Court affirms utility manager's firing

Warren McConkey was dismissed by Flathead Electric in February 2002

The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with District Judge Stewart Stadler that a former manager's suit against Flathead Electric Cooperative was without merit.

The high court affirmed Stadler's decision to dismiss the lawsuit filed by former general manager Warren McConkey.

McConkey was hired March 16, 1988. He was fired Feb. 13, 2002.

By then, according to court documents, FEC had acquired PacifiCorp for $110 million in 1998, under McConkey's direction. FEC then suffered financial deficits of $2 million in 1999 and $1.2 million in 2000, mostly because of some power contracts associated with the deal. Its electrical power costs increased from $40,000 to $840,000 a month, causing rate increases to customers of as much as 29 percent in April 2001.

McConkey eventually was terminated by a unanimous vote of the board. McConkey sued for wrongful discharge, claiming he was terminated without good cause, in violation of state law and FEC personnel policies.

He also alleged that he was libeled by board member James Malone and others who published in newspapers statements about McConkey that he said were untrue and exposed him to contempt and ridicule.

He asked for wages, penalties, attorney fees, and actual and punitive damages.

Stadler threw out McConkey's claims.

"When you make a management decision to buy PacifiCorp … and when it turns out to be wrong, that's where the buck stops," Stadler said.

The libel decision was a closer call, he said, but the judge found that in his position as general manager, McConkey was practically a public figure and so was subject to public criticism.

McConkey appealed to the Supreme Court on several grounds.

In a decision written by Justice John Warner, the high court upheld Stadler's rulings on every issue McConkey raised.

Among them was whether FEC should have had to pay McConkey 100 percent of his accrued personal time instead of the 95 percent it paid him, whether a legally defined "good cause" existed for firing McConkey, and whether the co-op violated its personnel policies in firing him.

Also, the court ruled that Malone did not libel McConkey and that he is not entitled to compensation for emotional distress.

The court didn't go as far as Stadler did in finding that no statements made publicly about McConkey constituted libel.

Although Stadler said McConkey could be considered a public figure, the Supreme Court found there were no defamatory statements made about him, so the court didn't have to consider whether he was a public figure or whether the statements were accurate.

The high court did not find evidence that McConkey suffered severe emotional distress because of the FEC's actions, even though he said he sought counseling to deal with his "loss of self-esteem and self-worth."

McConkey served in a managerial position with a utility company serving thousands of customers, the court noted.

"One holding such a position must be willing to accept some public criticism regarding his or her job performance when rates rise dramatically," the ruling says.

The stress McConkey said he suffered "does not rise to that level which a reasonable man, normally constituted, in McConkey's position, would be unable to adequately cope with."