Auto Worker Will Pay $65,600 to Estate of Asian Beating Victim

DETROIT —  One of two laid-off auto workers who allegedly beat a Chinese-American man to death because they thought he was Japanese has agreed to pay $65,600 to the victim’s estate.

The settlement reached Monday calling for Michael Nitz, 28, to pay Vincent Chin’s estate came as attorneys were set to argue a $30-million wrongful death lawsuit against Nitz and his stepfather, Robert Ebens, 47.

The settlement calls for Nitz to pay the Chin estate $50,000 in cash and $30 weekly for 10 years. Judge Marianne O. Battani postponed the civil suit against Ebens pending a retrial on federal civil rights charges.

Ebens, a former foreman at Chrysler Corp., and Nitz, also a laid-off auto worker, were accused of beating Chin with a baseball bat June 19, 1982, outside a Highland Park nightspot. Chin died four days later.

Witnesses said the men directed racial slurs at Chin, 27, apparently thinking he was Japanese, and chided him about U.S. auto industry layoffs.