In re O'Neill

341 F.Supp.3d 1292

Patrick V. O'NEILL, Plaintiff,

v.ST. JOHNS RIVER WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT, Defendant.

Case No. 3:17-cv-79-J-32JBT

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

Signed September 24, 2018

Marie A. Mattox, Marie A. Mattox, PA, Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiff

Michael H. Bowling, Bell & Roper, PA, Orlando, FL, for Defendant

ORDER

TIMOTHY J. CORRIGAN, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Patrick V. O'Neill was terminated from his position in the Information Technology department at defendant St. Johns River Water Management District ("the District"). The District says O'Neill was fired because he changed the security settings to certain financial programs, resulting in employees being unable to access the programs and causing a disruption to District operations. O'Neill says the real reasons he was fired were because he complained about mismanagement and because he has or was perceived as having a mental disability. This lawsuit followed and the case is now before the Court on defendant's motion for summary judgment.¹

I. Background Facts²

The District, a public entity legislatively created by the state of Florida, hired O'Neill in 2008 as a Business Application Coordinator, a position within its IT department. Doc. 16, Ex. 1. By all accounts, O'Neill was a valued staff member who earned praise from his superiors and positive performance reviews for several years. See, e.g., Doc. 20, Ex. 23, 25, 27, 28, 29. O'Neill's responsibilities increased as he grew in the position, and staffing cuts in 2012 led to additional projects coming under his purview. Doc. 20, Ex. 29. In November of 2012, O'Neill experienced psychiatric problems and went on FMLA leave, returning without restrictions in February 2013. Doc. 20, Ex. 3; Doc. 16, Ex. 5. While he was away, the District's Human Resources Department advised O'Neill's supervisors that he had a serious health condition but provided no additional information. Doc. 16-4 at Tr.³ 11. When O'Neill returned, he says that his supervisor, David Compton, brought O'Neill into his office and asked O'Neill about his health condition, the details of which O'Neill shared in confidence.⁴ Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 31-33. O'Neill believes that Compton nonetheless shared details with others because he thereafter perceived that he was treated differently around the office.⁵ Id. O'Neill acknowledges that his psychiatrist did not place him on any restrictions and he did not ask for any accommodations or for any change in his job duties or assignments. Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 36-38, 41-42; Doc. 16, Ex. 5.

In June 2014, O'Neill was assigned to be the project manager for "the Daptiv Project," which involved integrating time records and financial data into the Daptiv software program, a tool used by project managers to estimate the time needed to accomplish future projects. Doc. 16-7 at Tr. 32, 39-44. O'Neill became concerned with the accuracy of data going into the Daptiv program, and worried that Daptiv would create inaccurate financial reports that in turn would be provided to the Legislature when the District submitted its budget requests.⁶ Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 52-57. O'Neill brought his concerns to Compton and to Compton's supervisor, Kevin Brown. According to O'Neill, they advised him to contact personnel working in Finance, Payroll and Budget if he had questions about the data going into the program. O'Neill did so, but they did not share his concerns and said the problem must be with the IT department. O'Neill ultimately renounced his role as project manager for the Daptiv Project, believing that if it generated false information, he would be the fall guy. Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 52; Doc. 16, Ex. 8. Compton took over as project manager of the Daptiv Project in August 2014. Doc. 16, Ex. 8. Thereafter, O'Neill continued to try to convince Compton and Brown that the data going into the Daptiv program was leading to inaccurate reports (his efforts included presenting a PowerPoint demonstration about it to them, Doc. 20, Ex. 2), but their view was that the integrity of the reports was not an IT concern. Doc. 16-3 at Tr. 8-17. O'Neill states he had long suspected that the District inflated its figures to secure additional state funding and his concerns about the data he viewed while working on the Daptiv project was consistent with that suspicion.⁷ Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 28, 55-57.

In October 2014, O'Neill received an overall rating of 3 (on a 1-5 scale) on his annual Performance Appraisal. Doc. 16, Ex. 9. Compton prepared the Performance Appraisal with Brown's input. Doc. 16-3 at Tr. 34-35, 38-39, 47. In it, Compton described his disappointment that O'Neill renounced his role as the Daptiv project manager, explaining that it caused disruption and re-assignments of tasks to other IT personnel; stated that O'Neill was not relying on his team enough or holding them accountable; and that he was wasting valuable time by losing focus on IT's role in creating processes for data to move from one system to another, as opposed to being responsible for the data itself, the responsibility for which belonged to the data users. Doc. 16, Ex. 9. The Performance Appraisal included an Addendum of suggested objectives for improvement. Id.

According to O'Neill, it was the worst appraisal he had received in his 18 year career in information technologies. Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 62. Hoping to have his rating changed, O'Neill submitted a written Rebuttal to the Performance Appraisal in November. Id. The Rebuttal discussed his concern that if the Daptiv reports were false, he would be held responsible for providing illegal information. Doc. 16, Ex. 9 at PageID 169. O'Neill testified that when the human resources director reviewed his Rebuttal, she advised him that he could go to the Inspector General with his concerns. Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 73. O'Neill testified that he did not know if going to the Inspector General would be worthwhile because he did not think his concerns would be taken seriously.⁸ Id. On December 8, 2014, three weeks after submitting his Rebuttal, O'Neill sent an email to the HR director withdrawing it, explaining that in hindsight he could understand management's perspective, that he felt it was his "responsibility to disclose design flaws in the system," and acknowledging that the way to change his supervisors' opinions about him was by showing "outstanding performance on future assignments." Doc. 16, Ex. 9 at Page ID 184.

Beginning in the spring or early summer of 2015, O'Neill became concerned that the GEMS software system used by the finance department (a system for which O'Neill was responsible) might have been breached or was vulnerable to being breached. Doc. 16-2 at Tr. 82-83. He had meetings with his IT co-workers and IT supervisors to explain his concerns, but none of them agreed with him. Id. at Tr. 82-85. According to Compton, O'Neill told at least some employees outside the IT department that there might be hacking or breaches, which caused them to be concerned as well. Doc. 16, Ex. 15 at 42. During that same time frame, O'Neill emailed Compton and Brown to ask whether system upgrades would be part of the next year's budget and he again inquired whether Compton agreed that financial data was being misrepresented as discussed in his earlier Power Point. Doc. 22, Ex. 70 at 75-77.

On July 27, 2015, after an IT systems administrator told Compton he was concerned that O'Neill might be planning to restrict the access to GEMS, Compton sent O'Neill an email stating, "Patrick, I don't see any reason to take GEMS or GEMSAPP off of the domain, unless someone can provide a viable reason to remove them."⁹ Doc. 16, Ex. 11-2. O'Neill responded one minute later, stating that he agreed, and that there had been a misunderstanding. Id. In fact, however, O'Neill had already changed the access. Doc. 16, Ex. 11-1 at 8. Later that day, the system back-up for the GEMS financial system failed. Id. And, the following morning, the IT department realized that all users of the financial system lost their access to it, and no one in the IT department had access either. Doc. 16-3 at Tr. 52-53. O'Neill was on a scheduled day off. Id. at Tr. 53. The IT personnel went into emergency mode, located a password O'Neill had left in a safe, gained access to the system, and restored users' access as well. Id. at Tr. 51-53. While those efforts did not take very long, according to Compton, three weeks later, IT staff were still re-adding permissions to finance staff so they could perform their month-end tasks and Brown reported seventeen weeks after the incident that some back-up programs were still being repaired as a consequence of O'Neill's actions. Doc. 16, Ex.11-1 at 8; Doc. 21, Ex. 58 at ¶ 15.

The day of the incident, Compton sent O'Neill an email voicing his exasperation that O'Neill had directly countermanded Compton's authority and that of the Network and Systems Coordinator (who had told O'Neill not to change any permissions), creating additional work and a security breach. Doc. 16, Ex. 11-1 at 45. O'Neill responded, taking full responsibility for the event, but expressing surprise that Compton was upset, explaining that he was only trying to tighten security. Id. at 46. When O'Neill returned to work, they had a meeting with Brown, and O'Neill was given instructions not to tamper with anyone's access. Id. at 46-48. He was also instructed not to talk to users in other departments about his security concerns for their systems without first speaking with his supervisors in the IT department, and was prohibited from acting on his security concerns without first discussing it with Compton so the IT team could be involved. Id.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of what would likely be an unfavorable Performance Appraisal, Compton began gathering information about O'Neill's performance during the previous year.¹⁰ Doc. 16-3 at Tr. 73; Doc. 16, Ex.11-1. Compton and Brown met with HR about O'Neill. Doc. 16-5 at Tr. 14. In late August, Brown presented...