Opinion ID: 204284
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: McDonald as Decisionmaker

Text: McDonald, who was three supervisory levels removed from Schandelmeier, testified that she had very little contact with Schandelmeier during her employment. She did not personally observe Schandelmeier's job performance, and McDonald's office was located off-site. In evaluating Schandelmeier's performance, she relied entirely on information from others, including their oral descriptions of Schandelmeier's performance and documents such as samples of her improperly completed incident reports. According to the employer's version of events, about a week before the J.J. incident, McDonald, Rowland, Williams and Adams met in McDonald's office to discuss Schandelmeier's possible termination. No formal decision was made in that discussion, although McDonald testified that Adams certainly had input, and that the decision ultimately was a joint decision. Even though it was a joint decision and the group did not reach a consensus, McDonald testified, she had decided by July 24th that Schandelmeier should be terminated. On that day, McDonald sent the following e-mail to Rowland under the subject line CAM request, short for Corrective Action Meeting request: Cathleen Schandelmeier has had several ongoing problems at South Shore in the past few weeks that are pretty serious. Andrea [Adams] and Alonzo [Williams] have both had several conversations with her about the various issues. Things are not working out with her and I know she is still within her probationary period. Andrea has already put together a memo regarding the issues and struggles, and I believe that you also have a copy. Because she is non union, and because she is still within her probationary perioddo we have to even schedule a CAM, or can we release her from her duties? If we need to schedule a CAM, please do that as soon as possible. If we don't can you please check with Beka and confirm that we are able to release her? No responsive e-mail from Rowland was introduced into evidence. McDonald also testified that she informed both Williams and Adams of her decision to terminate Schandelmeier sometime between July 24th and August 1st. If McDonald really was the decisionmaker, and if her decision was already made on July 24th, it would be more difficult to conclude that Adams's exhibition of racism on July 31st tainted McDonald's already-made decision to fire Schandelmeier. The most basic problem for the Park District is that the evidence does not point consistently in that direction. McDonald herself described the decision as a joint one (and one in which Adams certainly had input), but the supervisory group had not reached a joint decision about Schandelmeier's employment as of July 24th. Both Williams and Adams testified that they had no idea that Schandelmeier would be terminated until she was actually terminated on August 1st. If McDonald had actually reached a decision before thenespecially the joint decision she described in her testimonythe jury could reasonably infer that she would have informed Schandelmeier's direct supervisorsWilliams and Adams, who supposedly participated in the joint decisionof her decision. Also, the language McDonald used in her CAM request e-mail is not absolute and does not state that any decisionhers or anyone else'shad been made. The jury could have reasonably read McDonald's message as only a request for information in case a decision was made to terminate Schandelmeier. The jury had reasonable grounds for discounting McDonald's testimony that her mind was made up on July 24th and that her mind was the only one that counted. The Park District also attempted to show that McDonald did not know about the J.J. incident until after Schandelmeier's termination. McDonald testified that she had no knowledge of the J.J. incident until after August 1st, and Adams testified that she did not discuss the J.J. incident with anyone on July 31st. But the jury also had Adams's last straw memo, drafted on August 1st and addressed to McDonald, which began with the words per our conversation. Here again, the jury had sufficient evidence from which it could have concluded that, contrary to her testimony, McDonald knew about the J.J. incident before she decided to fire Schandelmeier, and that Adams had decisive influence over that decision.