On Monday Nov 10 at 4PM our Village Council will be meeting in a private Executive Session to discuss litigation strategy for a lawsuit against the Village filed by a prior Village Manager – Ted Yates.
The nonsense has to stop. Yates came to Islamorada on with a one-year contractual term and served at the pleasure of the Village Council. Before the contract was to auto-renew, a 3-2 vote of Council (Jolin, Mahoney and Rosenthal, with Pinder and Gregg dissenting) chose not to allow the contract to renew.
Therefore, it expired at the end of its initial term.
Village council members had their reasons for non-renewal. Yates and his attorney came up with the ridiculous notion that anyone who had previously disagreed with Yates’ actions as manager should have recused him/herself. That’s ludicrous. As an example, Supreme Court Justice Kagan argued for ObamaCare, as solicitor general, in front of the Supreme Court. When appointed to the Supreme Court later on, Kagan voted for the approval of ObamaCare. Did she recuse herself because she argued in public to uphold the law? No. And there was no recourse, criticism or lawsuit.
The Yates lawsuit (filed 10 months after his separation) has no basis and claims “termination” circumstances that are simply not covered in the employment contract’s very specific “without cause” termination provision.
The contract spells out the circumstances – there are only four – in which Yates would be entitled to severance. Not allowing the contract to automatically renew is, of course, not one of them.
Our Village attorney’s associate commented that the case should be dismissed. After conferring with several of my attorney associates with employment law expertise, I strongly agree.
So after 18 months why hasn’t the Village:
- filed a motion to dismiss?
- filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings?
-filed a motion for summary judgment?
None of these legal maneuvers have been taken by our attorney. Yet they are the logical legal steps to be taken after acknowledging the legal weaknesses of a lawsuit such as this.
I am not going to detail various reasons that the council voted not to renew the Yates contract. Suffice it to say, they exist. Ask the council members serving then.
We have kicked this lawsuit down the road for 18 months. Some want to offer a cash settlement to make it go away. That is the easy way out.
When you are right, you must be strong and determined.
My final takes:
The law community has figured out that the Village will cave and pay, rather than stand behind their decisions.
This just invites more frivolous litigation, and ultimately more tax dollars spent and less respect accorded to Council’s resolutions.
We often pay opponents’ legal fees. This is wrong.
We also need to reassess how we enter into contracts and their content. I have not been impressed:
We must do better. Remember, elections have consequences.
Tom Raffanello
