A federal judge ruled that former employees of the Hawai'i Naniloa Resort are entitled to $100,000 in extra severance pay.

Hotel owner Hawaii Outdoors Tours laid off 118 workers when it acquired the 385-room Hilo resort in February 2006.

In a ruling Friday, Senior U.S. District Judge Samuel King found that various labor agreements with the hotel workers indicate "that severance should be paid from 1986," not 1999 as the hotel owner had asserted.

"For them to deny severance, it was a slap in the face of employees who stood by the hotel during tough times," said Richard Baker, Big Island Division Director for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the former hotel workers.

Attorneys for Hawaii Outdoor Tours could not be reached for immediate comment but in their court pleadings, the hotel owners argued that they shouldn't be entitled to pay workers' severance for anytime before 1999, when the hotel's collective bargaining agreement went into affect.

Hawaii Outdoor took over the hotel last year by paying Hawai'i Naniloa Resort LLC $6.1 million and outbidding local developer Peter Savio, who had teamed with Outrigger Enterprises Group for the 65-year state land lease to the hotel, Baker said.

The ILWU eventually sued the state and Hawaii Outdoors over what it called "irregular" bidding, alleging that the state allowed the buyers more time extensions to close the deal than was allowed under the original bidding requirements.

Since the late 1980s, the Naniloa has been controlled by The Nakano Company Ltd., which is owned by Japanese national Joji Nakano.

In recent years the owners of the Naniloa and other Banyan Drive hotels sought to renegotiate their state leases, which were set to expire in 2015. With so little time left, the hotel owners argued they could not obtain financing to make improvements.

The image and the appearance of the hotel have been slipping in recent years under previous ownership. At one point, Naniloa owed the county more than $1.3 million in property taxes and sewer charges.