Elizabeth School Board must pay wrongly fired lawyer damages, appellate panel rules

An appellate panel ruled Elizabeth’s School Board must pay roughly $260,000 in damages after findings its in-house counsel was improperly fired midway through a three-year contract.

The school board fired Kirk Nelson after he was arrested in April 2013 as part of an investigation into the school board’s administration of the National School Lunch Program.

The body received several state and federal subpoenas on its administration of the program in 2011 and 2012 that led to criminal charges against several of its members.

Nelson told the court he was arrested because he failed to produce a document in response to a subpoena.

He was placed on leave after notifying the district’s superintendent and was charged, in December 2013, with a count of conspiracy, two counts of official misconduct, and one count each of tampering with public records, tampering or fabricating physical evidence and hindering apprehension or prosecution.

The board fired him that same month, when Nelson had 18 months left on his contract, which was then still worth $273,546.88 in salary.

The attorney’s contract said he must be fired for cause. Its provisions said he could be fired for a conviction on a felony or other crime “involving moral turpitude,” gross negligence or intentional misconduct or refusal to comply with reasonable directions from the board.

Nelson had difficulty finding work after the firing, and he eventually settled by a prisoner re-entry program in 2015 to clean vent hoods, grease traps and grease exhaust hoods for $13 an hour.

A jury cleared him of the charges and sued the school board for breach of contract and promissory estoppel, claiming he was due back pay. The trial judge agreed, finding Nelson committed no separable offense.

On appeal, the board argued the contract was unenforceable and charged state law precluded an award for damages. The appellate panel disagreed, charging lawyer-employees were entitled to the same protections from bad-faith discharges as other employees.

Law.com was first to report the ruling.