The verdict finding the police department guilty of age discrimination in the firing of two long-serving deputy police chiefs may cost the city $500,000 — the amount a jury awarded them Thursday. But it should provide a valuable lesson it to the city in following good personnel policies in evaluating employees and basing personnel actions on documented grievances.
Former assistant deputy chiefs Charles Cooke and T.E. (Skip) Vaughn were fired by Police Chief Freeman Cooper in early 2007 after they refused his offer to accept demotions to captain or take a civilian job with the police department.
Mr. Cooke, 49 at the time of the firings, and Mr. Vaughn, then 59, claimed in a Chancery Court trial this week that they were fired as a result of age discrimination, and not for any other cause. Their case was bolstered by sterling employee evaluations previously given them by Chief Freeman, and by a statement attributed to him by Mr. Cooke.
Mr. Cooke said Chief Cooper told him he had marching orders from Mayor Ron Littlefield’s office to fire the two and hire younger, less-experienced officers to take their places.
Chief Cooper and Mayor Littlefield denied the firings involved age. Instead, they cited budget reasons. But that worked against the city as well. Other evidence showed that Chief Cooper installed three younger men in their positions at salaries that, combined, exceeded Messrs. Cooke’s and Vaughn’s salaries by $50,000. The city also failed to show that any prior budget analysis of the police department’s job had been performed.
In short, the city’s case had a lot of holes, and no documentation to support it. In that context, the city looks like it acted wrongly. If the city had reasonable grounds to fire the plaintiffs, its positions should have been made consistently in a written chain of personnel reviews and written follow-up attempts to instruct Messrs. Vaughn and Cooke on how they should improve deficiencies in their performance, along with documented meetings on how such efforts fared.
In fairness to employees, city officials — and county and school system officials, as well — should be able to document their personnel actions and grievance procedures. They shouldn’t get away with firing long-standing employees with good evaluations without documented reason simply because they have political authority or the power of rank.
Proper grievance procedures work for both sides in personnel disputes to document grievances, and to justify or defend against termination. If the city officials can’t abide by rules for fair play, public employees should get the benefit of the doubt, as they did in this case.