10/07/2014
“In war, truth is the first casualty.”
Aeschylus
You can tell an election is heating up and the other side is getting worried when they start running adds proclaiming “the TRUTH” but fall short on the FACTS
By the numbers
Cities and their public servants are often targeted by lawsuits. It happens to police officers, to judges and to mayors. It is unpleasant for the individuals involved and it is a difficult part of the terrain that public servants have to navigate in a litigious society. The results are sometimes difficult to understand, or to accept. But the reality is that “the cost of doing business” includes the risks and costs of lawsuits. The City of Dearborn has stood behind its public servants– even when they have been sued individually for acts they have done in the course of performing their public duties.
Here are some examples of what the City and its officials have had to deal with (there have been others):
$300,000.00 paid by the citizens of the City of Dearborn in 2013 to settle a lawsuit by Acts 17 Apologetics vs. The City of Dearborn, its officials and police officers including our Mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr. who was sued both in his official capacity and individually for violation and conspiracy to violate the plaintiff’s First, Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment Constitutional rights. [The city did not reveal the amount of the settlement until the Press & Guide filed a Freedom of Information Act request.]
$103,401.96 paid by the citizens of the City of Dearborn in 2012 by order of a Federal Judge in a lawsuit brought by George Saieg vs. The City of Dearborn and its police chief after a Federal Appeals Court held that the City violated the plaintiff’s First Amendment Constitutional rights.
$ ???????? Mencotti vs. City of Dearborn and its police chief – Wayne County Circuit Court. “Whistleblower” case settled through mediation in 2014 just before trial.
$ “Undisclosed” settlement in Elhert v. City of Dearborn – Wayne County Circuit Court, 2002, sexual harassment/employment retaliation lawsuit settled in 2002.
$ ???????? Murphy-Goodrich v. City of Dearborn, (former Human Resourses Administrator). The case is now pending in US District Court – civil rights employment case.
Much has been made of employment lawsuits filed by 3 court employees. The first, a probation officer terminated for job performance sued and obtained a judgment against the court (not against any individual or judge) for failing to meet procedural requirements in her termination. The second, a lawsuit by a judge’s fiancé for elimination of her position by Judge Somers after her fiance (judge) attempt to promote her to the top administrative post at the court was blocked by the Michigan Supreme Court. This is the case that is currently on appeal and in which there is no final outcome yet known.
In spite of a Michigan Supreme Court 1998 ruling that says local funding units (counties or cities) are responsible for payment of any settlement or judgment against a judge acting within their duties, the City, for the very first time and just one month before the 2011 trial, took the position that it would not be responsible because Judge Somers was being sued in his individual capacity in Federal court. Three years before the trial, the City had rejected an opportunity to accept a mediated settlement of the case at one-tenth the cost of the eventual judgment. [In an apparent “flip-flop” on the issue in 2013, the City’s settlement of the Acts 17 lawsuit for $300,000 covered not only the City, it also covered the Mayor individually while still insisting that a judge acting as a public servant is not entitled to the same treatment as a City official]. The third case was an offshoot of the same court administrative reorganization and was settled on behalf of all defendants by Chief Judge Wygonik with the full approval of the City.
