SC and MA YCMTSU Cases

Two employment related cases on the East Coast are in the headlines, and while we don’t have much in the way of details on either one they certainly appear to be YCMTSU cases worth following.

In Simpsonville, South Carolina, the former police chief who was fired after just 3 months on the job, filed a grievance to get his job back. What connection does that have to fire law? When the grievance was denied,  former Police Chief Keith Grounsell allegedly told the media that he was fired in part because he exposed an inappropriate relationship between the fire chief and his assistant police chief.

Coincidentally, Fire Chief Wesley Williams and Assistant Police Chief Colleen O’Neil had been suspended earlier this month, although the reason for the suspensions had not been publicly released.

Chief Grounsell and Chief O’Neil competed for the police chief’s job last year with Grounsell winning. The two have allegedly been butting heads since. Grounsell claims that after he disclosed the Williams-O’Neil relationship to the city administrator, Russell Hawse, Hawse “turned on him”.

Hawse countered that Grounsell’s “challenging of the mayor’s manhood and religion”, and “questioning of the intelligence of City Council members” played a bigger role in his decision to fire him. More on the story.

On Nantucket, a problem of another nature has prompted a firefighter to file suit against two of his co-workers, accusing them of slander, intentional infliction of severe emotional distress, and assault.

Firefighter Charles Kymer claims that firefighters Nate Barber and Sean Mitchell, falsely told police that he had photographed a young girl, procured her email address and distributed a picture of her to other firefighters following a surf incident last summer.

Kymer was cleared of wrongdoing in the case. He filed suit in Nantucket District Court.

More on that story.