While reading a case that came out yesterday from the Mississippi Court of Appeals (Rankin Group v. City of Richland, No. 2007-CA-02259-COA, 3/17/09) reminded me of how very important the minutes of public entities are to good government. In fact, what many entities seem to forget is that public entities act through their minutes, so if minutes are ineffective, then the entities don’t act!
The Rankin Group case speaks to appeals taken from actions of public entities, in this case, the City of Richland. In this particular case the Rankin Group petitioned the Circuit Court to issue a Writ of Mandamus requiring the City of Richland to sign and file a Bill of Exceptions, which is required when an entity’s decision(s) have been appealed. Richland argued that it did not have to file a Bill of Exceptions because the Rankin Group had not appealed a decisionn of the City. Under Section 11-51-75, an individual aggrieved of a decision of a municipality has 10 days to appeal the city’s decision.
The Rankin Group argues that the 10 days begins to run after the minutes are approved, and further argues that it filed a notice of appeal within the 10 days after the minutes were approved. The Circuit Court found that the Rankin Group was in error. Section 21-15-33 requires that municipal minutes must be approved at the next meeting or within 30 days, and that once they are approved, the minutes have the legal effect of having been valid from and after the date of the meeting. While Rankin Group argues that “meeting” means the meeting in which the minutes are approved, the Circuit Judge disagreed. The Rankin Group appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the Circuit Judge.
According to the Court of Appeals, to accept the meaning that Rankin Group suggests is to accept an interpretation inconsistent with the plain language of the statute. When an appeal and bill of exceptions are not filed within the prescribed 10 days from the day of adjournment, no court has jurisdiction to consider an appeal.
This blog entry begins a series of entries to follow over the period of the next few days or weeks that will deal with “Minutes 101″. Stay tuned….
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of a Texas Federal District Court which upheld the constitutionality of a 2003 state statute which requires Texas public school students to observe a daily minute of silence in order to pray, reflect or otherwise remain quiet. The 5th Circuit upheld the decision because the statute “expressly allows any silent use of that minute, whether religious or not.”
The lawsuit was filed by a Croft family who had 3 children enrolled in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, located in a suburb of Dallas. The family argued that including the word “pray” in the statute requiring the mandatory minute of silence was a method for lawmakers to advance religion in public schools.
Several years ago, Pontotoc County Public Schools went all the way to the United States Supreme Court in an effort to allow prayer in public schools; Pontotoc County lost. Obviously, this statute aims “lower” than the Pontotoc County School District did. Nevertheless, it sets a precedent in our Federal Circult District for mandating moments of silence in public places for the specific purpose of prayer, among other purposes.
There is a new redistricting decision out from the Supreme Court of the United States from a North Carolina lawsuit. The decision came down yesterday, and I have not had a chance to read it myself. I will follow up with an analysis later, but I wanted to put the information out here immediately for those of you who may be dealing with redistricting issues or merely gearing up for 2011.
It appears that the Supreme Court has indicated that there is no duty to draw voting districts taht would elect black candidates in areas where blacks are less than a majority. The decision was 5-4. The Court said (Kennedy, J., writing the majority) that officials need not consider race when drawing districts for state legislatures, county boards, city councils and school districts, so long as blacks did not make up a voting majority in a particular area. Justice Kennedy suggests that this decision could “hasten the waning of racism in American politics” by making race less of a factor in drawing electoral districts. More later…
Just a reminder: The annual Mississippi Municipal League Salary survey is currently underway. We’ve received about 70% of the surveys to date. If you are a City Clerk or Personnel Director for one of Mississippi’s 297 municipalities, please make sure that you’ve completed the survey. Previous salary surveys can be found here:
www.msgovt.org/policy.html
The county survey will be mailed in June 2009.
There are some changes in employer obligations relative to COBRA coverage as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Under the Act, employees who were involuntarily terminated between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 may be eligible to receive a reduced premium for COBRA continuation coverage. This change applies to employers with 20 or more employees.
Beginning March 1, 2009, eligible individuals will be allowed to pay 35% of the COBRA premium and the employer will be required to pay the remaining 65% of the premium. For the 65% share, the Act provides a subsidy that will be credited against the employer’s payroll taxes.
Tax advice should be sought by the employer since the type of health plan dictates whether the employer gets the tax credit or the plan gets the tax credit.
Employers are required to re-notify all employees who were involuntarily terminated during the designated period and to inform them of the new rules, even if they originally declined COBRA. The Department of Labor will provide model language for the notice soon since the re-notification must occur within 60 days of the signing of the Act (February 17, 2009). The employee will have a new 60 period in which to make the COBRA election.
In order to be an eligible employee, the employee must meet 4 criteria:
- Must be eligible for COBRA continuation coverage between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009;
- Loss of group medical coverage due to an involuntary termination of employment;
- Then (or now) elect COBRA continuation coverage; and
- Are not eligible to receive benefits from any other group health plan or Medicare.
In Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, U.S. No. 06-1595, the United States Supreme Court has extended the anti-retaliation protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to employees who answer questions in an investigation conducted by the employer based on another employee’s complaint of discrimination. Ms. Crawford was interviewed by an agent of the employer about an allegation of sexual harassment perpetrated against another employee by the employer’s Director of Employee Relations.
When Ms. Crawford was intereviewed by an employee of the HR department who was handing the investigation, she alleged that she, also, had been a victim of the Director of Employee Relations’ sexually harassing activity. Ms. Crawford never filed any sort of complaint against the Director of Employee Relations at the time that she alleged that he harassed her, and she never told her employer about it.
A few months after the investigation, Ms. Crawford and two other employees (both of whom had reported that they, too, were victim’s of sexual harassment at the hands of the Director of Employee Relations) were fired for reasons which were purportedly not related to their revelations during the investigation.
Both the federal trial court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Crawford relief under Title VII after concluding that Crawford did not engage in any protected activity, because she had not opposed any unlawful conduct or participated in an investigation pursuant to the initiation of an EEOC charge. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed, finding that Ms. Crawford’s statements were “in opposition” of presumed sexual harassment in the workplace and someone who is in “opposition” need not have previously initiated any claim of discrimination against the employer.
The decision in the Crawford case creates a low threshold for employees who claim they were retaliated against for reporting alleged discrimination. It matters not whether the employee responds to questions in an already pending internal investigation initiated by someone else, but rather even passive internal complaints of discrimination are sufficient for protection from retaliation under Title VII.
Representative Blackburn will be the speaker at the annual Price Prather Luncheon at The Mississippi Bar Association Annual Meeting in July of 2009 at San Destin. The Price Prather Luncheon is sponsored by the Women in the Profession Committee of The Mississippi Bar. Justice Prather is Mississippi’s first woman Supreme Court Justice and Mississippi’s first woman Chief Justice. Judge Price was the first woman judge in Mississippi. For additional information, please contact Melanie Henry at The Mississippi Bar. mhenry@msbar.org
Senator Alan Nunnelee-R (Mississippi Senate District 6) visited Dr. Marty Wiseman’s Mississippi Government and Politics class on Monday, March 2. Senator Nunnelee, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a Mississippi State University alumnus, spoke to the students about key Mississippi issues before taking questions. Senator Nunnelee touched on a variety of issues, including the opening of the new Toyota automotive plant in Blue Springs, MS, the impact of the Federal stimulus bill on the State of Mississippi, and the importance of funding the “big three” (K-12, community colleges, and four-year colleges/universities). Senator Nunnelee also challenged the Mississippi State students to become more actively involved in politics in order to put another “Bulldog” in Congress, joining Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.