East Point’s former city manager has filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging it wrongfully terminated him because he was disabled.
The lawsuit filed by Reggie Taylor alleges the city violated his rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The suit says Taylor should be returned to his old job, provided lost wages and awarded unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Corliss Lawson, the city attorney for East Point, declined comment Saturday when asked about Taylor’s lawsuit.
Taylor, the former executive director of the Marietta Redevelopment Corp., was hired as East Point’s city manager in November 2012, but soon after he took his new job he became severely ill.
Taylor was hospitalized for three weeks, during which he went into a coma and suffered acute liver failure, his lawyer, Larry Pankey, said Saturday. Taylor also was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract.
After his release from the hospital in April 2013, Taylor returned to work on a reduced schedule, the suit says.
By early July 2013, however, members of the City Council expressed dissatisfaction with Taylor because he was not working full days and was difficult to reach, the lawsuit says.
On July 24, 2013, the East Point council fired Taylor during a specially called meeting. At the time, the city declined to publicly discuss the reasons behind Taylor's forced departure.
However, Mayor Earnestine Pittman informed Taylor of the city’s reasoning in a letter that was hand-delivered to Taylor the day he was fired, the lawsuit says.
Pittman told Taylor the city manager’s job required “full-time attention and full-time attendance at work. Indeed, the job is the most important one in this city.”
Allowing Taylor to continue to work on a limited schedule would “impose an undue hardship on the city,” Pittman wrote.
Taylor’s lawsuit alleges that the city terminated him because his lawyer had contacted the city to seek an accommodation of Taylor’s work schedule because of his illnesses.
Before firing Taylor, the city had not reviewed his work history, “which substantiates that he has performed the duties of city manager in the past. … The evidence revealed that the (city) simply concluded that (Taylor’s) medical history would limit him from performing his job.”
The City Council also apparently did not know that by the time it voted to terminate Taylor he was already back to working full-time, Pankey said.
“They forced a guy out for being sick and not coming to work, even when that wasn’t true,” Pankey said. “It’s terrible the way they treated him.”
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