Opinion ID: 2263762
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: facts

Text: William Cadorna hired Respondent following his dismissal from the Denver Fire Department (DFD) in 2003. The DFD fired Mr. Cadorna after his immediate supervisor initiated an investigation accusing Mr. Cadorna of stealing a cookbook from a Safeway store while on duty. At the DFD's behest, Mr. Cadorna was later charged with misdemeanor theft in Denver Municipal Court. When a jury could not reach a verdict, the Denver City Attorney's Office dismissed the theft case. [5] At the time of his dismissal, Mr. Cadorna was approximately fifty years old and had worked for the DFD for twenty-seven years. After Mr. Cadorna's discharge, Respondent challenged the dismissal before the Civil Service Commission. The judge in the Civil Service proceedings upheld the dismissal. While the judge found there had not been good cause to believe Mr. Cadorna committed theft while on duty, the judge nevertheless found that state law would not permit Mr. Cadorna to be reinstated. [6] Despite the judge's decision, Mr. Cadorna applied for and received a medical disability retirement from the City and County of Denver (the City). After Mr. Cadorna exhausted all of his remedies in the administrative proceedings before the Civil Service Commission including the appeals process, Respondent filed an age discrimination suit on behalf of Mr. Cadorna against the City in the federal district court: William R. Cadorna v. City and County of Denver, 04-CV-1067-REB-CBS. Respondent sought damages for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and denial of substantive due process. He also sought to be reinstated as a firefighter. Furthermore, Respondent argued the refusal to reinstate Mr. Cadorna based upon a state statute that used age as a criterion violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. In the Civil Service Commission's decision and later in the appellate proceedings, the DFD and the City took the position there had been good cause to terminate Mr. Cadorna even though the Civil Service judge found there was insufficient evidence to justify his dismissal based upon the DFD's claim that he had committed theft. Further, the City claimed Mr. Cadorna had applied for retirement before his dismissal and therefore had voluntarily decided to leave the fire department before the DFD terminated him. Thus, the City argued Mr. Cadorna had not been fired because of his age; he had voluntarily resigned before the City took any action against him. In the proceedings before the Civil Service Commission as well as those in federal court, Respondent vigorously argued Mr. Cadorna should have been reinstated because he had been terminated as a result of DFD's shoddy investigation. Respondent argued the Safeway manager, who signed a criminal complaint charging Mr. Cadorna with theft, did so without knowing the facts and at the behest of Mr. Cadorna's supervisor who had a long-standing grudge against Mr. Cadorna. The same Safeway manager who signed the theft complaint against Mr. Cadorna testified for the City in the criminal court, but failed to disclose evidence that Respondent claimed was exculpatory: a cookbook bearing Mr. Cadorna's name and what appeared to be his badge number on the inside cover was found in the store after Mr. Cadorna claimed to have misplaced it there. Respondent's position was that a clerk gave Mr. Cadorna permission to take a cookbook after Mr. Cadorna told the clerk he had misplaced his cookbook in the Safeway store while on duty and shopping for groceries for the firehouse. The City's position was Mr. Cadorna, at a minimum, obtained the cookbook without permission from someone in authority at the store and did so by improperly using his position as a firefighter to pressure the clerk into letting Mr. Cadorna take a new cookbook without paying for it.