YOUNGSTOWN — Fired five years ago as Youngstown’s community development agency director, Taron Cunningham is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to hear his case about the termination.
Cunningham has unsuccessfully sued to get reinstated by the city.
In an appeal to the state’s highest court, Francis Landry, Cunningham’s attorney, wrote: “This case presents questions of great general interest and substantial constitutional questions about the rights and interests of public employees in the classified service and public employees as well. If the (appeals court) decision is allowed to stand, Ohio’s public employees will be subject to termination without prior notice of the allegations against them and stripped of their due process rights.”
In response, Frank Scialdone, the attorney representing Youngstown, wrote: “This case has nothing to do with a legal determination of public or great general interest. The civil service commission, the (Mahoning County) Common Pleas Court and the unanimous panel of the 7th District Court of Appeals correctly applied established law to the facts of the case. Cunningham simply wants this court to re-review this case in which eight decision makers uniformly rejected his claims.”
Scialdone was referring to the three-member city civil service commission, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, Judge John M. Durkin of common pleas court and the three-member appeals panel.
“It is a limited dispute among these parties in which Cunningham is unhappy with the result,” Scialdone wrote.
Scialdone also wrote that Cunningham “knew exactly why he was being removed” going back to March 2019 and during the appeal to the 7th District the former city worker “did not try to contest the overwhelming evidence that established he was terminated for good cause.”
Landry argues if the Supreme Court doesn’t accept this case, “Ohio employees will be left in a position whereby a public employer could issue an invalid removal order, and continuously amend said order, drawing out the employee’s removal, and with no compensation to the employee despite the lack of due process afforded to the employee.”
The court of appeals on March 18 unanimously agreed with Durkin’s April 18, 2023, decision that the city’s civil service commission acted properly when it upheld Cunningham’s March 2020 termination — he was initially fired in March 2019 — by Brown.
Cunningham was fired, according to a Dec. 15, 2021, decision by the civil service commission for “a litany of personnel issues involving (him) and his ongoing working relationship with his supervisor, co-workers and outside partners.” There were “disputes or incidents” with 13 former co-workers, including Brown, according to the commission’s ruling.
FIRING
Cunningham was initially fired March 8, 2019, but that was overturned by Judge Anthony D’Apolito of common pleas court, who ruled Feb. 26, 2020, that the commission made the wrong decision because Brown’s letter to Cunningham didn’t include the reasons for termination as required.
Brown then wrote a new letter March 12, 2020, to Cunningham firing him, retroactive to March 8, 2019, with details that were identical to a letter written Jan. 8, 2019, by T. Sharon Woodberry, Cunningham’s boss at the time, about him to Jeff Limbian, then the city’s law director.
Those letters outlined 26 issues with Cunningham including his “inability to adhere to policy and rules that govern the workplace, incompetence, poor communication skills, misrepresentation of facts in his course of work, general insubordination, temperamental and retaliatory behavior.”
Cunningham, who was paid $74,997.52 annually, filed with the appeals court seeking reinstatement and back pay between March 8, 2019, the date of the first termination letter, and March 12, 2020, the date of the second termination letter.
The appeals court denied Cunningham’s request three times, ruling an administrative appeal was first required.
The civil service commission held a three-day hearing, starting Oct. 25, 2021, to hear Cunningham’s arguments that the second Brown letter was in violation of civil service rules. The commission upheld Cunningham’s termination at a Dec. 15, 2021, meeting, saying he failed to prove his case.
Cunningham then appealed the second termination decision Jan. 13, 2022, in common pleas court.
Durkin ruled April 18, 2023, that the commission’s decision on Dec. 15, 2021, “was based upon reliable, probative and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law and is affirmed.”
Durkin wrote he “determined that the matter was not ripe to consider damages simply because there were procedural deficiencies.”
That led to another appeal that the 7th District recently rejected with Cunningham seeking reinstatement and, at minimum, back pay for a little over a year.
The court rejected that, writing: “Just as a prisoner is not entitled to immediate release when a sentencing judgment fails to state the method of conviction, an employee is not entitled to reinstatement merely because a removal order fails to list the specific reasons previously detailed in the pre-disciplinary letter and reviewed at the pre-disciplinary hearing.”
The court also wrote that Cunningham’s contention that a second effort to fire him had to provide different reasons than the first “would force the city into an untenable position where they would be forced to retain, discipline free, any employee who has been proven in pre-disciplinary proceedings to fully merit removal, merely due to a procedural error in the removal order. The city would never be able to fire the employee for any of the reasons that support the defective removal order.”
Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @dskolnick.
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