and an executive used the pseudonym "John Baron" in some of his business dealings, although Trump said he did not do so until years after Trump Tower was constructed. A labor lawyer testified that he was threatened over the phone with a $100 million lawsuit by a John Baron who supposedly worked for the Trump Organization. Donald Trump later told a reporter, "Lots of people use pen names. Ernest Hemingway used one." After the laborers filed for a mechanic's lien over unpaid wages, they said a Trump Organization lawyer threatened to have the Immigration and Naturalization Service deport them. A judge ruled in favor of the Polish laborers in 1991, saying the organization had to pay the workers. The contractor was ultimately ordered to pay the laborers $254,000. The case went through several appeals by both sides as well as non-jury trials, and was reassigned to different judges several times. The original named plaintiff, plaintiffs' attorney, and two co-defendants died during the litigation. Judge Kevin Duffy compared the case unfavorably to Charles Dickens' fictional case Jarndyce and Jarndyce in June 1998, when he was assigned the case after the previous presiding judge had died. The lawsuit was ultimately settled in 1999, and its records were sealed. In November 2017, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered the settlement documents unsealed. In the settlement, Trump agreed to pay a total of $1.375 million, which, according to the plaintiffs' lawyer, was the full amount that could have been recovered at trial. Other controversies There were several other controversies related to the construction process. In one case, Trump sued a contractor for "total incompetence." Construction was also halted twice because minority rights' groups protested outside the Trump Tower site to condemn the shortage of minority construction workers. Trump was also involved in a disagreement with Mayor Koch about whether the tower should get a tax exemption. In 1985, Trump was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state in the New York State Court of Appeals concerning the payment of a 10% state tax in the event that a real estate property is transacted for $1 million or more. The exemption was reported as between $15 million and $50 million. The tax on Trump Tower was upheld in a 4-to-1 decision. The City of New York granted Trump permission to build the top twenty stories of the building in exchange for