this is our second case of the morning for fourteen zero nine for tutorial jones versus department of health care and family services for the happily and i'm going to say the apple the first this draper and then for the  the circuit court while the circuit court affirmed the commission's finding as to misconduct put reversed its finding as to cause for discharge on appeal this for use the commission's decision rather than that of the circuit court and between the appeal in the the commission's findings as to both misconduct and cause for discharge are at issue here today on this case the commission found that jones violated rules about conflicts of interest maintaining records and supervisory approval when she approved  benefit requests while working as a caseworker at the department of human services on five separate occasions during seven month period in addition the commission found that jones improperly received the benefits from a link card from somebody else's link card that she was not entitled to based on these multiple violations the commission found that that jones had engaged in a pattern of miss of misconduct rather than just an isolated mistake or error judgment and that those violations provided cause for discharge on putin the cross appeal jones argues that the commission's findings of misconduct are against the manifest way that the evidence as to the fine but the as to the findings and through the individuals who she approved benefits for she won poindexter and when it hurts and jacqueline bridges were the daughters of those two friends of hers although and although jones a as emergency contacts now rather than challenge any of the evidence surely bases for they'll face findings jones argues on appeal that there was some sort of a mismatch between the evidence presented at the caring and the charges in the statement of discipline but in doing so jones overlooks the fact that she was specific that she was charged with violating the rules on conflicts of interest supervisory approval and case records in charges forth for six of the statement of this therefore jones was charged with violating every rule that she was found to have broken and the bail j s decision to organize his conclusions of law based on the individuals listed in charge three rather than the rule cited in charge charges fourth or six has no bearing on the factual findings of what occurred based on the evidence that was presented at hearing therefore the commission's findings as to those violations are not against the manifest weight of the evidence in addition the commission's findings that jones improperly received benefits from somebody else's link card was supported by a percentage hearing specifically it was supported by evidence showing that a receipt for two cookie cakes purchased by adrian purchase link purchased with agent purchase link card was found at the th us office on the exact day that jones brought those exact items to shown by her petition for an order of protection in addition there was testimony that jones had at mid during the investigation that she had received link cards from charlene point after in the  thought this was a situation that was more complicated than she usually dealt with one when setting up these charges but the extent that there is that there was confusion regarding what was alleged in which charge and so forth and so on the ale j to the way that the charges were set out and the relationship between them and how they're going and how they're being interpreted and in addition to the extent that jones challenges the finding as to the improper benefits from the link card on the basis that her witnesses were more credible than the part that's with this is that comes down to a credibility of determination which this court has john will not reverse because that's  left for the commission and on that issue anyway the ail day specifically question each of the two investigators about their independent memory regarding what jones had said during the previous interview now based on those findings of misconduct the commission then found that those that they provided cause for discharge specifically in doing so they'll say found that because there were multiple instances of misconduct that this wasn't a situation where someone merely made a mistake or had an isolated errant judgment but that this showed a willing to regard the rules and that taken together they provided a cause for discharge now what about the fact that it appears that generally speaking it was found that the amounts she approved were all appropriate so it's not as if she gave someone something they didn't have coming to themselves how does that weigh into whether or not this charge decision where the ael jay found that the sharks are appropriate fields they also found that these other matters had not been proved but that despite that fact the things that were proved were serious enough to warrant this charge and that was reasonable decision based in part on taking into account the types of rules that she broke rules involving conflicts of interest recording transactions accepting gifts these are the types of rules they're put in place to ensure that benefits reach the intended beneficiaries these are public aunts and there needs to be transparency in order so that either a member of the public looking at this or the federal government provides some of these funds can look at this and ensure that these benefits these file the only violation that wants to an actual abuse of of benefits would be the improper receipt of benefits from somebody else's link part the rookie kate's right but the rest of them but the rest of the violations are very serious because they involve conflicts of interest and they involve approving benefits for her friends children without them reporting those benefits even if the department couldn't prove in this hearing that those benefits were you know should not have been granted in the first place it's necessary to have this level of of oversight through you know ensuring that conflicts of interest don't arise not just so that the funds go to the correct recipients but also for the public at large to have you know trust in the system is being properly administered by its employees and these violations deal with overarching issues of trustworthiness and  account that while there was a pattern it was a pattern that showed sloppiness or bad judgment in that moment but sort of no harm no foul to the public face actually and that in her new job she wouldn't have the opportunity to do that would be called upon to make those kinds of judgments and there'd also been the passage of time can the trial court properly take that into account in saying yes department you prove by gosh terminations is too severe it can is a progressive go for the  i think the answer i suppose the answer is yes the answer is yes but with the qualification hopefully that that these discharge decisions by the commission receive considerable deference and are and they are and there are viewed under stander that they will only be reversed if they're arbitrary unreasonable or unrelated to the terms of service and so so it's this is just arbitrary and it's not an raid so it's really more a matter of you the other side the same and this isn't a reason unreasonable giving given the context and given her president johnson to write jones arias that's unreasonable because she characterizes the violations as minor but the but neither the commission or the department was required to have that same opinion of the severity of these violations and the ale jay in finding that this charge appropriate did consider a number of factors that may have fav you know a lesser penalty the l j found out that you know perhaps each individual violation may have not have been sufficient to warrant discharge on its own but that when taken as a whole there there was a of the misconduct was severe enough to warrant discharge so that i think specifically goes to sort of the arbitrariness are reasonable tax is that you know the bail jay explained the reasons this is not a situation it's like a one sentence decision or anything like that dale's he took these different factors into account and if the circuit court or even this court might take those same factors and find that well maybe it would be more appropriate to have a ninety day suspension or some other type of lesser penalty unless it's arbitrary and reasonable the commission is the commission's decision should stand in part because these sort of qualitative decisions about what is severe and what's are what's important to service those are best understood by the department and agency itself and the commission there and that because there is they know their jobs they know what they've done and day to day basis and so what they value in terms of an employee investigation into these allegations was completed to find out if these allegations were substantiated by i mean it's should not be held against the department it's just merely a reasonable decision to wait until investigation is completed to see what the evidence is before making its charge decision and so for all those reasons the commission's discharge decision was not arbitrary on reasonable it was related to their parents of service and therefore the scor even the earliest that there's evidence in the record that she knew was she was interviewed by investigators and made twenty time a so presumably at that point she at least by that point should have known that she was under investigation and i think she moved on january first twenty well so the answer my question is yes yes unless i'm misremembering january first twenty twelve but i don't think that but it's very issue about whether she should have there the perp until her family or none of that came up and i think in part this because there are confidentiality rules with these investigations there is evidence that nobody was really supposed to talk about this while it was going on  and so so likewise in the two departments don't change this sort of information correct the department was unaware of the investigation at the time that she began with the department of health care family services they didn't learn about this until after the investigation  completed and the oh yeah she had issued its report on jones was interviewed by the investigator but that wouldn't necessarily you know that her know that she was being investigated and certainly a strong inference but not necessarily didn't she indicate that the reason she laughed was because she felt that her boss was harassing her and yes basically they're lining her to do things or watching her more closely than anyone else yes i mean the the show there's certainly  his findings as misconduct and everything you really relied on other evidence the jones own admissions the testimony of joan of spears and our wallets for the investigators the physical of jones argues that the commission should have to sniff the charges against her on the basis of class use however jones never raise that offense before the commission she never asked of the department she never asked a commission excuse me to dismiss those charges on that basis and therefore she's forfeited that claim and even if you're didn't apply that she's is review under an abuse of discretion standard so the commission is not of abuse this discretion by failing to dismiss charges on a basis that was never brought up for it and even if jones had raised the last use the fence before the commission she would not have been able to meet its elements she should not have been able to show that there were that the elected diligence on behalf of the department by bringing its charges after the investigation  complete completed she would not be able to show prejudice as a result of when the charges were brought and in any event there's just there's a strong presumption against applying latches against two government entities and jones has not heard is the opening from counsel that this case is a me ad is a matter of important issues concerning fraud conflicts of interest improper gifts corruption lack of transparency the failure to follow a specific rules of the department and the problem with that characterization is that it's not supported by the record at all in fact it's not supported by the administrative law judges decision that really became the decision of the commission in this case when i presented the court statement of facts i thought that the best way to present them given the standard for manifest weight of the evidence was simply to accept as true the actual factual findings and summary of the testimony given by the administrative law judge i didn't quibble over any of the niceties interpretation of that and gave all the documents to the decision that this court gives to the decision but when we look at those finding they conflict with the conclusion that these charges were proven and bet this charge is appropriate now the record is replete the decision is full of references from the administrative ward judge about his concerns of discharge from a different agency two years after tora jones transferred from an earlier agency where she worked for two years even after deal strickland started investigating he was very concerned about the passage of time and the passage of time he noted the numerous lapses of memory of the key witnesses and i disagree with counsel about gail strickland's testimony wasn't relied on the l strickland was the witness the administrative law judge said she was overzealous in a mission to process and approved applications and so the question is whether or not the charges that were written were proven and if they were what was proven because what was not proven was personnel rule that mandates that charges be drafted with a certain amount of specificity going outside the record because i do so many of these no these charges aren't typical of what's being done today so that's good news just to provide all of us with some relief that they're much more specific time date and place but let's deal only with this record of source in dealing with it the a l j specifically found charges four five and six were proven he didn't adopt them as part of charge want is the one that you're focusing on most because charge one doesn't give the detail that i think the rules require but it it's the one that says you gave you processed applications where you had a conflict of interest and should not ok it's the broad a charge one doesn't say you failed to document with case notes charge one doesn't say you didn't get supervisor approval in charge  and and the department's rules were placed into the record concerning that only i was ok have to document it because in doing so that gives the supervisor a chance to take a look at it and make terminations where there are persons who could then there were files with documentation case notes are a very specific element of that and that's the one that was not proven in charge six and that's the commission's own finding that the h s did the test did not appeal everyone accepted the commission's decision about what was not proven and the rule do the very benefit of the doubt on this charge one says you approved for improper people that's perhaps the most dangerous and difficult charge for poor jones charged three a deal with amounts and those were proven and those charges don't say failed to document and those charges don't themselves say conflict of interest as charge one those charges don't say  completely wrong yet strickland was completely wrong with how she analyzed so this case is not about a pattern of fraud this case really deals with a small isolated number of transactions out of the many many many transactions she would have done in a very limited period of time well she was employed at the department she worked there now for several years but let's just look at what happened once he all stricklin started looking into this in two thousand and eight she kept working through the very end of two thousand and ten no other problems no other issues no restriction no extra supervision nothing was done about that let me come to that at the end but those charges were approved and this confusion is caused by the department who has the obligation to do it and let's talk about lackies was part of the case from the get go the administrative law judge focused on it immediately it wasn't hidden from the commission such that they were deprived of an opportunity to decide if in fact case and it's built into the decision and the department had every opportunity to respond to the decision and for those provisions that would have dealt with that so let's look at how this applies with the one leading case  the main case may be dealt with a delay of this kind it was thirty nine to forty four months depending on the charge whereas this case involves a forty eight month delay and of course we do have to prove more than the way we have to prove some kind of actual prejudice well the administrative law judge found deal strickland was extremely over zealous not to sell us his word was overzealous and then weak counted for the circuit court and for this court the number of times in the record people said they don't remember there were over sixty instances of people not remembering me i said ask you this because there is a difference between saying this case has to be dismissed because the delay and talking about it in the hearing is the difference between putting them on notice that we want this entire case dismissed based on your complaint and i don't remember we can sustain you don't remember because of the and other steps so it's inherent in what they do examined the ad and it was an issue raised during the hearing that people were remembering and that these charges went that far back during the hearing itself the department had every opportunity to try and explain and they tried and they used this six years she was investigating and their investigations are confidential but the problem with that is this the  charge before the illinois ethics commission and that's the extent of it no one testified that the department was asked to not pursue discipline the confidentiality provisions they talk about talk about a statutory confidentiality about identifying who called the o u i g s office and filed a complaint so what you're telling us now nothing conflicts with their duty to act no one testifying regarding that and me so it's not a record in this matter wasn't raised not considered as happened you say ok all strickland and i think one of the other supervisors testified we didn't do anything because the oh yeah she was investigated now because they were told to and not and certainly they couldn't point statutory basis for that because it doesn't exist it never has so do you think that the administrative law judge understood that there was a request to just dismiss the entire proceeding based on the delay i think the administrative law judge if you did have to responsibility of the commission to consider whether or not that delay defeated their being cause for discharge that that's a mandatory part of what their jurisdiction includes this went further than just the forty eight months and just sixty times people didn't remember of whom by the way twenty five were killed strickland and seventeen were from the only id investigator himself who was principally relied on who couldn't even remember whose link card supposedly with shoes to buy the cookie cakes that are the initial charge and you know became the impetus for this investigation so to make said if there's an analysis based on recollection latchkeys becomes an important issue and the commission beauty it is important but reached the wrong conclusion and i believe abused  discretion yes to that so it wasn't just any action but it was deliberately allowing jones to continue working where there apparently were never any more problems allowing her to transfer and by the way there is no restriction on communicating disciplinary permission from one agency to another in fact that's why all of the agencies do personnel through the department of central management services there's a central repository of that kind of information and certainly the concerns about this never rose for the two years after so just why you you here to ask about was jones even aware of the interview while she was interviewed in two thousand and ten and she was allowed to work for two years and she was never on notice that she should have been gathering documentation so that she could defend herself against the kind of efforts of the manifest weight of the evidence obviously if there's disputed evidence on this for it's going to give you procreate deference under that standard charge one is extremely vague about who in self contradictory but when we look especially at charges three through three a through g though the ones that were found proven under the rules these violations have to be specific and they have to be treated as distinct from the generalized one charge one and when you do that those charges a were proven the commission found those charges are specific including any documentation or approval process ok so you were asked to put the conflict in charge one which is much more  there was not a case no made but then earlier when i asked you about the case no allegation you said something about charge by the navy and that it had not been proven but do you agree that the administrative law judge did find that was y for j b b b's daughter and jones this person it's not a charge that charges documentation charge five does and we have the express finding of the commission unchallenged in court or here that that charge wasn't proven but we destroy others will late stu approving that amount of money for that recipient and that's how the department should be held they need to file the charges based on what they intended to prove they did file a charge saying improper documentation and they lost that one they thought they were trying to prove that an improper amount was approved and they didn't put on evidence to show that  focused their case and charge one that she was in a close enough relationship with some of these people and i let my written brief deal with that were time about people that she worked with coles now adrian birch was a man she had  but the decision for discharge if i can just conclude then in fact does meet the standard did it's arbitrary because it is unrelated these incidents are not only each individually small collectively they're small and it can't be considered that these are so monumental that without prior discipline without the progressive discipline that's required by the personnel code that you would fire someone when  continue working for a year and a half after undertaking this investigation without testifying that she ever restricted or imposed any other supervision on her or took any steps towards a discipline she allowed toward jones to assume that this was not significant her interview in two thousand and ten leads to a two year old l a she doesn't think anything of it and then thank god i'm away from bad agency and now i'm working for a new one and at the new one she's engaged in no misconduct has no access to these kinds of improper approvals and her jobs unrelated to that so with no amounts of money being awarded improperly we've got some bad judgment is the best that we can characterize and support charge one but we can't support the charge three subparts at all and we're talking despite the fact that there's no been no previous discipline and good cause for this year he said all of the legally correct words for this but it's not borne out even by his own findings because most there's conflicting testimony but there's testimony that she supposedly admitted getting sodas for her children from charming poindexter at the grocery store line she denied the case even if you believe well look at the circumstantial evidence it's enough to reach preponderance because how would it get there even if you do that that's what we're talking about a lot of orlean consistent with saying this is substantial by  about the conflicts i mean that's the whole purpose if you have someone coming in seeking benefits and you have been listed on your emergency contact or more your dating their son or he's living with you he's coming in for benefits we shouldn't that that goes to proving charge one and then the question is is that enough out of seventeen charges with the most serious ones being expressively found not proved and with the amounts not being wrong that it simply cannot be that she could work for this long be allowed to transfer and that they claim that these are so ensure mandible are what are otherwise us five months prior to her first to the first time she was interviewed by the best years jones talks a lot about our challenges the way in which the charges were written and then the way in which the ael today organized his conclusions of law but jones every rule that jones was found to have broken shoes charged with violating the rules for five and six jones had notice of in the state of discipline and went through an clarified that the rules that are alleged to have been violated in charges four five and six applies to the people who are listed in charge three there and dale jr checked to make sure that jones was following that that was going on and so when the ale jade shows in his conclusions of law to organize these findings by the individuals in charge three rather than the rule thirty fourth or six he merely made jus stylistic decision an organizational decision because he thought it would be easiest to present his findings and that matter it doesn't change what bakshi lead jones was found to have done and what rules she was bounce and i guess lastly jones are you that the t h s or the department could have i guess brought these charges sooner without violating any rules of confidentiality or that  like that but just because they could have doesn't mean that they necessarily shit that there was anything wrong with waiting until the investigation was over to see if these allegations were substantiated by evidence and and and to the extent she argues that she was