Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994                   TAG: 9406060141
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: |By LESLIE TAYLOR| |STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE RULES SPCA EMPLOYEES NOT FIRED IMPROPERLY

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge has thrown out one of the claims in lawsuits filed by three former Roanoke Valley Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals employees who are trying to get their jobs back.

Tammy Javier, Barbara Jones and Stephanie Dickenson filed lawsuits in February alleging, in part, that they were dismissed for backing a failed attempt to oust Steve Davidson, president of the SPCA board of directors, and other board incumbents in an election last December.

The three were members of the SPCA as well as employees. As members, they claimed, they were entitled to support whomever they wanted, without fear of reprisal.

But Judge Diane Strickland ruled this week that state law doesn't offer redress for their claim that they were discharged in retaliation for their actions.

According to a case she cited in her ruling, the law would protect them only if they were fired for refusing to do something illegal or for exercising a legal right.

Strickland's ruling came a week after a May 24 court hearing.

"What the ruling says is that, assuming these people were fired in retaliation for their supporting other board members, Virginia law does not protect them from that action," said Dennis Brumberg, who is representing the three former employees. "It's a narrow issue, one that no judge has been asked to decide in this context."

Bayard Harris, who is representing the SPCA, said earlier that the hearing involved a "technicality ... [of] whether the case is a matter of public rights or private rights."

"The SPCA is a private, nonstock organization. The SPCA contends that it has the authority to terminate employees at will," Harris said.

Brumberg said the judge still must consider other issues, including whether an SPCA policies-and-procedures manual created a contract of employment between the organization and the former employees- and if so, whether that contract was breached when Javier, Jones and Dickenson were dismissed.

The judge also must consider whether the three are entitled to reinstatement and $350,000 each in damages.

Javier was fired in February from her position as administrator of the SPCA animal shelter. Jones, assistant administrator and humane educator, and Dickenson, adoption counselor, were laid off a day later. SPCA board members said the organization no longer could afford to employ them.

Their dismissals have been a source of controversy for the SPCA. Two weeks before the women filed their lawsuits, a faction of the SPCA membership called for the resignations of Davidson, four other board officers, the chairwoman of the board's Shelter Committee and the shelter's executive director. That call has since quieted.

Since their dismissals, Javier, Jones and Dickenson have formed the Roanoke Valley Regional Humane Society. The three want to open a spay-neuter clinic that offers services at low cost or no cost to help stop pet overpopulation, Javier said Friday.

"Our feelings have always been that with as many animals being put to sleep at the SPCA, someone needs to concentrate on the cause of overpopulation instead of just the results," she said. "We feel that if it's made affordable to people to spay and neuter animals, maybe the cause will be relieved."

Javier said she continues to work as a humane investigator when asked by the League for Animal Protection and other organizations, but she has not found full-time employment. Jones and Dickenson are working at a retail store, Javier said.