Scaife v. City of Meriden, No. 3:18-cv-00740 (MPS)

493 F.Supp.3d 1

Guy SCAIFE, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF MERIDEN, Defendant.

No. 3:18-cv-00740 (MPS)

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

Signed October 8, 2020

Heena Kapadia, Law Office of Heena Kapadia, Trumbull, CT, for Plaintiff Guy Scaife.

Brian W. Smith, Berchem, Moses & Devlin, P.C., Milford, CT, for Plaintiff Berchem Moses PC.

Stephanie Dellolio, City of Meriden, Meriden, CT, David S. Monastersky, Katherine E. Rule, Howd & Ludorf, LLC, Hartford, CT, Deborah Leigh Moore, Law Offices of Deborah L. Moore, Hamden, CT, for Defendant.

RULING ON MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Michael P. Shea, U.S.D.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff, Guy Scaife, brings this suit against Defendant, City of Meriden (the "City"), alleging that the City retaliated against him for speaking out about alleged wrongdoing by terminating his employment as City Manager in violation of Connecticut General Statutes § 31–51q. Plaintiff also alleges that the City breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breached its contractual obligations, and deprived Plaintiff of his property and liberty interests without due process in violation of the 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution. ECF No. 37. The City has filed a motion for summary judgment as to all of Plaintiff's claims. ECF No. 57. For the reasons set forth below, the City's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

II. FACTS

The following facts are taken from the parties’ Local Rule 56(a) Statements and are undisputed unless otherwise indicated.

Plaintiff was hired as City Manager for the City of Meriden in accordance with a written employment agreement for a three-year term. ECF No. 61-1 at ¶ 1; ECF No. 57-3 at 1-2. The employment agreement provided that "[n]othing in this Agreement shall prevent, limit or otherwise interfere with the right of the Employee to resign at any time from his position with the City, subject only to providing to the City Council written notice of his intention to do so sixty (60) days prior to his effective date of resignation." ECF No. 61-1 at ¶ 2; ECF No. 57-3 at 2. The agreement also provided that "[n]othing in this agreement shall prevent, limit or otherwise interfere with the right of the City Council to terminate the services of the Employee at any time." Id. It stated that if Plaintiff was terminated without cause before the end of a three-year term, he would continue to receive salary and benefits for 6 months. Id.

The City Charter grants the City Council the power to appoint and remove the City Manager by a majority vote. ECF No 61-1 at ¶¶ 4-5; ECF No. 57-5 at 9, 11. Specifically, the City Charter provides that the City Manager "shall be appointed and may be removed or suspended with or without pay by the City Council. Said appointment, removal or suspension shall be at least by a majority vote of the full membership of the City Council.... The [City] Manager may be suspended without or without pay ... or may be removed by vote of at least the majority of the full membership of the City Council with or without cause." Id.

On September 6, 2016, Plaintiff began his employment for the City of Meriden as City Manager. ECF No. 61-1 at ¶¶ 7, 11.

Plaintiff's affidavit asserts that in the beginning of 2017, he "discovered a deceptive financial scheme that was unethical and involved significant dollars." ECF No. 61-2 at 7 ¶ 20. He "began reporting the financial improprieties to the City leadership and in discussions with the full Council" and "raised the concerns regarding the financial issues in a formal leadership meeting held on February 16, 2017." ECF No. 61-2 at 19 ¶¶ 77-78. On February 8, 2017, Dennis Waz, the Director of the Public Utilities Department (the "PUD"), wrote a memo to Plaintiff describing these financial improprieties. ECF No. 61-2 at 47. Mr. Waz was concerned "about the amount of funding Public Utilities contributes to the General Fund for in-kind services." Id. According to Mr. Waz's calculations, contributions to some departments were "in excess of 40% and up to 88%." Id. That calculation meant, according to Plaintiff, that the "not for profit municipality utility that provides water and sewer services, was paying over 2 million dollars per year for ‘in-kind services’ from the City, and passing on the cost to its customers, which included not just City of Meriden water and sewer users but also users from neighboring Towns...." ECF No. 61-2 at 7 ¶ 21. According to Plaintiff, the overcharging had been increasing year after year because the City Finance Director, Mike Lupkas, had been "automatically increasing" the cost allocated to the PUD by 3% every year for at least ten years, without any rationale, while the remainder of the town budgets were growing at less than 1% per year during the same ten year period. Id. at 7 ¶ 22.

On May 16, 2017, this expense-allocation issue was raised at the Public Utilities Commission meeting. ECF No. 61-2 at 50-52. A motion was made, and unanimously carried, to spend $37,000 on hiring Wright-Pierce, an engineering firm, to perform a forensic study. Id. at 51-52. Wright-Pierce produced a draft report in December 2017. ECF No. 61-2 at 54. The draft report concluded, "[i]t appears that the financial support provided by [PUD] is inequitable and for some Departments may be considered excessive." Id. at 77. Plaintiff was still employed by the City when the draft report was issued, and he and Mr. Lupkas provided input on the draft to Wright-Pierce in preparation for the final report. ECF No. 61-3 at 20. According to Mr. Waz, the final report was issued in January 2018, after Plaintiff had been terminated. Id. at 22.

Plaintiff states that he began reporting these and other financial improprieties to the City leadership in 2016 and the beginning of 2017. ECF No. 61-2 at 19 ¶ 77. For example, according to Plaintiff, he called for an Executive Session on January 17, 2017 during which extensive discussions occurred; he raised concerns during a formal leadership meeting attended by, among others, Mr. Lupkas and Miguel Castro, a member of the City Council and the chairman of the City Finance Committee, on February 16, 2017; he attempted to present his budget proposal on April 28, 2017 but was blocked by Mr. Castro; and he expressed concerns in correspondence to leadership dated May 24 and 27, 2017. Id. at 19-20 ¶¶ 77, 78, 80, 84.

Some of Plaintiff's reports concerned Mr. Castro. Plaintiff alleges that Mr. Castro and Mr. Lupkas worked together on the Finance Committee and that Mr. Castro was a "supporter" of Mr. Lupkas. On April 27, 2017, Plaintiff emailed Mr. Castro a powerpoint presentation for an upcoming City finance meeting that included "numerous reductions in expenses." ECF No. 61-2 at 129. Mr. Castro responded to Plaintiff via email requesting that he "hold off on the powerpoint presentation since we didn't add a presentation on the agenda." Id. at 128. Lori Canney, the Council Clerk, replied to Mr. Castro stating that she "never list[s] powerpoint presentations on the [Finance] agendas," to which Mr. Castro responded, "Thank yo[u] for the clarification." Id. at 19 ¶¶ 81, 128.

On May 24 and May 27, 2017, Plaintiff emailed Council Majority Leader Brian Daniels, Council Minority Leader Daniel Brunet, as well as Mayor Kevin Scarpati expressing concern over Mr. Castro's tabling of a Capital Improvement Program ("CIP") resolution Plaintiff had submitted for funding projects. ECF No. 61-2 at 20 ¶¶ 82 & 84, pp. 133 & 136. Plaintiff wrote, "I am formally requesting something tangible be done to resolve this problem." Id. at 133. Mayor Scarpati replied that he was "appealed by what took place ... and fe[lt] that if decisions [were] made going into a meeting regarding a given item, they should be properly vetted and discussed before tabling." Id. at 141. Mr. Brunet reiterated Mayor Scarpati's concerns via email stating, "This was an important component of the budget that had no rationale for immediate tabling." Id. at 139.

Other reports involved Mr. Lupkas and lawyers in the City's Legal Department, Michael Quinn and Deborah Moore. On July 8, 2017, Plaintiff gave Mr. Lupkas an annual performance evaluation and placed him on a performance plan, highlighting that his "lack of focus in certain areas was resulting in ‘unnecessary cost to the taxpayers,’ " according to Plaintiff. ECF No. 61-2 at 25 ¶ 111. Plaintiff also asserts that on August 21, 2017, he recommended Mr. Lupkas’ removal to the HR Director and Council Leadership. Id. at 25 ¶ 113. According to Plaintiff, he "raised concerns regarding the unethical conduct of Attorneys Quinn and Moore throughout the summer and fall of 2017 to the Council Members." Id. at 38 ¶ 179.

In June 2017, the City Council began a performance evaluation of Plaintiff's first year of employment. ECF No. 61-1 at ¶ 8. The process included asking department heads and Council Members to complete anonymous evaluations. Id.; ECF No. 57-6 at 18-20; ECF No. 57-7 at 8. Council Members and Mayor Scarpati had access to an electronic evaluation through the platform "Survey Monkey" that they could submit electronically or print and submit. ECF No. 57-6 at 18-20; ECF No. 57-7 at 8. The department heads received paper versions. ECF No. 57-6 at 19. According to Plaintiff, "[t]he majority of [his] evaluations were all positive," and he "had a favorable response from those with the largest departments," although, "those involved in the retaliatory process put negative comments in [his] reviews and then leaked them to the press to portray [him] in a negative light." ECF No. 61-2 at 23 ¶ 101.

On October 30, 2017, the City Council convened a regular meeting in which Council Member Daniels, seconded by Council Member Brunet, made a motion to increase Plaintiff's salary by 2% to be retroactive to July 2017. ECF No. 57-10 at 1, 12. Council Member Sonya Jelks spoke at the meeting and stated that "she [was] not for a salary increase." Id. at 13. She agreed "that there has been some improvement...