Roorda v. City of Arnold

142 S.W.3d 786, 2004 Mo. App. LEXIS 877, 2004 WL 1379617
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 22, 2004
DocketWD 62570
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 142 S.W.3d 786 (Roorda v. City of Arnold) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roorda v. City of Arnold, 142 S.W.3d 786, 2004 Mo. App. LEXIS 877, 2004 WL 1379617 (Mo. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion

JOSEPH M. ELLIS, Chief Judge.

For eleven years, appellant, Jeffrey Roorda, was a full-time commissioned police officer employed by respondent, City of Arnold (“City”), a city of the third classification located in Jefferson County, Missouri which has adopted a merit system of employment for its police officers pursuant to § 85.541. 1 After an informal pre-termi-nation hearing was held on the morning of June 20, 2001, Roorda was terminated by the City effective later that afternoon. Roorda timely appealed his dismissal to the Arnold Police Personnel Board (“Board”), which upheld his termination on December 12, 2001, after conducting a contested, on-the-record hearing in September and October 2001. 2 Roorda timely filed a Petition for Judicial Review of the Board’s decision in the Circuit Court of Cole County. 3 On August 27, 2002, the circuit court denied Roorda’s motion to supplement the record with certain evidence excluded by the Board and on February 4, 2003, the court entered a judgment sustaining the decision of the Board upholding Roorda’s dismissal. Thereafter, Roorda timely filed this appeal. We affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

Standard of Review and Facts

The general standards governing our review of this contested case were set forth in Orion Security, Inc. v. Board of Police Commissioners of Kansas City, 90 s.W.3d 157 (Mo.App. W.D.2002):

This court reviews the decision of the Board, not that of the circuit court. On appeal from an agency decision in a contested case, we consider only whether the agency’s findings are supported by competent and substantial evidence on the record as a whole. We may not substitute our judgment on the evidence for that of the agency, and we must defer to the agency’s determinations on the weight of the evidence and the credibility of witnesses. If the decision of the agency is supported by substantial and competent evidence on the whole record, it must be affirmed. On the other hand, we must reverse the agency’s findings if it is determined the decision is not supported by competent and substantial evidence on the whole record, or if the decision constitutes an abuse of discretion, or is unauthorized by law, or is arbitrary and capricious. The evidence and all reasonable inferences from the evidence is considered in the light most favorable to the administrative agency’s findings. The fact-finding function rests with the agency, and even if the evidence would support either of two find *790 ings, the court is bound by the agency’s factual determination. While this Court cannot substitute its own judgment on factual matters, it can independently determine questions of law.

Id. at 163 (internal citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted); see also § 536.U0.2.

So viewed, the record reveals that in July 1997, Roorda attempted to try to “cover” for another police officer by filing a report that contained false statements as to what happened during a suspect’s apprehension and arrest. As a result of this false report, all charges against the defendant involved were dropped, and Roorda received a written reprimand from B.J. Nelson (the City’s Chief of Police at the time) for violating the City Police Department’s General Order 74.4 (“False Reporting”). 4 The written reprimand issued to Roorda stated, in relevant part: “If it is ever determined again that you have lied in a police report, you will receive a more severe punishment, up to and including termination.”

On March 15, 2001, Roorda wrote a memorandum to Dale Fredeking (“Chief Fredeking”), who was then the City’s Chief of Police, 5 informing Chief Fredek-ing of Roorda’s intention to utilize twelve weeks of leave under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) to attend to the upcoming birth of his child and asking permission to take such leave from May 22 through August 14, 2001. Roorda further asked to have this time classified as paid sick leave. On March 19, 2001, Chief Fre-deking responded to Roorda by memorandum, informing him that, while he could take FMLA leave for the birth of his child, the leave would be unpaid and the City could require him to use all of his paid vacation time before receiving unpaid FMLA leave. Chief Fredeking further advised Roorda that the pertinent Departmental General Order did not allow the use of paid sick leave to attend to the birth of a child.

On May 1, 2001, Roorda met with Chief Fredeking in Fredeking’s office to discuss his refusal to grant Roorda’s request to receive full sick pay while on FMLA leave. Roorda closed the door to Chief Fredek-ing’s office a couple of minutes after the meeting commenced. On May 21, 2001, Roorda filed an Allegation of Employee Misconduct Report (“Misconduct Report”), in which he stated that Chief Fredeking had verbally abused and attempted to intimidate him during the May 1, 2001 meeting, which began in the Chiefs office around 11:15 a.m. that morning. In particular, Roorda alleged that “Chief Fre-deking yelled and cursed at me and slammed his fist on his desk in what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate me away from my legitimate request to use sick time. The Chiefs door was open at the time and the administrative staff was on hand.” The next day, Roorda filed an Internal Affairs Statement of Complaint (“LA Complaint”) setting forth exactly the same complaints and allegations contained in the Misconduct Report he had filed the day before. Within the body of the IA Complaint, Roorda affirmed that the facts and information contained therein were true as follows: “I, Sgt. Jeff Roorda, do hereby affirm that the foregoing statement was given freely and without duress, and *791 that all facts and information contained therein are true to the best of my knowledge.”

On May 22, 2001, the Commander of the Department’s Division of Internal Affairs, Detective Sergeant Richard Shular, was assigned to investigate the Misconduct Report and IA Complaint filed by Roorda. During the course of his investigation, Sgt. Shular interviewed Roorda, who, upon being asked if he had any other evidence that might support his allegations, “whether it be of a paper nature or any tape recordings or anything,” replied that he needed to confer with his attorney. After doing so, Roorda acknowledged having tape-recorded his May 1, 2001 conversation with Chief Fredeking and later provided the cassette audio tape, which had been in the possession of his attorney, to Sgt. Shular. Roorda subsequently admitted that, on the same day (May 1, 2001), he had also tape-recorded conversations between himself and other Department personnel, including a secretary (Carol Shaw) and Chief Fre-deking’s administrative assistant (Lieutenant Terry Schweitzer), without informing them that he was doing so. After interviewing all other persons involved in the incident complained of by Roorda in the Misconduct Report and IA Complaint and reviewing all of the evidence available to him relating to the incident, Sgt. Shular, in a report dated June 4, 2001, stated that there was no evidence of any kind to support the allegations made by Roorda against Chief Fredeking in either the Misconduct Report or the IA Complaint. In particular, Sgt.

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Bluebook (online)
142 S.W.3d 786, 2004 Mo. App. LEXIS 877, 2004 WL 1379617, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roorda-v-city-of-arnold-moctapp-2004.