« Not law but interesting - Picture Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan bald, or Fred Thompson with hair | Main | Law - "Alimony provides a same-sex union test" »

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Ind. Decisions - More on: Demoted Terre Haute firefighters receive $71K

Updating this ILB entry from July 17th, about the trial court ruling last week following the April 27th Supreme Court decision in the case of Naugle v. Beech Grove Schools, where, to quote from the Terre Haute Tribune-Star story last week:

Judge Ann Smith Mishler, a special judge in the case, referred to the Supreme Court’s ruling in her decision.

The court “finds that the Wage Payment Statute applies to governmental employers and further that the … city of Terre Haute is a ‘person’ as defined by the Wage Payment Statute,” she wrote in the ruling, “and as such, the [firefighters] are entitled to liquidated damages.”

The Trib-Star opines today “Nobody likes a sore loser.” Some quotes:
We were reminded of that timeless lesson of competition upon reading the city’s response to a successful lawsuit by four Terre Haute firefighters.

In the works since 2004, the suit was about damages the men believed they were owed because the city had demoted them without cause during a department “reorganization” and lowered their salaries for nearly 22 months.

The case pended in Superior Court until this spring when an Indiana Supreme Court ruling on a similar matter was rendered. On June 29, a special superior court judge, Sullivan magistrate Ann Smith Mishler, cited the supreme court decision and found in favor of the firefighters.

Because the city already had reinstated the four men’s salary levels and paid them back wages, Mishler’s ruling amounted to about an additional $52,000 total for the firefighters and their attorney.

In an official statement issued nearly a month after the decision, Mayor Kevin Burke’s office acknowledged the loss but could not resist the temptation to whine about it. Emphasizing that the city already had “compensated these employees with an adjustment in their pay” in late-2005, the statement carped:

“However, these individuals felt it necessary to further penalize the city and the taxpayers in the litigation by requiring treble damages to be paid to the plaintiffs and excessive attorney’s fees to be paid to plaintiffs’ counsel, thus further increasing the burden on the city of Terre Haute and the taxpayers …”

That is not only sour grapes, it’s divisive sour grapes, and unbecoming of the city’s chief executive office. Invoking such terms as “penalize” and “burden” in the same phrase as “taxpayers” is an obvious attempt to aggravate local citizens and turn them against the firefighters and their lawyer.

Fair is fair. The state’s highest court said Indiana’s Wage Payment Statute applies to municipal entities, and a superior court judge said that means the firefighters deserved more than back pay. While the decision may have stuck in the mayor’s craw — especially given that the plaintiffs’ attorney, Eric Frey, is an avowed political enemy of Burke’s — any chagrin should have been choked down and kept private.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 22, 2007 12:56 PM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions