Shanahan Suit: Excessive Vacation, Comp Time Probe Upset Police

JOLIET, IL — Two days after the Joliet City Council voted 4-3 to reject a proposed settlement with Marty Shanahan, former corporation counsel and interim city manager, the ousted city official has retained a Naperville law firm to file a wrongful termination lawsuit. The civil lawsuit was filed Wednesday at the new Will County Courthouse.

The lawsuit names the city of Joliet and Steve Jones, a La Grange Park resident, as co-defendants. Jones left Joliet in August after serving 13 months as interim city manager, replacing Shanahan in that role in the summer of 2019. Prior to that, Jones spent four years at City Hall as Joliet's economic development director.

"At the time Jones terminated Shanahan, Shanahan's personnel file did not include any information evidencing inadequate job performance," outlined Naperville attorney Shawn Collins of the Collins Law Firm in his 37-page lawsuit against Jones and Joliet.

"Jones intentionally and unjustifiably interfered with Shanahan's relationship with Joliet when he ignored the mandatory sections of the Code relating to the discharge of a public employee and proceeded with the discharge of Shanahan anyways," court records show.

Additionally, "Shanahan has suffered, is now suffering, and will continue to suffer irreparable injury and monetary damages as a direct and proximate result of Jones' unlawful interference with his employment relationship with Joliet."

In early 2019, Shanahan began examining "excessive banking of vacation and compensatory time and payment upon retirement by members of the Joliet Police Department," the lawsuit states. "The excessive banking of vacation and compensatory time by public employees and payment upon retirement of the public employees has plagued Joliet's government for years."

According to the lawsuit, "high-ranking members and individuals holding authoritative positions within the Police Department had demonstrated a cavalier attitude towards the caps imposed on the maximum amount of vacation and compensatory time by the Fraternal Order of Police Supervisor's Union own collective bargaining agreement ... The cavalier attitude of these high-ranking members had spread all the way down to even the most junior members of the police force."

The excessive payouts within the Joliet Police Department, Shanahan's lawsuit reflects, "was costing Joliet a significant amount of money each year upon retirement and payment of the public employees in employee salaries."

The following dates were critical in the events leading to Shanahan's removal as interim city manager and his firing as the city attorney, his lawyer outlined:

Feb. 13, 2019 — Shanahan meets with Joliet police supervisors to discuss the issue of excessive amounts of vacation and compensatory time in clear violation of the FOP's contract.
March 11, 2019 — Supervisors Union Sgt. Patrick Cardwell announced at a public meeting that Cardwell wanted strict adherence to his union's contract.
March 12, 2019 — Shanahan meets with the police supervisors to discuss their excessive banking of vacation and compensatory time.
March 15, 2019 — Shanahan sends letter to Cardwell and Police Supervisors Union Vice President Matt Breen, informing them that they can't exceed 280 vacation hours and 480 hours of comp time. Anybody violating those terms would forfeit their excessive hours. Breen has been one of the city's biggest abusers of vacation and comp time banks, Joliet Patch has previously reported. "Due to his actions to protect Joliet and its taxpayers and to curb the excessive banking of vacation and compensatory time and payment upon retirement by members of the FOP (Supervisors Union) ... Shanahan's relationship with members of the police force became strained," the lawsuit contends. "In fact, Shanahan became aware that members of the police force were actively attempting to have him removed as the interim city manager. The FOP (Supervisors Union) voiced its displeasure with Shanahan to the public through various social media posts."

April 25, 2019 — Shanahan ruled in favor of the Joliet Police Department's FOP Labor Union, the union for the rank and file officers, "relative to certain drug testing procedures for its members."
May 1, 2019 — Police Chief Al Roechner prepared a rebuttal statement alleging that Shanahan "was not a neutral party and was biased against the Police Department because he helped write" the FOP union's collective bargaining agreement "thus insinuating that Shanahan was somehow 'in the bag' for the union," the lawsuit reads.
June 11, 2019 — Shanahan and Joliet's human resources director met with John Perona, one of Roechner's choices in December 2018 for deputy police chief. Shanahan told Perona he was being demoted but the demotion would not occur until a new deputy chief was named. "Roechner was furious with Shanahan over his decision to demote Perona, one of his key deputies and allies in the police department."
The lawsuit notes that Shanahan had the right to demote Perona, appoint a new deputy chief and stop the excessive banking of vacation and compensatory time by the police department.
June 12, 2019 —Shanahan got five separate emails from Joliet City Council members requesting that he put an item on the meeting agenda to vote for his removal as interim city manager.
June 18, 2019 — Four off-duty Joliet police supervisors, including Sgt. Cardwell, attended the Council meeting "to indicate their approval of having Shanahan removed as interim city manager." The council voted to remove Shanahan. "The driving force behind Shanahan's removal from the position of interim city manager was the police department, specifically the administration of the police department and members of the FOP (Supervisors Union)"the lawsuit argues.
Feb. 28, 2020 — Steve Jones signs new agreement to be interim city manager through a third-party independent contractor, GovTempsUSA, Inc.
May 19, 2020 — Shanahan speaks during a Council meeting advising city officials that several Joliet police disciplinary case appeals remain on a backlog because "it was incumbent on Roechner to file the appropriate charges before the (Police and Fire) Board in order to initiate the hearing process on the pending disciplinary appeals. Shanahan further advised ... he had made this requirement known to both Jones and Roechner." Afterward, Jones told Shanahan to leave the executive session and wait in his office. Later, Jones informed Shanahan that he was being discharged as corporation counsel effective May 22, 2020.

"At the time he was told by Jones of his termination, Shanahan's personnel file did not include any information or reasons for why Shanahan was being terminated," his lawyer contends.

According to Shanahan and his attorney, "Joliet has not developed or administered an employee performance evaluation system to serve as a factor in discharging an employee."

Shanahan's lawsuit seeks monetary damages from Joliet as well as from Jones, plus an award of legal costs for bringing the lawsuit forward.

Shanahan's lawsuit alleges a wrongful termination by Joliet, plus retaliatory discharge and wrongful interference with employment relationship by Jones.

Now, Joliet taxpayers are on the hook for the potential expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars to hire outside law firms to defend the city. On Monday night, the Joliet City Council voted 4-3 to reject a proposed settlement to avoid a lawsuit from Shanahan.

Mike Turk, who is recovering from the coronavirus, missed the meeting and did not vote. Those rejecting the settlement proposal were Councilwoman Bettye Gavin, Sherri Reardon, Don "Duck" Dickinson and Pat Mudron.

During the meeting, Gavin urged Shanahan to go ahead with his lawsuit, suggesting he still needed to beat the city in court. Some of her colleagues including Terry Morris, Larry Hug and Mayor Bob O'Dekirk openly expressed concerns that Shanahan will likely prevail and that Gavin's own comments about Shanahan during closed session meetings may come back to haunt her.

The proposed settlement called for paying Shanahan nearly $123,000, which was his yearly salary as corporation counsel minus any unemployment compensation he has collected since his firing in May, according to current interim city manager Jim Hock, who proposed the settlement.

Attempts to reach Hock for comment Wednesday afternoon were unsuccessful. Now that the lawsuit is filed, O'Dekirk said Joliet finds itself in a difficult position because Jones, technically, was not even a city employee when he chose to fire Shanahan in May.

O'Dekirk said he and Councilman Larry Hug were strongly opposed to the Mudron 5's decision to grant Jones a contract in February that let him retire from the city so he could collect a pension only to remain on the job as an independent contractor interim city manager.

Jones was a third-party independent contractor through GovTempsUSA and as such, Jones, did not have to follow Joliet's ethics guidelines or employment practices, the mayor said.

The following documents are court exhibits that Shanahan's lawyer included in Wednesday's lawsuit against Joliet and Jones: