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Police Association President and Vice President Settle Retaliation Lawsuit
In September, 1997, Fontana Chief of Police Samuel C. Scott requested the City to change its hiring rules to allow him to hire from outside the City for upcoming Lieutenant promotions. The Fontana Police Management Association met and agreed to oppose such action. In October of 1997, Sergeants Robert Doyle (Association Vice President, now President) and Timothy Newsome (Association Negotiator, now Vice President) attended a City Council meeting and read a letter to the City Council, voicing the Association's opposition to the Chief's plan.
The City Council decided in favor of the Association which quite visibly upset Chief Scott. Chief Scott made comments to other police supervisors to the effect of "whoever had the attitude to write that letter would not make good material to promote" and "the people behind this letter are trying to protect their promotability, we will see".
In November of 1997 promotional examinations were conducted for the position of lieutenant in which Newsome and Doyle participated. One-third of the examination consisted of a Chief's oral. Not surprisingly, Newsome and Doyle received the two lowest scores on the Chief's oral out of the six applicants. Even with a low chief's oral score Newsome and Doyle ranked third and fourth respectfully overall on the promotion examination. In January of 1998, Chief Scott promoted two sergeants from the list to the position of lieutenant, those being the two who ranked first and second on the promotional list. In May of 1998 another lieutenant's position became available. Even though the Chief on numerous occasions stated his past practice to always promote in order of ranking on the promotion list, he decided to vary from his promised and established pattern. Chief Scott, rather than promote the third ranked person (Newsome) or the fourth rank person (Doyle), skipped them both and promoted the fifth rank person on the list to the position of lieutenant.
Newsome and Doyle, represented by PORAC/LDF panel attorney Dieter C. Dammeier, filed grievances with the City and also requested an administrative hearing for the denial of promotion on grounds other than merit, pursuant to the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act, Government Code Section 3304(b).
An affirmative relief request was made to the LDF Board of Trustees due to the fact that the retaliation clearly stemmed from association activities. LDF granted relief and authorized Dammeier to seek an administrative remedy.
Shortly after the initial grievances were filed with the Chief of Police, Sergeant Newsome, who had never been the subject of an internal affairs investigation in his entire career, became the subject of a groundless internal affairs investigation. Newsome again represented by LDF panel attorney Dieter C. Dammeier, opposed the baseless allegations in the internal affairs investigation and the allegations eventually were held to be unfounded.
Negotiation sessions were held with city officials in an attempt to resolve the matter. After six months of settlement discussions, a settlement agreement, agreed to by city management and Newsome and Doyle, was drafted. The settlement included a guarantee that Newsome and Doyle be promoted within the next 18 months and pending promotion receive a 5% pay raise. When their agreement was presented to the City Council, the City Council rejected the settlement.
On March 4, 1999, a lawsuit for violations of Newsome and Doyle's civil rights (freedom of speech) and for retaliation for political speech and union activity was filed in Federal District Court by Dammeier. The lawsuit sought money damages on behalf of Newsome and Doyle as well as punitive damages against Chief Scott individually, and an injunction against Chief Scott ordering him to promote Newsome and Doyle and to prevent future retaliation against association members for union activities.
After the filing of the lawsuit, informal discovery commenced by the City. After interviewing several police supervisors and confirming the actions and remarks by Chief Scott, a confidential settlement was reached.
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