Burgess v. Miller
| Decision Date | 10 June 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-0955.,79-0955. |
| Parties | William BURGESS et al., Plaintiffs, v. Rhett MILLER et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Florida |
Larry K. White, Tallahassee, Fla., for plaintiffs.
Bryan W. Henry and James R. English, Tallahassee, Fla., for defendants.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The Plaintiffs sued under the provisions of Title 42, United States Code, Section 1983 (1976), claiming the Defendants denied them due process when their jobs with the City of Tallahassee (City) ended. The Plaintiffs were all garbage collectors for the City's Sanitation Department. The Defendants are the City and some of its officials. Daniel Kleman is the City Manager. Rhett Miller is the City's Public Works Director. The Sanitation Department is a subdivision of Public Works.
Early in the spring of 1978, many of Tallahassee's garbage collectors, including the Plaintiffs, were unhappy with their jobs. Differences in pay between new employees and old employees who performed the same work, inability to get a cost-of-living pay increase, and difficulties communicating with superiors bothered them most. Truman Smith was the most vocal dissident. Late in March, Truman Smith went to City Hall seeking a permit for the garbage collectors to parade downtown during work hours. While he was there, City Manager Dan Kleman and Director of Employee Relations Evelyn Brion told him that a parade during work hours would constitute a strike and would be illegal. During that visit Truman Smith showed Ms. Brion a sheet of paper with the heading "Agreement to Strike Monday." There were 30 signatures on the sheet. All of the Plaintiffs had signed the sheet.
In the following weeks Ms. Brion; Mr. Kleman; Read Westcott, Director of the Solid Waste Division and Plaintiffs' supervisor; and Rhett Miller met several times to discuss the problems with the garbage collectors. They consulted frequently with the City's labor attorney, Jim Blue, and relied upon his advice. Defendants' consultations with Lawyer Blue were motivated more by fear of doing something legally unacceptable than any innate sense of fair play. Nonetheless, they took pains to obtain legal advice about the appropriateness of any action and its compliance with all legal requirements.
March 27, 1978, Rhett Miller met with the garbage collectors, including the Plaintiffs, and explained that any work stoppage or refusal to work would be a strike, would be illegal, and would cause immediate termination. April 7, 1978, Ms. Brion met with the garbage collectors, including the Plaintiffs, at the sanitation yard. She compared their salaries to those of collectors with the area's independent garbage collection service, pointing out the City paid higher salaries and offered more fringe benefits. She concluded that the City management believed the garbage workers were adequately paid and the City would not make the adjustments desired. The dissidents were not satisfied.
Monday, April 10, 1978, a number of garbage collectors, including all the Plaintiffs except Henry Smith, who was sick, refused to work until their demands for pay equalization and a satisfactory meeting with responsible officials were met. Rhett Miller met with four de facto leaders of the collectors, including Plaintiffs Truman Smith and Lindsey Ardley. He clearly set out the City's position that any refusal to work would be an illegal strike and cause for immediate dismissal. Truman Smith upon his return to the group continued to tell them the City was wrong and they could not be fired for striking. But he also relayed what Mr. Miller told him. All the Plaintiffs present understood they would be fired if they continued refusing to work.
The group was assembled for roll call and told they would be fired if they did not answer. None answered. Believing most of the men were misled and confused, the City officials decided to give them another chance. Read Westcott told the men they could take Monday off but should return Tuesday ready to work. Truman Smith and Lindsey Ardley, however, Westcott fired. He informed them orally of their discharge. Daniel Kleman made the final decision to discharge them after consulting with the other officials involved and Lawyer Blue. His reasons were three. Both had refused to work and therefore broken Florida's law prohibiting public employees from striking. Both had been repeatedly informed about a strike's illegality and its consequences and were no longer entitled to the benefit of the doubt. And both were misleading the other garbage collectors.
Tuesday morning, April 11, 1980, a letter from Leonard Carson, Chairman of Florida's Public Employees Relations Commission, was hand delivered to Kleman's office. Chairman Carson's letter set out the illegality of public employee strikes and the Commission's statutory duty to act when public employees strike. The letter ended with gentle firmness:
PERC's insistence upon rigorous enforcement of Florida's prohibition against public employee strikes was not the only pressure on the City and its officials. Garbage was piling up. No garbage was collected Monday, April 10. Usually commercial garbage was collected on Mondays. Tallahassee garbage collections averaged 190 tons per day. Mr. Kleman understandably and correctly felt the City faced an emergency. Its businesses were beginning a week's trade with their garbage cans unemptied. Until the strike was ended garbage would be accumulating at a massive rate. By Tuesday, the second day of the strike, there was 380 tons of uncollected garbage in the City. Not only was the City responsible for collecting the garbage, it was bound by statute to end the illegal strike and under pressure to act quickly.
Tuesday a number of collectors, including all the Plaintiffs, again refused to work. Told to get off City property if they were not working, they assembled in a parking lot across the street from the sanitation facility. Truman Smith and Lindsey Ardley were with them. Read Westcott, Dan Kleman, Rhett Miller, Evelyn Brion, and Jim Blue were all inside the sanitation department offices. Read Westcott spoke to the collectors for the officials. Once again he told them their refusal to work was an illegal strike and they would be fired if they continued. The men said they would return to work if Truman Smith and Lindsey Ardley were reinstated and all collectors were given a raise. All the garbage collectors, including the Plaintiffs, understood their actions were illegal and they would be discharged if the work stoppage continued.
After consulting the others Dan Kleman rejected the garbage collectors' demands and sent Read Westcott to tell the collectors that they would be discharged unless they began working by 10:30 a. m. At 10:20 a. m. Read Westcott delivered the ultimatum: "You have ten minutes to get your asses on those trucks or go down to Personnel." All the Plaintiffs understood they would be discharged if they did not start working. The Plaintiffs and all but one of the group did not get on the trucks. Westcott told them they were discharged and to go down to the Personnel office to pick up their termination papers. When Mr. Westcott fired the Plaintiffs he did not give them written notice of their termination or its reasons, and he did not tell them of any rights to appeal the termination.
As they were instructed, the Plaintiffs trooped downtown to the Personnel office. There they were interviewed by an employee who asked them questions on an exit interview report form, recorded their answers, and then gave them the report to sign. Each Plaintiff signed a report. The forms indicate each Plaintiff left because he was dissatisfied. Rayfield Williams, Arthur Davis, Henry Smith, William Burgess, and Jessie Derico all specified inadequate pay as one cause of dissatisfaction. Truman Smith, Jessie Derico, and Rayfield Williams specified dissatisfaction with their supervisors. None of the Plaintiffs asked for a hearing on their dismissal.
Rhett Miller and Dan Kleman signed "Reports of Dismissal" for each of the Plaintiffs. Each form states the reason for dismissal was "Refusing to go to work" without further explanation. The report does not contain information about rights to appeal the termination. The Plaintiffs never received a copy of this report, although the distribution sequence printed on the corner indicates a copy should go to the employee.
When all this went on the City had a Personnel Policy and Procedure Manual which defined employee status, grievance procedures, and dischargeable offenses. That manual, when Plaintiffs were discharged, did not provide specifically for a right to a hearing on a dismissal. It did, however, provide grievance procedures. Although the policy was not written down, the City always allowed discharged employees to use the grievance procedure to dispute a dismissal if the employees requested a hearing. If the Plaintiffs had requested a hearing, under that policy they would have received one.
The Plaintiffs are not well educated. Many of them cannot read. All are, at best, marginally literate. Written communications would have been difficult if not impossible for them to comprehend.
The Defendants have raised several affirmative defenses which, if valid, would bar this action. Their defenses are not valid.
One defense raised is the special 12 month statute of limitations found in Chapter 18923, Section 1, Special Acts of Florida (1937), for actions against the City of Tallahassee. This defense must be rejected without...
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