Appeals court upholds LU employee's 2010 firing

Lincoln University didn't fire Theresa Smith in 2010 because of her race, a three-judge panel of the Missouri appeals court in Kansas City ruled Tuesday - upholding a Cole County jury's verdict in July 2015, after a six-day trial.

Smith, a 32-year LU veteran who had been an administrative assistant in LU's Cooperative Extension program, sued LU's curators and Steven Meredith, then-dean of LU's School of Agriculture, claiming her September 2010 termination was racially motivated because she is African American.

However, Lincoln countersued, the appeals court noted, alleging Smith had committed fraud by failing to accurately report when she used her paid leave.

The court pointed to the trial evidence that Smith worked for Yvonne Matthews, an African American woman who was the Extension program's interim director.

"Besides concerns over Smith's job performance and insubordination, her termination was based on concerns that she had failed to truthfully report her usage of paid leave," the appeals court wrote, explaining the process Matthews had used in 2009 to compare leave requests submitted to her with the final reports produced by Lincoln's computer system.

During the 2015 trial, the appeals court reported, "In addition to the problems with Smith's leave records, Matthews testified to Smith's persistent performance issues, including chronic tardiness, absenteeism, failure to complete work and insubordination. Smith's performance problems had become so severe that, separate from the leave issue, Matthews had asked Meredith to remove Smith from her department."

In her appeal, Smith raised several procedural issues in the way Circuit Judge Dan Green handled the trial.

However, the appeals court ruled in an 18-page judgment, Green didn't do anything that affected the trial overall or resulted in a wrong verdict by the jury.

The judges also determined their opinion would have no value as a precedent for other cases, so it isn't a "published" opinion generally available online.

However, as in similar instances, the court's ruling was shared only with the parties and Green - who provided a copy to the News Tribune.