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Highlands Today

Two Of The Fired County Employees Threaten Lawsuit

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: February 21, 2008

Updated: 02/21/2008 06:38 pm

SEBRING –– Two of the three county budget office employees fired for sending sexually explicit instant messages on their county work computers during work hours are threatening state and, if that doesn't work, federal legal action.

Those threats were made by Jim McCollum, attorney for Treasa Handley and Jarod Lee, who were fired for sending several thousand "inappropriate" instant messages during work, many of them described as "sexually explicit."

McCollum was responding to a letter from county Administrator Carl Cool.

Cool rejected requests from Handley and Lee to have an administrative law judge, instead of him, hear their appeals. The two also claim Cool cannot decide their appeal, based on allegations that he participated in the decision on the two.

The two also want to stop the release of the sexually explicit messages to the public, claiming those messages are not "public records" but rather "personal messages" protected by the United States and Florida constitutions.

Cool rejected each of their pleas, based on legal advice from Ross Macbeth, the attorney for Highlands County.

While McCollum put forward legal arguments, Cool said all county employees work "at will." That means, he wrote, that their employment, dismissals and appeals are all governed totally by the county's Personnel Rules and Regulations.

County Says County Rules Rule

Those rules and regulations, Cool said, make him the sole arbiter of their appeals.

Further, Cool said, the county personnel code "clearly does not contemplate that the county administrator would be ignorant of the events which led to termination of the employee."

McCollum has also filed a motion that asks that the sexually instant messages not be allowed as evidence at their appeals.

Macbeth said those instant messages, which were the basis of director of Office of Budget and Management Bernis Gainer's firing of Handley and Lee, are clearly public records and can be used like any other public record.

The Florida Supreme Court did rule that a municipal employee's personal e-mails, sent on his work computer, were not public records automatically, but that his work-related e-mails are public documents.

But, Macbeth said, that Supreme Court decision also stated that personal e-mail messages sent by a government employee on a government computer do become public records for several specific reasons. One of those reasons is if the personal-message e-mails become part of an investigation.

Handley's and Lee's personal instant messages were uncovered by the Clerk of Courts office during a routine inventory of expenditures for the county's 9-1-1 emergency phone system. When the clerk's office found sexually explicit messages on the accounts of Handley, Lee and a third budget office employee, an investigation began and, Macbeth said, those personal messages legally became public records, open to inspection and copying by anyone.

It's The Boss' Fault

While his clients would have been wiser to speak, instead of write, their personal conversations, McCollum added, "it is free speech and it is guaranteed under the constitutions of Florida and of the United States."

McCollum blamed Handley's and Lee's supervisors for the sexually explicit instant messages for which they were fired. Supervisors, he said, should have caught those "inappropriate" messages early and told his clients to stop.

The county should accept Handley's and Lee's terms for their appeal hearings, McCollum added, "to do what's right and not get into a costly and contentious legal battle."

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