Transcend Abuse

Below please find an updated Toray vs. Paknis abbreviated timeline, dated 10-14-2024, explaining why Toray Plastics America (TPA) sued me in Providence Federal Court in December 2018 and threatened my publisher with a lawsuit in June of 2019.

The Goal in Writing Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies was for the book to be considered the universal go to source for people and organizations seeking protection and freedom from workplace bullying and abuse.  

The book presents real life, yet scrubbed to protect identities, workplace bullying cases I addressed during my 25 + year long international consulting career. 

The book was released in 9/2018 and was well received.  It gained an immediate and strong following until a  former client, Toray Plastics America, sued me in 12/2018 on false grounds, claiming a common reader could identify Toray in my book. 

Toray also threatened to sue, in 6/2019, my publisher, unless they stopped printing and distributing my book.  The rights of the book were signed over to me and printing stopped. 

Fifty one months later, with a federal judge's assistance, Toray dismissed their case against me, with prejudice, and paid all my legal fees.  I signed nothing.  

By dismissing the case in this fashion, Toray basically admitted they filed a frivolous case against me, but the damage to me and my book was significant.  

"The fundamental problem is that there's no credibility in the judicial system. It is a system that's been completely politicized. This is retaliation and selective repression." - Leopoldo Lopez

"Workplace Bullying Targets do many things right, like write books to address and stop abusive and corrupt behaviors.  This, of course, makes bullies jealous and irrational in retaliation."

Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies was also written to establish me as a respected author  and as an authority on we workplace and personal bullying and abuse and power and control dynamics. 

The goal was for the first book to position me to release a second, more personal and powerful, book to help  readers transcend, as I have, childhood traumas. 

Despite its best efforts, Toray Plastics can't keep me from protecting employees and children from perpetrators.

Fall 2024:

My second book on overcoming adverse childhood experiences (ACES) is on its way to being released.  

Summer 2024:  

I started journaling and sharing the truth about Toray Plastics America's malicious and baseless lawsuit against me thanks to changes in state and federal non disclosure agreement laws.  

January 2024:  

I submitted a demand letter to Toray Plastics America seeking payment and restitution for TPA'S Malicious Prosecution and related, extensive, personal and professional injuries, harm, and damages.  

March 2023: 

Fifty one (51) months after filing and after an unusual number of judicial delays, Judge Smith demanded Toray dismiss my case, with prejudice, and pay my legal fees, basically acknowledging their lawsuit was frivolous. I signed nothing.  

August 2022:  

Despite Toray not being mentioned anywhere in the book, per the following article:

 https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/employer-s-suit-over-employee-s-book-7296172/ 

Judge William E. Smith stated the case outcome would best be determined by a fact find, by being heard and decided by a jury.  

December 2021:  

After numerous court delays, Providence Federal Court Judge William E. Smith assigned RI Federal Magistrate, and his former law firm  partner, Patricia A. Sullivan, to mediate and settle the case.  

During this mediation with Sullivan, I stated I had done nothing wrong and I had nothing to settle.  

This factual statement infuriated Magistrate Smith and she attacked me.  It was obvious she was not impartial.  

Toray's counsel had clerked for Sullivan and she had no interest in offering me a fair and just settlement or access to a fair trial.  

Regardless, I refused to settle with Toray and demanded my case be heard in front of a jury of my peers or to be granted a most appropriate Summary Judgement. 

Fall 2019:  

Boston Attorney John A. Mangones agreed to represent me in my defense against Toray Plastics' false claims, stating a common reader can identify Toray in my book, Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies. 

June 2019:  

TPA contacted my publisher and threatened  them with a lawsuit unless the printing and distribution of my book was stopped.  Despite Toray Plastics not being mentioned or identifiable in the book, and the book being scrubbed and compliant with all laws, my publisher signed over the book's rights to me and stopped printing and distributing the book.  

December 12, 2018:  

Toray Plastics America (TPA), driven by one vindictive and bullying executive, filed a lawsuit against me in Providence, RI Federal Court, falsely claiming a common reader could identify TPA in my book.  

September 25, 2018: 

Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies was released and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

July 2018:

RI Workforce Improvement Grant workers described how Toray Plastics America received the most grant monies in the state. 

All Toray grant requests were pre-approved by then Governor Gina Raimondo while front line Toray workers were known to be assaulted and abused by management on a daily basis.  

A letter outlining Toray's involvement in the misappropriation of government funds and abusive management practices was sent to the Providence Journal. Its investigative reporters and editors forwarded the letter to Toray Executives. 

June 2018:  

Toray agreed to settle my wrongful termination and compensated me.

September 2017:  

It took TPA less than twenty four hours to terminate me in retaliation for sharing my TPA shooting threat investigation with a Japanese Toray Expat who requested it.  

This Expat stated TPA's American Management team was lying to him and his Japanese Toray peers about the cause of my production plant's abysmal performance. 

August 2017: 

Workers visited my plant office and welcomed me back. Many thanked me for making efforts to make their workplace non threatening and safe.  

One worker asked for a private meeting. He stated he knew I was trying to help him and his peers.  Near tears, he thanked me and offered his support "to do anything and everything possible" to stop the abuse.  

Several weeks after TPA terminated me for sharing the shooting report with a Toray Japanese Expat who requested it, this worker was found dead, due to his own actions, in his apartment.  

July 2017:  

When I returned to Toray, I was isolated in a segregated office at corporate headquarters.  I wasn't allowed to return to my office in the plant because they claimed I was afraid of being shot.  This was another form of retaliation for my elevating reputable shooting threats.  

July 2017: 

I finished compiling a manuscript I started writing as a child, describing how good coaches, teams, and teachers helped me overcome seven (7) of ten (10) adverse childhood experiences (ACES).  

It shared the factors people and organizations use to transcend trauma and abuse. 

Nowhere in the manuscript is Toray mentioned or referenced.  It had NOTHING to do with Toray, as their narcissistic executive claimed.

Within ten days of submitting my manuscript to friends, I signed a generous publishing agreement with a known publisher whose distributor is Simon & Schuster. The publisher asked if I could write a book entitled, "Successful Leaders Aren't Bullies."

June 2017:

According to gun violence experts, soured workplace relationships, grievances in the workplace, or conflicts between its people, like those I witnessed and experienced at Toray Plastics, cause workplace mass shootings. FBI records show that in 49% of workplace shooting cases, the most common trigger was interpersonal workplace difficulties.

This motivated me to hand my report to then Toray Plastics America's president, who preached and encouraged open door policies.  My sense was they would appreciate the information and stop the abuse. This expectation was naive, despite it being how all my other clients responded to comparable reports.  

Instead, Toray Plastics America's Executives gave me "thirty (30) days on the beach," a stern warning, and lecture on the importance of following the chain of command.  

They wanted me to "think long and hard about what I wanted to do with my internal shooting investigation," or, in other words, they did not want me sharing the truth with Toray's Japanese Expat Executives.

The Toray Plastics American Executives who received my report took no respective action to correct its hostile work environment caused by its bullying manager. 

May 2017:  

My completed internal TPA shooting threat investigation, including input from TPA frontline workers and management staff, showed the problematic plant workers rated and perceived its management's behaviors much worse than behaviors at its sister plants. 

In the investigations, it became clear the catalyst and instigator of these horrific workplace ratings at the problematic plant was a well-known manager whose abusive and bullying behaviors were known by all Toray Plastics America executives, most of whom now run the organization.

After they received my completed workplace shooting internal investigation, Toray American administrators sat on the report despite the glaring and obvious shooting threat it outlined, posed by angered workers and instigated by the abusive behaviors of the bullying manager at my plant.  

The litany of claims and observations made about this problematic manager included: this person, "insulted, threatened, and berated workers, kept workers from taking breaks, poked workers with a pole, sprayed them with ammonia, threw manufacturing parts and equipment at them, and left demeaning notes and a harassing cards on workers' personal property.  

The manager also leered over a bathroom stall and photographed a worker using a toilet."

October 2016:  

TPA hired me full time to expand my management development services and to work as a generalist in one of their plants. 

Within a week of TPA hiring me full time, a respective plant employee stated, due to abusive management practices, they felt threatened an angry coworker would commit a workplace shooting.  

After elevating this shooting concern, I was told to ignore it.  When I stated this response made me uncomfortable, I was asked to conduct an internal investigation.

2005 - 2016: 

TPA and TIA contracted with me each year to deliver, at TIA sites around the country, an annual three day long management development program.

2005:  

Another one of my client's employees was hired by TPA and introduced TPA to me and my management development services.

Next: Childhood resiliency factors.