The Texas Supreme Court is forcing the City of Fort Worth to go to trial or settle up with the police chief it fired.
Without comment, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider its earlier ruling in the wrongful termination suit brought by former Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald meaning the case must go to trial or be settled.
Fitzgerald served as police chief of Fort Worth from 2015 until the time he was fired in May of 2019.
Fitzgerald claims the city terminated him because he disclosed the city’s illegal practices involving access to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Systems database, according to court papers.
“On May 20, 2019, immediately before a scheduled meeting between Fitzgerald and the FBI, City Manager David Cooke and Assistant City Manager Jay Chapa informed Fitzgerald he was being terminated. Cooke and Chapa allegedly offered Fitzgerald the option of resigning and accepting a cash settlement in exchange for his silence, but only if he accepted the offer on the spot. Chapa told him that if he rejected their offer, the City would terminate him "with cause" and "tie him up in litigation for six years." Fitzgerald rejected the offer, and the City held a press conference that day to announce his termination,” a court opinion said.
The Supreme Court initially declined to hear the case in June. Today’s ruling exhausts remedies to get the suit dismissed before trial. The attorney representing Fitzgerald hopes for a setting by early next year. He says the former chief is not interested in settling.
“Doctor Fitzgerald wants his job back as chief of the Fort Worth Police Department,” said Stephen Kennedy. “I don’t see the city doing that without a fight. It’s going to take a court order to get his job back. But he will return.”
Fitzgerald, who is presently the police chief in Waterloo, IA could not be reached for comment.
In an e-mail to KRLD news, an assistant Fort Worth city attorney said “The City does not have a comment, at this time, about the Texas Supreme Court’s action today.”
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