Appeals court overturns county judge’s ruling, upholds Lorain firefighter’s resignation

Joe Colon

LORAIN — An appeals court has sided with the city of Lorain in a long legal fight over whether former Lorain firefighter Joe Colon was improperly pressured to resign nearly four years ago.

Monday’s decision from the 9th District Court of Appeals overturns a 2014 ruling by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Miraldi, who determined that Colon was coerced into resigning by then Safety-Service Director Robert Fowler.

At the time of his May 2012 resignation, Colon was being investigated for working three hours as a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic on Dec. 23, 2010, a day he had called off so he could go with his daughter while she received a tonsillectomy.

Colon later testified during an arbitration hearing that while he was at the hospital, one of the nurses there told him, “While you’re here, you might as well work,” and Colon clocked in and did some work before going into the operating room with his daughter.

Robert Fowler

Fowler said during his testimony in the arbitration hearing that Colon was allowed to take sick leave for his daughter’s surgery, “But one cannot work another job when they’re off on sick leave.”

In a May 7, 2012, meeting Colon denied he had ever worked another job while on sick leave, but the next day Fowler received paperwork from the Cleveland Clinic indicating Colon had worked the day of his daughter’s surgery.

Fowler then told Colon that he could potentially face a theft in office charge and rather than risk prosecution and the potential loss of his nursing license, Colon choose to resign.

An Avon Lake police investigation into whether Fowler coerced Colon into resigning and whether Colon committed theft in office was closed without either man, both of whom refused to speak with investigators, being charged.

Colon attempted to reclaim his old job through the Lorain firefighters union, but an arbitrator sided with the city. The union appealed to Miraldi, who wrote in his decision that Fowler had “ambushed” Colon and that the threat of criminal charges was enough to have made Colon’s resignation involuntary.

The appeals court said that while it was obvious Miraldi disagreed with the arbitrator’s conclusions and decision, that wasn’t enough to overturn the arbitrator’s ruling because “it was not unlawful, arbitrary, or capricious.”

Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said he was pleased by the appeals court’s decision.

“I thought we were on solid footing,” he said.

Colon’s attorney, Kenneth Stumphauzer, said he hadn’t read the ruling and couldn’t say whether his client would want to take the matter to the Ohio Supreme Court.

“That’s unfortunate, but I still think we’re right,” he said of the decision.

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