November 11, 2005 in City

Jury finding on professor’s firing ruled invalid

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A judge has overturned a jury’s decision two months ago that Whitworth College did nothing wrong when it fired a tenured chemistry professor for failure to get along with his colleagues.

Superior Court Judge Robert Austin said this week that former chemistry department Chairman Dr. Tony Mega, 44, is entitled to 13 months’ wages and a new trial on several questions.

Austin said in a letter to attorneys this week that he has determined that some issues presented to the jury in a three-week trial should have been decided by him, as a matter of law. Now that he has made those rulings, Mega is entitled to a new trial with different jury instructions, the judge said.

In particular, Austin ruled, the college improperly fired Mega in July 2002, seven months before a formal hearing required by his contract – and 13 months before a faculty committee ruled Mega’s dismissal was warranted.

Patrick Kirby, one of Mega’s attorneys, said Mega “is absolutely delighted, and he feels like he’s getting a fair shake here.”

Whitworth President Bill Robinson said he hadn’t had a chance to study the ruling and confer with the college’s attorneys.

“Certainly, we feel that we have acted properly and with honor, and that seemed to be the opinion of the jury that listened to three weeks of testimony, so it is all very puzzling to me,” Robinson said.

Mega’s dismissal was the first for a tenured professor in the private Christian college’s 115-year history.

According to Whitworth’s faculty handbook, which serves as an employment contract, a tenured professor can be fired only for “adequate cause … related to the fitness of the faculty member for his or her professional capacity as an educator … and to the faculty member’s responsibilities as a Christian example.”

Testimony indicated there was no question about Mega’s competence as an instructor, but he was argumentative and alienated most of his colleagues in the chemistry department. Two female faculty members said they feared Mega would strike them during angry outbursts.

Concerns about Mega’s lack of “collegiality” nearly kept him from receiving tenure – a permanent appointment with strong job protection intended to ensure academic freedom. To achieve tenure, Mega signed a contract with Robinson in which Mega had to go a year without complaints to obtain Robinson’s endorsement to the board of trustees.

Mega also agreed in the contract that future lack of collegiality could be considered insubordination that would justify dismissal. College officials cited that clause when they fired Mega.

Austin’s informal ruling this week, which attorneys must translate into a formal order, says Mega’s tenure was just like any other professor’s despite his contract with Robinson. Like other professors, Mega was entitled to a formal hearing before – not after – he was fired, Austin said.

Firing Mega 13 months before a faculty committee found dismissal was warranted was a breach of contract, Austin ruled. He said the college must pay Mega the salary he would have earned in the 2002-03 school year, plus interest.

A jury now must consider whether the back wages should be doubled under a state law that prohibits employers from willfully withholding salary an employee is entitled to receive, Austin ruled.

If a new jury finds Mega is entitled to twice his salary of approximately $49,000, the college will owe Mega roughly as much as it offered in a pretrial settlement that he refused. At trial, Mega sought $819,677 for past and future lost wages on grounds that Whitworth’s action destroyed his career.

Austin said Mega also is entitled to a new trial because the jury in his first trial “ignored or didn’t consider or appreciate” what Austin said was the college’s failure in its contractual duty to try to mediate its differences with Mega.

Whitworth attorney Matt Andersen argued at trial that, even if Mega’s dismissal were found improper, he shouldn’t be entitled to back wages past April 1 of this year. That’s when college officials discovered Mega had been downloading pornography on a college computer and, during work hours over the course of nearly three years, exchanging sexually explicit messages with a woman in Texas.

Those violations of college rules clearly would have justified dismissal, Andersen told jurors.

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