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‘Deleon Guerrero contract OK’d her termination without cause’
The Board of Education was allowed to terminate Cynthia I. Deleon Guerrero as education commissioner at any time and for any reason, according to special assistant attorney general Tiberius D. Mocanu.
Mocanu, as counsel for BOE and its members, pointed out that Deleon Guerrero was an at-will employee and that no provision of her contract required a pre-termination hearing.
Mocanu said that not getting along with someone is not an unlawful reason to terminate an at-will employee and not sufficient to trigger the protection afforded by the 14th and Fifth Amendment.
“Moreover, to announce that you do not get along with someone is not defaming that person. It is a statement of fact,” he said.
Mocanu made these points in the BOE’s reply on Wednesday to Deleon Guerrero’s lawsuit.
Deleon Guerrero is suing the BOE and its members in federal court for terminating her last October. She is also suing the board members in their individual capacities. She is demanding $350,000 in damages.
According to Deleon Guerrero, her termination was done in retaliation for her questioning BOE’s micromanagement of PSS and her refusal to request for an unlawful transfer of $175,000 in PSS funds to the board’s account.
Brien Sers Nicholas, counsel for Deleon Guerrero, said the defendants, in an attempt to justify the purported termination without cause and through chair MaryLou S. Ada, made a public statement that Deleon Guerrero was terminated because she was not getting along with BOE members.
BOE and its members then filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Deleon Guerrero opposed the motion to dismiss.
In the BOE and its members’ reply to Deleon Guerrero’s opposition, Mocanu said even if the allegations of harassment and micromanagement were true, they only describe an unhappy workplace.
“In and of themselves, however, they do not form a legal cause of action, absent discriminatory animus,” Mocanu said.
Deleon Guerrero also alleges that she was told to perform an act that she believed to be illegal, that she refused, and was eventually terminated. Mocanu said that Deleon Guerrero, however, misapplied her claim of retaliation to her causes of action.
