Opinion ID: 169583
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did Telluride's old or new policies create a constitutionally-protected interest in continued employment?

Text: At-will employees lack a property interest in continued employment. Bishop, 426 U.S. at 345 n. 8, 345-347, 96 S.Ct. 2074. Under Colorado law, an at-will employee generally may be discharged at any time without cause or formal procedure. Johnson v. Jefferson County Bd. of Health, 662 P.2d 463, 471 (Colo.1983) (en banc). [T]he traditional rule with respect to local government employees has been that: `[L]ocal government employees hold their posts at the pleasure of the proper local government authorities and can be dismissed without cause, in the absence of restrictions or limitations provided by law.' Fremont RE-1 Sch. Dist. v. Jacobs, 737 P.2d 816, 820 (Colo.1987) (en banc). Darr asserts that the old policies created a constitutionally-protected property interest in his employment. But Darr cannot point to any provision in the old policies that would confer such an interest. His argument that the old policies confer continued-employment rights upon full-time workers is unavailing, since the policies define full-time merely as an employee who served a six-month probationary period and who now works forty hours per week. Appx., Vol. II, at 479. There is no evidence in the policies or otherwise that completing this six-month probationary period transformed a Telluride employee from an at-will employee into a tenured employee. Indeed, the old policies expressly disavow the existence of any contractual relationship between the Town and its employees. Id. at 469. Darr has failed to identify any fact or reason why he does not fall within Colorado's traditional rule that local government employees are employed at-will. Darr's position that the new policies created a property interest in continued employment is similarly unpersuasive. The new policies state in great detail that Town employees are employed at-will and that the policies do not create an employment contract. Appx., Vol. I, at 121, 122, 132. Darr's unreasonable position that he thought at-will meant for cause  notwithstanding the new policies' clear definition of the term at-willis insufficient to raise a genuine dispute of material fact, making it appropriate to decide as a matter of law whether the new policies created a property interest in continued employment. We also reject Darr's argument that Telluride's chief marshal created a policy and custom of terminating marshals only for cause. When Telluride fired Darr, the operative policies made clear that Darr was an at-will employee regardless of how Telluride handled his termination: [e]mployment with the Town is terminable at-will. Any employee may be discharged with or without cause, at the sole discretion of and upon notice from the Town Manager. In most cases, however, dismissal will occur upon a written Notice of Dismissal . . . detailing the circumstances prompting the disciplinary action. . . . Id. at 132. As explained above, the policies' admonition that [n]othing in these policies is intended to modify the Town's at-will employment policy, id. at 121, underscores the policies' clear effect: Telluride could terminate employees without cause, even though in most cases Telluride would notify an employee why he or she was being fired. To be sure, our precedent supports the proposition that a town's conduct may negate the express disclaimers in its employment manual, thereby creating a disputed fact as to whether the town and its employees' mutual understandings created a property interest. See, e.g., Kingsford v. Salt Lake City Sch. Dist., 247 F.3d 1123, 1132 (10th Cir.2001) (finding such a disputed fact in the procedural due process context). But again, there is no evidence that this occurred here. Although the chief marshal testified that he had never fired anyone without causewhy would [he] want to . . ., he asked rhetorically in his depositionthe policies unequivocally explain that Darr was an at-will employee regardless of how Telluride handled his termination. The chief marshal followed this part of the handbook exactly as Darr could have expected. As a matter of policy, Telluride persuasively argues that we should not require it to randomly fire employees to maintain its clearly explained at-will employment policy. Darr's proposed rulethe mere fact that the chief marshal terminated five employees for cause negates the Town's express policy that employees are employed at-will regardless of how they are terminatedwould play havoc with Telluride's relationship with its employees. Telluride would have the perverse incentive to randomly fire its employees without cause in an effort to maintain its at-will employment policy and avoid lawsuits like this one (a dilemma for Telluride because this effort would potentially expose it to even more liability). Accordingly, we hold that Darr did not have a property interest in continued employment with Telluride.