By ZEINAB NAJM
Sunday Times Newspapers
TAYLOR — U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Judge Mark Goldsmith dismissed a lawsuit by a former police officer against Mayor Rick Sollars and Councilman Herman Ramik.
Former Police Officer Patrick Raboczkay brought First Amendment retaliation claims against Sollars and Ramik along with a due process claim and a defamation claim against Ramik. He sought more than $2.5 million in damages.
Originally, the city was named as an additional defendant in the lawsuit; however, the city was dismissed as a defendant due to Raboczkay’s failure to plead a Monell Doctrine claim against the city, the court opinion said.
Under the Monell Doctrine, a municipality may be held liable for an officer’s actions when the plaintiff establishes the officer violated their constitutional right, and that violation resulted from an official municipal policy, an unofficial custom, or because the municipality was deliberately indifferent in a failure to train or supervise the officer, according to Taylor & Ring’s website.
Goldsmith granted Ramik’s motion for summary judgment on the defamation and First Amendment claims against him but denied his request for dismissal of the due process claim against him.
The court granted Ramik leave to file a motion for summary judgment on Raboczkay’s due process claim. He must do so within 14 days of the opinion, a response is due 21 days after service of the motion, and a reply is due seven days after service of any response.
Raboczkay’s lawsuit was filed after he was suspended then ultimately fired from his secondary position performing salvage vehicle inspections on behalf of the city, which he began in November 2016.
In March 2018, Raboczkay and Ted Michowski — a police officer who, at the time, also performed salvage vehicle inspections for the city — were approached by Police Chief John Blair, who asked Raboczkay’s opinion regarding a towing vendor, J&M Towing.
Blair disclosed Raboczkay’s statements that J&M was not reputable and had received numerous tickets, during a city council session where Ramik and Sollars were present, the June 17 opinion read.
Raboczkay then retired from the Police Department in October 2017, when he entered into a personal service contract to continue to perform the salvage vehicle inspections for the city
The opinion said, in tandem with his motor carrier role, the city and the Police Department agreed, at the same time, to sponsor Raboczkay as a salvage inspector for the state of Michigan and to compensate Raboczkay with 100 percent of the fees that he collected performing salvage vehicle inspections while “off duty as secondary employment.”
In March 2018, Ramik contacted the Michigan Secretary of State to call for an investigation into the city’s salvage vehicle inspection program to investigate potential embezzlement or similar violations of state law. After hearing that salvage inspection fees were not being turned over to the city, Ramik attempted to find records confirming that fees from the city’s salvage vehicle inspection program had been handed over to the city, but he was unable to find any such records.
Raboczkay said he received a letter in April 2018 from the Secretary of State informing him that the salvage vehicle inspection program was under investigation and that an audit would be conducted based upon a complaint that the SOS had received from Ramik.
The state criminal investigation was conducted by Pete Ackerly, a special agent of the public integrity unit of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office and concluded in August 2018.
The Police Department also conducted an internal investigation into the salvage vehicle inspection program, the June 17 opinion said.
On April 5, 2018, Raboczkay received a letter from Deputy Police Chief Richard Hooper, informing him that he was being suspended without pay pending the outcome of the city’s investigation.
Ackerly’s investigation report documents that Raboczkay likely had been performing salvage vehicle inspections while he was working on duty as the motor carrier officer — rather than off duty as agreed—because Raboczkay had billed for inspections conducted on time frames that would be impossible or unlikely to complete entirely off duty.
Raboczkay was then fired in December 2018. The reasoning was because city officials determined that Raboczkay’s practice of performing salvage vehicle inspections on “City of Taylor time” was, on balance, a fireable offense.
The opinion says that Raboczkay contends that he and Michowski were “cleared of any criminal wrongdoing” by the criminal investigation because the Attorney General’s Office decided not to prosecute Raboczkay for violating state law requiring that salvage fees must first go to the police department before the inspector is compensated.
Five months after filing his lawsuit, Raboczkay’s attorney sent an email to Director of Human Resources and Risk Management Sheila Gorski where he requested a public “name clearing” hearing be scheduled. The purpose was so that Raboczkay could refute the allegedly defamatory statements made by Ramik in conjunction with Raboczkay’s termination.
The city’s counsel responded with an email denying the request, allegedly after being directed and authorized to do so by Ramik, the opinion said.
Taylor Director of Communications & Marketing Karl Ziomek said in a June 18 email that the court also emphasized the findings of an investigation by the Michigan Attorney General which, in Goldsmith’s view, gave the city a legitimate reason to terminate plaintiff’s employment.
Unless the case is not successfully appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, it is considered closed.
(Zeinab Najm can be reached at [email protected].)