At law: Obey the boss or obey the cops?

Manager at MetroCenter business fired while dealing with flood. Also: Local broker accuses 'Bama law firm of 'morally' blameworthy' conduct [From our print edition featured in Monday's City Paper]

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

To hear Donnie Jones tell the tale, he found himself in the middle of a no-win conflict on Monday morning, May 3, 2010.

With flood waters threatening to overwhelm the levee that protects the MetroCenter commercial district from the Cumberland River, police were ordering a complete evacuation of the 800-acre development. But on his cell phone, the president of the company Jones worked for was telling him to instruct employees to evade the cops and get to work.

Jones says he did as the cops told him to do — and that his boss responded by summarily dismissing him from his production supervisor position at Shared Hospital Services Corp.

The president of SHSC is not named in the lawsuit Jones filed against the hospital laundry service July 21 in Davidson County Circuit Court, but documents in a prior lawsuit identify him as George W. Wade, the name currently listed with the Tennessee Register of Deeds as registered agent of the company.

The legal complaint says Jones let the president know that Metro Police safety cones were blocking off access to SHSC’s Mainstream Drive facility. The boss nevertheless told Jones “to inform all employees to come to work” and to get around the traffic cones by driving through the Comcast parking lot across the street and then turning in behind the barriers.

Jones didn’t think the police would look kindly on this gambit. If they raised an issue, the president allegedly instructed him, he should say that SHSC “was in the business of ‘sterilizing surgical equipment for Vanderbilt hospital,’ an untruthful statement to suggest a false urgency.”

Jones did not try out that line. Soon a police officer was on the scene, telling him “that a mandatory evacuation was in place, a fear of the levee breaking was a serious issue, and the only persons who could ingress on Mainstream Drive were Comcast employees whose limited purpose was the removal of their trucks from their parking lot,” according to the complaint.

But some employees had already entered SHSC’s building. From there, Jones phoned the boss again for instructions. “Defendant’s President informed Plaintiff that he (the President) had a friend on the Corps of Engineers and, according to Defendant’s President, this friend stated that the river was safe and the employees could be called to work,” the lawsuit asserts.

“Plaintiff firmly but professionally stated that he would not disobey the direction of a Metro Police officer and risk employees’ safety. In response, defendant’s president stated, ‘then I accept your resignation.’ With that, plaintiff’s employment was terminated.”

Jones says he was effectively discharged “because he refused to remain silent about illegal activity” and because he “was acting to protect employees under his charge from the threat of imminent or serious bodily harm.” He seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for violation of the Tennessee Public Protection Act and retaliatory discharge.

Justin S. Gilbert, Jonathan L. Bobbitt and Michael Russell of Gilbert Russell McWherter PLC in Jackson, Tenn., represent Jones. They initially filed suit in Nashville’s U.S. District Court in June but withdrew that complaint after attorney J. Craig Oliver of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, representing SHSC, objected that the case did not belong in federal court.

Oliver said last week that his client “has reviewed Mr. Jones’ complaint, denies all allegations of wrongdoing, and intends to defend this case vigorously.”

SHSC was in the news last year when two former supervisors sued it, claiming they had been fired after complaining about the hiring of illegal immigrants. Davidson County Chancery Court records show that the parties settled the case in January 2010.

U.S. District Court

Timothy J. Pagliara v. Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose LLP. Removed from Williamson County Chancery to U.S. District Court, July 14. Pagliara, a veteran Franklin securities broker, claims Birmingham, Ala., law firm Johnston Barton engaged in “morally blameworthy” conduct when it “knowingly negotiated and recommended a settlement that it knew would damage Mr. Pagliara’s spotless 27-year regulatory record.”

The lawsuit tells a complicated story. An investor identified by the pseudonym “Philip Smith” became a client of Pagliara in 1999, following him when the broker became affiliated with NBC Securities Inc. in 2002. In March 2008 — at Smith’s behest and with his full approval, the lawsuit says — Pagliara bought about $98,000 worth of bank stocks in Smith’s account.

That investment tanked amid the financial crisis that ensued in the months that followed. Pagliara took steps to help Smith recover as the market rebounded in 2009, and the client “never at any time expressed any dissatisfaction” to Pagliara, he says.

On Nov. 11, 2009, however, Smith filed a complaint with NBCS. Meanwhile, Pagliara and NBCS had become embroiled in a dispute over a $1.2 million termination fee he said he was owed in the wake of Royal Bank of Canada’s purchase of NBCS’s parent company and refusal to honor a license agreement Pagliara had with NBCS.

“It was under these hostile circumstances that Mr. Smith asserted his claim against Mr. Pagliara and NBCS,” the lawsuit states. “NBCS looked at Mr. Smith's claim as an opportunity to exact some form of revenge against Mr. Pagliara.”

Pagliara claims he knew nothing about the complaint until late January of this year, and he says Johnston Barton never consulted with him before negotiating a $30,000 settlement with Smith.

The decision to settle “had nothing to do with the merits of Mr. Smith’s claim, but rather had everything to do with the desire to harm Mr. Pagliara and his reputation,” the lawsuit says. Pagliara is asking for compensatory and punitive damages of at least $1 million.

Plaintiff’s attorney: Eugene N. Bulso Jr. of Leader, Bulso & Nolan PLC. Defendant’s attorneys: John C. Hayworth, Emily B. Warth and Joseph F. Welborn III of Walker, Tipps & Malone PLC. Welborn told NashvillePost.com the defense had no comment.