Smear-and-Terminate Strategy to Silence
Unsavory defensive tactics can be commonplace when an employer feels threatened or is angry
When an employer determines, falsely or accurately, that you are dangerous to its reputation and its leaders’ job security and career well being, you likely will become viewed as a liability, a target to take down and a risk to be extinguished.
A former employee in a Michigan city may be going through it now.
Former White Cloud police chief Dan Evans, who assumed command at the end of 2016, after 10 years with the force, recently filed a federal lawsuit against the city and its manager for, he and his attorney say, him being terminated for filing complaints about potential safety concerns, reports Michael Martin at Fox17.
“There was no notice of his termination, no reasons given for his termination, no pre-termination hearing, nor any allowance for Plaintiff to defend himself. He had not been suspended pending investigation and, in fact, there was no investigation,” the suit alleged.
Evans’ legal counsel, Katherine Smith Kennedy, said it makes no sense.
“On August 12, the city manager submitted an excellent annual review of Chief Evans as the head of the police department. He was overall rating 'superior,' as it had been for the last several years of his tenure,” she told FOX 17.
“Nothing appeared in his evaluation or even noted in the comments that was stated in the alleged reasons for termination a month later.”
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is a line from William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
That saying means, loosely interpreted, that corruption has-and-is taking place and it figuratively smells bad, as in stinks. Could that be what is happening in White Cloud?
While the city has not revealed its reasoning for the firing, the decision to terminate, on the surface at least, isn’t adding up, at least not yet. Something could be amiss.
As a Result, Suffering Continues
Evans has had great difficulty securing new employment and there too, something doesn’t seem on the up and up.
“Plaintiff is unemployed and now virtually unemployable in his field,” the suit asserts, claiming that the city manager and the city’s decision to fire him and distribute false communication, publicized in fact, has led to grave reputation harm, saying that harm has “destroyed his reputation.”
Was a concerted effort made to prevent an employee who was fired from securing their next provider of income and living expenses? Is it a puzzle piece that fits well?
What’s Potentially Behind It?
Evans believes he was “fired in retaliation for filing complaints regarding potential safety issues within the city: one on Sept. 26 and one on Sept. 27,” Martin reports.
Kennedy explained that was an unnecessary reaction.
“Chief Evans only tried to protect the community from tragedy if teenagers or others tried to access the dam or water lift, and from liability when inevitably someone would have gotten hurt or worse,” she said.
The city, per Evans and Kennedy, did not want to address the risks, for some reason not yet detailed in reporting.
Was ‘Cause’ Manufactured for an Employer to Rid Itself of a Suddenly-Undesirable Employee?
“Evans also refers to a letter allegedly distributed by the city manager, claiming (Evans) ‘had a practice of humiliating members of the public as well as breaching professional confidentiality rules, created a hostile and intimidating environment, fostered an environment of distrust, and that his ‘nit picking’ had severely affected department morale,’” Martin reports.
Evans additionally claims that the letter was also sent to the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES), which led to his next job offer quickly being rescinded.
If the hostility is based on factual events — and it’s possible, we don’t know — why was Evans, according to his attorney, given a strong annual review, labeled “superior” and provided no reason for the city no longer wanting to employ him?
Are those not reasonable curiosities and again, on the surface, perplexing in nature?
The Defendant’s Response
“The City of White Cloud will vigorously defend the allegations that have been made by its former police chief; however, the City will address this matter through the legal process and not in the media,” attorney Mark C. Miller said in a written statement.
Predictable legal response by a defendant’s counsel: supremely confident and bold.
There’s a lot here that doesn’t seem logical, truthful, ethical or legal. Of course, not all the facts are publicly known. Maybe the timing of how this story played out makes sense in the micro. It will be interesting to see how this case evolves and ends.
Is a helpful settlement coming for the defendant or will this get uglier in news reports and will the respective parties — the city and its manager — and Evans — slug it out in a bloody fashion, with one party emerging gloriously triumphant and vindicated and one legally and socially damned?
Or will one party end up feeling less than whole but still judged as telling more of — or all of — the truth and be rewarded for it?
This newsletter — Reputation Intelligence — is written by Michael Toebe, and is a product of Reputation Intelligence - Reputation Quality, a firm which helps individuals and organizations assure a greater peace of mind, provide stress relief through reliable decision analysis, consulting, advisory and communications.
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