Appeals late last week denied an appeal hearing made by the attorney general’s office to throw out the award of $463,820 to Simone Calvas, a former probation officer at the district court in Dearborn.

This means the city of Dearborn could be forced to write the check for the entire amount. It is worth noting that the Appeals Court denied the motion because the attorney general’s office was late in filing the appeal within the required 21 day window from when the jury award was made. Kind of makes you wonder if the State should pay for the entire amount for being late with its appeal request.

The Calvas award is one of two that separate juries in two different civil trials awarded to two former District Court employees in Dearborn over claims they were fired by Judge Somers in violation of Michigan law. The second award was for $732,000 to Julie Pucci, a former deputy court administrator.

At that council meeting Trudeau attended in July, he never received an answer on why the city didn’t consider settling with Ms. Pucci.  According to Trudeau, Pucci would have settled for less than $50,000. One city council member told Deepsaidwhat.com that Judge Somers was asked to consider settling the suit on several occasions but he declined.