Town responds to former clerk’s litigation and Meza seating challenge

As it finds itself on the receiving end, as well as the filing end of litigation related to its operational activities and personnel matters in recent years, the Town of Front Royal has filed responses to legal actions filed against it on two fronts in recent weeks. One is Paul Aldridge’s citizen challenge of the council-appointed seating of Jacob Meza in January after Meza’s decision not to run for re-election in November 2020; the other is the wrongful termination federal Civil Rights Act suit filed by long-time, former Council Clerk Jennifer Berry.

It is not a surprise that the Town claims it is not liable on either front, the latter including damages Berry seeks in a federal suit based on sexual harassment and retaliatory termination for her complaints about the alleged harassment she says originated with former Vice-Mayor William Sealock.

Attorneys for the Town of Front Royal, though not those located in Town Hall, have responded to both recent civil actions filed against it, one regarding Jacob Meza’s appointment to council vacancy 4 days after his previous term expired; the second, former Council Clerk Jennifer Berry’s federal claim of sexual harassment and retaliatory termination. Royal Examiner File Photos by Roger Bianchini

As previously reported, the challenge of the Meza appointment is based on Plaintiff Paul Aldridge and his attorney David Downes’ contention that Town Charter Chapter 6, Section § 47 prohibits a former council member from being re-appointed to the council for a year after their departure from the elected body. The Town, of course, is NOT denying that his council colleagues and friends re-appointed Meza to council a bare four days after his last term expired at the turn of the year to fill newly-elected Mayor Holloway’s vacant council seat. Rather, they are claiming that the challenge based on the referenced Section 47 of the Town Charter does not apply to council reappointments.

Let it suffice to say at this point that the legal arguments become somewhat convoluted revolving around whose “jurisdiction” council falls under, its own as the plaintiff claims based on the fact it is illustrating such jurisdiction by its right of appointment or disciplining of council members or an outside agency such as the State. LINK-“Complaint against Meza’s council appointment filed in Circuit Court”

The Town’s response to Berry’s federal litigation is somewhat more straightforward legally. Essentially and at worst, they are calling her a liar; at best, perhaps a seriously confused and delusional individual. The Town says the account of events described by its council clerk of 15 years and employee of 20 did not happen; that the sexual harassment incidents she describes in her federal complaint did not occur and that she was fired, not in retaliation for her efforts to stop the alleged harassment, but for just cause of being an unsatisfactory employee as staff cutbacks were initiated to reduce town government operational costs.

However, in his federal filing on Berry’s behalf, her attorney Timothy Cupp cited that financial explanation essentially as a cover story, calling it a “pretext for Defendant’s discrimination against Plaintiff based on her sex and/or for its retaliation for Plaintiff’s opposition to Defendant Town’s conduct that violated Title VII.”

The Town response filed with the U.S. Western District of Virginia Federal Court in Harrisonburg on January 29 says that despite earlier positive job performance reviews, culminating with the one in July 2019 approximately six months before her termination, there were ongoing issues revolving around the Town’s turning her position into a full-time one in 2017. Issues with her absence from her second-floor Town Hall office and work from home as she had been allowed previously led to requests Berry post her in-office schedule, which in turn led to a negative back and forth on the topic between Berry and certain town officials, including former Mayor Hollis Tharpe and then Vice-Mayor William Sealock, the Town response states.

Jennifer Berry, rear left of photo, at Jan. 27, 2020 council work session three days prior to notice of her termination effective Feb. 4 that has led to a federal Civil Rights Act suit by the long-time council clerk.

“In response to the allegations in paragraph 13 of the Complaint, the Town denies plaintiff’s self-serving assessment that she performed her job well and met all legitimate expectations of the Town. While the plaintiff has accurately extracted one section from her 2019 job performance evaluation, she has ignored issues with her performance of which she was well aware. Plaintiff was hired as the Clerk to Town Council on a part-time basis in 2005. The position was converted to a full-time position in 2017. For twelve (12) years, the plaintiff was a part-time employee and was able to set her own hours, work from home regularly and enjoy a high amount of flexibility in her schedule.

“On May 17, 2018, plaintiff received her first employee evaluation as a full-time employee for her performance during 2017. Since she reported to the Town Council under the Town’s Charter, the (then) Mayor, Hollis Tharpe, and (then and current) Vice Mayor Bill Sealock, … conducted her performance evaluation. Plaintiff at that time, received a positive evaluation, including both a raise and a bonus,” the Town response acknowledges. However, it adds, “but Mayor Tharpe and Mr. Sealock, who conducted the evaluation on behalf of the Town Council, voiced the Town Council’s concerns about her work schedule and the full-time hours she was supposed to be working.”

It is unclear in this response as to whether the cited “concerns” of the mayor and vice-mayor were expressed in writing as part of the evaluation. However, the Town response continues to trace ongoing concerns it alleges about Berry’s transition to full-time from part-time employee continuing into 2019:

“Their concerns are reflected in her 2019 (for the year 2018) performance evaluation, which states ‘[w]ork hours/days need to be posted (sic) These days & hours need to be adhered to (sic) regular basis (work at home, vacation, and others) (sic) Her nonoffice hours (working from home is a sensitive area for other staff members).’ Again, her evaluation was positive, but one of her two goals was, ‘[w]hen leaving the office please post date and time of return.’ The evaluation also states, ‘[n]on-cooperative attitude may be felt when approached with tasks she deems not doable or not wanting to do.’ Plaintiff fought Town Council’s efforts to hold her accountable for her full-time salary and to keep track of her whereabouts during working hours. These actions by plaintiff reflect that she refused to even attempt to meet legitimate expectations of the Town.”

Council Clerk Jennifer Berry’s Town website profile from happier days.

The Town response denies in full, an alleged sexually harassing pattern of behavior against Vice-Mayor Sealock.

“The Town denies the allegations in paragraph 19 of the Complaint. Sealock has never attempted to hug plaintiff or otherwise inappropriately touch her or any other Town employee.”

Of a specific incident cited in Berry’s complaint, occurring in the Town Hall meeting room as she prepared it for a coming meeting, when Vice-Mayor Sealock allegedly roughly pushed her down, preventing her from rising from a kneeling position near a small refrigerator, the Town cites another witness to counter that claim, former Interim Mayor and Town Manager Matt Tederick.

However, plaintiff attorney Cupp disputes Tederick’s presence at the incident, noted in the Town’s response to Berry’s earlier EEOC filing and referenced by the Town below:

“The Town denies the allegations in paragraph 20 of the Complaint. The ‘incident’ which the plaintiff describes did not occur. At one point prior to August 15, 2019, the plaintiff knelt down to get drinks from a refrigerator that was located under a table. She was getting the drinks to set out for Council members to drink during a meeting. As Sealock walked toward where the plaintiff was located, she began to stand up. Sealock reached his arm out and gently touched the plaintiff’s shoulder to prevent her from standing up and crashing into him. Despite the plaintiff’s insistence that Matt Tederick … was not employed and did not see the ‘incident,’ that is false. He was interim Mayor at the time and clearly recollects what he observed,” the Town response states, echoing its EEOC response.

Matt Tederick left, has been cited by town attorneys, tho not the one to his right, as a witness to dispute Berry’s claims about a physical incident between her and Vice-Mayor Sealock at the Town Hall meeting room prior to a council meeting

It continues to counter Berry’s version of her walk outside Town Hall with then-Councilman Holloway and subsequent comments attributed to Holloway about potential consequences of her complaints about Sealock’s alleged behavior. And the complaint asserts that as the matter was brought to town staff’s attention, it was dealt with appropriately and did not factor into Berry’s termination. That termination was cited as part of Interim Town Manager Tederick’s controversial staff cutbacks self-termed “rightsizing” to save the Town money. That rightsizing was achieved, the response admits, not by returning Berry to her previous part-time position, but by putting her duties on to two other employees who were apparently not compensated financially for the additional work, at least not to the tune of a part-time council clerk’s salary from the below-cited numbers.

“Like other small towns in Virginia, the Town of Front Royal was faced with the predicament that it either needed to increase taxes and fees or cut spending in order to pay for much-needed infrastructure improvements totaling $29.2 million dollars. At an open Town Council meeting on February 3, 2020, Tederick publicly announced the decision to ‘rightsize’ the workforce. Town Council ultimately approved the FY 2021 budget that included the reduction of expenditures on certain staff positions on June 8, 2020. The ‘rightsizing’ of town staff positions resulted in ten full and part-time (10) positions either being eliminated or in the case of the Town Clerk’s position—reduced from a full-time position to a part-time position and the duties absorbed by two (2) current employees. The reduction in the Clerk’s position from full-time to part-time saved the Town almost $75,000 annually.”

STOP – if you are planning to attend a hearing on the Jennifer Berry-Town of Front Royal wrongful termination litigation. You’ll have to get to federal court in Harrisonburg for that one. However, the Warren County Courthouse is the proper destination for hearings on the challenge of Jacob Meza’s Jan. 4, 2021 appointment to the council he had not sought re-election to in November.

And so the framework for judicial consideration of former Front Royal Town Council Clerk Jennifer Berry’s federal litigation has been framed from both the plaintiff’s and defendant’s perspectives. Stay tuned for further developments, as hearing dates or judicial responses become available. And see related story linked below, as well as the entire Town response to Berry’s litigation also linked below:

Click here to view the Town Response in its entirety.

Click here to view Jennifer Berry’s filing in its entirety.

Claiming sexual harassment and cover up, former Council Clerk files federal retaliatory termination suit against Town of Front Royal