City police officer asks appeals court to reconsider firing | News, sports, jobs

YOUNGSTOWN — A Youngstown detective asked the 7th District Court of Appeals to reconsider the dismissal of his long-running case against the city and to require a hearing before the Civil Service Commission to consider him for promotion.

In a 3-0 decision on Oct. 10, the court dismissed the case after considering only written arguments on whether to grant Detective Sgt.’s motion. Michael R. Cox dismisses the appeal.

S. David Worhatch, Cox’s attorney, wrote in his Monday motion for the court to reconsider and reverse its decision that the Oct. 10 ruling was “the byproduct of obvious errors in the application of the Ohio Rules of Appellate Procedure and earlier.” Decisions of this appeal is.” Circuit and this application therefore raises questions which have not been considered or not fully considered by this court, although such questions should have been considered rather than “dismissed” as “disputed” or only after due consideration of the home- Rule implications to resolve the questions raised in the record of this case.”

Worhatch also requested review en banc — that is, all four of the court’s justices, rather than the three who made the unanimous dismissal decision on Oct. 10 — because, as he wrote, “this case clearly presents a decision that contradicts at least “The decision was made by this circuit in three separate appeals,” including one in the Cox case.

Youngstown Deputy Legal Director Adam Buente declined to comment on Worhatch’s request. He said after the Oct. 10 decision: “The legal team is incredibly pleased that the appeals court abruptly dismissed Cox’s entire case without the parties even filing appeal briefs.” That’s the appeals court’s way “says that not only was the city right all along, but that the city was so emphatically right that the appeals court didn’t even need briefs to dismiss the entire appeal.”

The case involving Cox stems from a promotion exam for lieutenant on August 15, 2018 and has been tried twice before the Ohio Supreme Court.

If the appeals court rejects Cox’s arguments, Worhatch said he would recommend his client appeal again to the Supreme Court.

The appeals court overturned a June 27 ruling by Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney that Cox deserved an evidentiary hearing before the city’s Civil Service Commission to consider him for promotion to lieutenant. Sweeney denied the city’s request for reconsideration on July 12, and the city appealed to the 7th Circuit on July 29.

In Worhatch’s motion for reconsideration, he wrote that the appeals court “lacks authority” to hear the appeal “since it was not commenced after a final and appealable order was issued” and “dismissal of this administrative appeal deprives Cox of his standing.” The court has the right to decide properly on the matters dealt with in an appeal process that has been properly administered and decided on the merits.”

The appeals court decision said Cox’s requests for reconsideration by the city’s Civil Service Commission were untimely and that Sweeney “manifestly and clearly lacked jurisdiction over Cox’s administrative complaint.”

The Supreme Court on August 30, 2023 rejected the city’s arguments to dismiss the case. But it limited Cox’s arguments when it sent the case back to Sweeney.

Cox takes issue with the way the city’s Civil Service Commission ranked applicants for a lieutenant promotion test. Mayor Jamael Tito Brown promoted William Ward to lieutenant on May 20, 2019, based on the results of a written civil service test administered nearly a year earlier.

Cox and other detective sergeants completed a promotion test in June 2018. During the test, Cox complained that parts of it were based on an outdated test book.

The commission confirmed the test results on August 15, 2018, with Ward topping the list and Cox finishing third, two points behind Ward. If four questions on the test had been scored correctly instead of each person being given credit for all points, Cox said he would have placed first and been No. 1 on the test based on seniority.

Cox took the case regarding Brown’s decision to the Supreme Court, which ruled on August 18, 2021 that the officer “failed to timely appeal” the commission’s 2019 decision. However, the court also ruled that the Commission had not given it a “final and appealable ruling” on the decision.

In this case, the court found that Cox had 30 days from July 17, 2019 – the day the Commission approved the minutes of its June 19, 2019 meeting, in which it stated that Cox’s case was closed had time to appeal to the Court of Common Pleas. Cox failed to do so in those 30 days. Instead, he appealed to the State Personnel Board of Review, which dismissed the lawsuit.

Cox filed a “Motion for Final Appealable Order and Motion for Reconsideration” with the Commission on May 14, 2020. The Commission informed Cox at its June 17, 2020 meeting that it would take no further action, and Cox filed suit on July 17, 2020, in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Sweeney found on May 16, 2022 that the Commission had “violated its own rules” by not issuing a “final and appealable order” and directed the Commission to do so consistent with its own rules. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Sweeney after the city appealed.

The city then appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court on June 28, 2022 to close the Cox case, arguing that the commission’s June 17, 2020 decision was a final order and that Sweeney lacked jurisdiction.

In its August 30, 2023 decision, the Supreme Court rejected the City’s argument regarding the Civil Service Commission’s 2020 decision and ordered the matter remanded to Sweeney. But the court told the judge that it had no jurisdiction over Cox’s 2019 administrative complaint because it had already been decided.

The Supreme Court ruled that Cox’s appeal of the Commission’s June 17, 2020 decision was “timely.”

Sweeney ruled on June 27 that Cox was correct when he claimed the commission made a “clear error” in 2019 and repeated that in 2020 when it failed to convene an evidentiary hearing.

In its Oct. 10 decision, the 7th Circuit wrote that because the “Commission no longer had authority to reconsider its 2018 or 2019 decisions long before Cox filed his motion on May 14, 2020,” that latter decision, “which formed the basis of Cox’s administrative decision.” “The appeal to the trial court was invalid,” the appeals court ruled. “Any judgment resulting from such a motion, including the June 27 order of the trial court that is the subject of this appeal, is also null and void.”