Hannon v. City of Prospect Heights
| Docket Number | 18 C 2475 |
| Decision Date | 29 June 2023 |
| Parties | Stephanie Hannon, Plaintiff, v. City of Prospect Heights, an Illinois municipal corporation; Joe Wade, individually, and Scott Williamson, individually, Defendants |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiff Stephanie Hannon (“Plaintiff” or “Hannon”) brings suit against the City of Prospect Heights, Illinois (“City”), City administrator Joe Wade (“Wade”) and City alderman Scott Williamson (“Williamson”) for employment discrimination and retaliation arising out of the City's decisions to convert Plaintiff's finance director position from part-time hourly to full-time salaried, to terminate Plaintiff when she refused to work more hours for less money, and to outsource the City's finance department to an outside firm. Currently before the Court is Defendants' motion for summary judgment [Dkt. 160]. For the following reasons, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.
Summary judgment is granted in favor of Defendants on Plaintiff's claims for retaliation in violation of the Equal Protection Clause (Count III); Title VII (Count IV), the Illinois Human Rights Act (Count V); and the First Amendment (Count VI). Summary judgment is otherwise denied. The claims that remain to be tried are Plaintiff's § 1983 equal protection claim against the City, Wade and Williamson (Count I); the Title VII gender discrimination claim against the City (Count II); the Illinois Whistleblower Act claim against the City (Count VII); and the claim against the City for common law retaliatory discharge (Count VIII). Finally Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity on the § 1983 claims.
The following facts are taken from the parties' Local Rule 56.1 statements and accompanying exhibits [Dkts. 144, 148, 162, 166, 167, 174] and are undisputed except where a dispute is noted. Hannon was employed by the City as its finance director from December 2011 until her termination in June 2017. During her time at the City, the mayor was Nicholas Helmer (“Mayor” or “Helmer”), who began in 2011, and the City administrator was Wade, who began in 2015. The City has five aldermen who each serve four-year terms. Defendant Williamson was an alderman from 2009 to May 2019. The other aldermen during the relevant period were Pat Ludvigsen (2003 to November 2020), Larry Rosenthal (May 2015 to April 2019), Lora Messer (May 2015 to April 2019), and Matthew Dolick (June 2016 to present).
It is disputed whether the Mayor and Williamson were political opponents. Defendants assert and point to testimony that the mayor and council members “did not run on a slate and would support each other on certain issues and on other issues, elected officials may not fully agree with each other on policy.” [Dkt. 166, ¶ 12.] Hannon disputes this and points to testimony from the Mayor and others that Alderman Williamson was the political opponent of the Mayor, particularly on issues concerning a large parcel of land in the City known as the “Arena property,” [See id.].
Hannon was hired as the City's finance director by Anne Marrin (“Marrin”), who was the city administrator before Wade. Hannon was hired on a part-time, contract basis, but the exact terms of the agreement are disputed. Defendants assert based on Hannon's deposition that her position was budgeted for up to 1,500 hours per fiscal year. [See Dkt. 166, ¶ 14.] Hannon takes the slightly different position that Marrin hired her on a “part-time, contract basis for somewhere between 1000 - 1500 hours per year” and that the number of hours was not specific. [Id. ¶ 13.] Once Hannon exceeded 1,000 hours in a year, she began receiving vacation and sick time per the City's policy. [Id. ¶ 14.] When she was initially hired, Hannon did not receive health insurance and paid for it on her own, but she eventually became eligible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act. [Id.] Defendants characterize Hannon's position as “averaging” 30 hours per week, but Hannon argues that the average is irrelevant because the number of hours required varied depending on the time of year; for instance, she worked more during budget time, but during most of the year would work 20 hours or fewer. [Id.] Hannon was not required to obtain permission to work more than 30 hours per week. [Id., ¶ 16.]
One of Hannon's job responsibilities was to assist with preparing the City's annual budget. In each year of Hannon's employment with the City, her compensation exceeded the amount budgeted. [See Dkt. 166, ¶¶ 15, 17, 18, 19.] More particularly, her budgeted salary for the 2012 fiscal year (a partial year) was $24,375 and she estimates actually earning $42,363. [Id., ¶ 17.] Her budgeted salary for the 2013 fiscal year was $81,120 and she estimates actually earning $102,481. [Id., ¶ 18.]
The budgeted salary for the 2014 fiscal year was $91,000 and Hannon estimates actually earning $126,306. [Id., ¶ 19.] Hannon attributes the overages to additional work she was given to complete, which meant frequently working additional hours. [Id., ¶ 18.] Hannon emphasizes that during fiscal year 2014, she was required to perform her usual job functions while also performing additional work at the request of interim city administrators and certain functions typically performed by others due to turnover, including the departure of the Assistant to the City Administrator who resigned in 2014. [Id., ¶ 19.] According to Hannon, City Council approved her hiring, her part-time status, and her hourly rate. Her timesheets, payroll change forms and hourly rate increases were all approved by various City administrators. [Id., ¶ 18.]
In 2014, the City promoted Kimberly Trausch (“Trausch”) from front desk administrative assistant to financial analyst working under Hannon. Trausch took over payroll at some point, though it is not clear when. During Marrin's tenure as City administrator, Marrin questioned Hannon whether the finance director position would be full-time, and Hannon relayed that it was part-time. [Dkt. 166, ¶ 20.][1]
In Spring 2014, Marrin took a new job in Fox Lake and gave her notice to the City. Before she left, Alderman Williamson commented to Marrin that he was going to hire a man to replace her and pay him more money. [See Dkt. 167, ¶ 21.] Williamson did not recall making this statement, but says if he did he would have been joking; Marrin also described Williamson as “kind of a jokester.” [Id.] Following Marrin's departure, several people held the City administrator role, either on an interim or permanent basis, including Jamie Dunne, Ken Lopez and Bill Balling (“Balling”), who served as the City's interim administrator from June 2014 until Wade was hired.
In August 2014, Marrin (who, by then, was working as the Village of Fox Lake's administrator) hired Hannon as Fox Lake's part-time, hourly finance director/ treasurer. Mayor Helmer and Balling approved Hannon working at Fox Lake as long as it did not conflict with her work for the City. [Dkt. 166, ¶ 46.] Hannon was initially hired at Fox Lake to work approximately 1,000 hours per year, but her hours increased shortly after she was hired. [Id., ¶ 47.]
Alderman Ludvigsen regularly dealt with budgets in his career and as a result, became the “budget person” on City Council. [Id., ¶ 32.] In his declaration, Ludvigsen states that by summer 2014, he had “noticed a discrepancy between the budgeted amount for [Hannon's] position and the amount she actually earned.” [Dkt. 144-17, ¶ 6.] He began inquiring about this discrepancy by February 2015. While at City Hall (which he “would try” to visit “multiple times per week to check mail and speak with City employees”), Ludvigsen “increasingly ... did not see [Hannon] in the office which frustrated [him] because [he does] not like to use the phone or email and prefer[s] inperson contact with employees.” [Id., ¶¶ 13-14.] It is disputed exactly when and with whom Ludvigsen discussed his concerns, and whether Ludvigsen questioned whether the finance director position should be full-time rather than part-time given the amount the City was paying Hannon. [See Dkt. 166, ¶¶ 32, 33.]
Hannon testified that sometime in 2015, Balling told her that her compensation was going to be discussed at a Board meeting and that Aldermen Williamson and Ludvigsen had requested that it be a topic. [Dkt. 144-5 at 28 (Tr. 111:15-112:12).] Afterwards, Hannon and Balling discussed the council meeting and “we were going to try and determine a way to hopefully reduce the number of hours” Hannon had. [Id. (Tr. 112:13-23).]
Wade became the City's administrator in June 2015. For the 2015 fiscal year, Hannon's budgeted salary was $107,250 based on 1,500 hours; Hannon estimates actually earning $147,093.38 that fiscal year. [Dkt. 166, ¶ 29.] Defendants assert, but Hannon disputes, that Hannon knew that she would exceed the 1,500 hours budgeted for 2015. Hannon maintains that she worked more than anticipated due to staffing changes including the loss of the Assistant to the City Administrator and the turnover of four administrators in a year and a half. [See id.]
At some point after Wade became administrator, Williamson called Wade to discuss his belief that Hannon was not transparent about her compensation and asked why the finance director position was not full-time salaried. [See Dkt. 166, ¶ 35.] Wade testified that this occurred in the summer of 2015 and that it was after he became aware that Hannon had been questioning billing practices for legal services performed by the City's outside counsel, the Tressler law firm (the “Tressler firm”) where Attorney Mike Zimmerman (“Zimmerman”) was a partner. [See Dkt. 144-20 at 10-13; Dkt. 144-12 (Tr....
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