A federal judge Thursday found a jury’s award of $93.6 million in damages against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union unwarranted and reduced the figure to slightly over $19 million.

The former operator of the Port of Portland’s container terminal, ICTSI Oregon, can either accept the lower amount or seek a new trial solely to determine the appropriate damages, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon ruled in a 53-page decision.

The judge gave ICTSI Oregon two weeks to inform the court of its decision.

"The Court is left with the definite and firm conviction that the evidence does not support a damage award of $93.6 million,'' Simon wrote. "The Court also finds that an award of $19,061,248 is the maximum amount sustainable by the proof.''

The federal jury in November found the union sabotaged shipping traffic and caused productivity to plummet through years of labor slowdowns and stoppages. The union’s workers were pressuring ICTSI Oregon to give them the dockside jobs plugging in, unplugging and monitoring refrigerated containers, taking the so-called “reefer’’ jobs away from an electricians union.

The Philippine-owned ICTSI Oregon, which signed a 25-year lease in 2010 to operate Terminal 6, left the port in March 2017, idled by the labor strife it says the national longshore union and the local chapter encouraged. The company argued at trial that the union engaged in unlawful labor practices over nearly five years and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to its business.

Elvis Ganda, ICTSI Oregon’s president and chief executive officer, said the company doesn’t agree with the damages’ reduction. "We are now considering all options in our continuing efforts to hold the ILWU accountable and obtain justice,'' Ganda said in a statement.

Last month, the longshore workers union had urged Simon to either throw out a jury’s verdict awarding $93.6 million or drastically reduce it to $3.9 million.

Dan Jackson, attorney for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and its Local 8 chapter, argued that the “excessive and unreasonable’’ sum would bankrupt the union. He also argued the award was based on serious flaws in the damage calculations offered by an expert that was hired by ICTSI Oregon.

The union contends the company’s expert, Jay Sickler, started his calculations for proposed damages with high prices and shipping volume and then failed to account for a likely decrease in ongoing sales resulting from the inflated prices.

The judge was convinced Sickler’s testimony was problematic.

Simon wrote that the union’s concerns about Sickler’s calculations "cast significant doubt on the reliability of his testimony supporting lost profits.''

"Without Mr. Sickler’s testimony on lost profits, the jury’s verdict is against the clear weight of the evidence,'' Simon wrote.

Instead, the judge found there was evidence supporting lost profits from June 2012 through March 31, 2017, of $11,450,000, plus the value of the volume of the ships that had to bypass Terminal 6 due to the labor dispute, which the union’s expert put at $7,611,248.

Attorney Jeffrey S. Eden, representing ICTSI, had defended Sickler’s testimony, arguing that it was reasonable to raise prices and increase volumes as part of the damage calculations because of the competitive advantage that Terminal 6 had compared to ports in Seattle and Tacoma.

Eden also argued that the union expert on damages, Douglas Kidder, isn’t familiar with the container shipping industry nor Portland’s Terminal 6.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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