Fifty weeks after Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce ordered the Columbia Police department to reinstate Officer Rob Sanders "as if he had never been terminated," a state appeals court panel told Sanders he has to fight for his job in another court proceeding.
A three-judge panel of the court's Kansas City District ruled Tuesday that Joyce's Feb. 23, 2015, order was based on the wrong legal standard - that Sanders' case had been handled as a "contested" case when it should have been a "noncontested" one.
The difference involves the way the city handled its review of Sanders' job and the incident that led to his firing, the court explained in a 13-page opinion written by Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer.
In 2011, Sanders shoved a man in a holding cell into a wall, injuring the man and requiring him to be hospitalized.
The city released a video of the incident, and it has been broadcast numerous times by Mid-Missouri TV stations.
A 39-page internal affairs investigation recommended complaints against Sanders for violating department regulations be determined as "unfounded."
Police Chief Kenneth Burton ignored those findings and recommendations, terminating Sanders' employment, effective Sept. 21, 2011.
While Sanders appealed, the Personnel Advisory Board (PAB) recommended Sanders be fired by a 4-2 vote.
City Manager Mike Mathes fired the officer and, in January 2014, Sanders challenged his termination in the Cole County court under a state law authorizing a state agency review.
Joyce ruled early last year Sanders' firing was not supported by competent and substantial evidence and was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable; and an abuse of discretion."
Pfeiffer noted Missouri's Administrative Procedures Act defines a "contested case" as "a proceeding before an agency in which legal rights, duties or privileges of specific parties are required by law to be determined after hearing.'"
But the appeals court rulled Columbia's City Code didn't require the hearing to be "an exclusive record to which the decision maker was limited in arriving at a final decision." Instead, the final decision-making authority was up to the city manager's discretion.
The ruling noted the Columbia PAB's hearing "was somewhat formal" because each party had a lawyer who examined and cross-examined witnesses.
"Although Sanders received an evidentiary hearing before the PAB, that portion of Sanders's grievance procedure did nothing to determine his legal rights, duties or privileges relating to continued employment," Pfeiffer explained, giving City Manager Mathes full discretion to make a final decision.
Because the trial court and the attorneys treated the case as a "contested" one when it didn't meet the legal criteria, the appeals court sent it back to Joyce "to judicially review the matter as a noncontested case."
In a footnote, the appeals court noted that, in the next proceeding, Joyce isn't required to review the records from Sanders' previous hearing in Columbia but, instead, is "to determine the evidence and give judgment from that evidence."