{
  "id": 1596913,
  "name": "ALLEN W. RIVLIN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. CIVIL SERVICE BOARD OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER RECLAMATION DISTRICT OF GREATER CHICAGO et al., Respondents-Appellees",
  "name_abbreviation": "Rivlin v. Civil Service Board",
  "decision_date": "1997-06-05",
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    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "ALLEN W. RIVLIN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. CIVIL SERVICE BOARD OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER RECLAMATION DISTRICT OF GREATER CHICAGO et al., Respondents-Appellees."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "PRESIDING JUSTICE WOLFSON\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThe Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (the District) sought the discharge of one of its employees, Allen Rivlin. After a hearing before the District\u2019s Civil Service Board (Board), Rivlin was fired. On administrative review the firing was upheld by a judge of the circuit court of Cook County. We affirm the trial judge.\nThe incident that gave rise to the firing took place after a hearing before the Illinois Industrial Commission on Rivlin\u2019s pending worker\u2019s compensation case against the District. Rivlin, 5 feet 11 inches in height and weighing 215 pounds, approached a District lawyer, Maureen Whalen, in the State of Illinois building. In what was described as a threatening tone of voice, Rivlin said to Whalen: \"I don\u2019t make threats, I do.\u201d Whalen testified that she was aware of Rivlin\u2019s history of violence. Before the incident she had reviewed some of Rivlin\u2019s pending lawsuits, as well as police and hospital reports. One report told of a violent altercation between Rivlin and his neighbor where Rivlin purportedly used a blackjack.\nThe Civil Service Board found Whalen\u2019s fear of Rivlin was reasonable and that \"employees of the District are entitled to a work place that is free of threats of violence, even when such threats are veiled and ambiguous.\u201d\nAffirming the Board, the trial court held the record supported a finding that Whalen was in \"danger for her personal safety.\u201d The trial court then concluded that the firing was an appropriate sanction. A warning or a suspension, the trial court said, \"makes no sense\u201d when fellow employees are placed \"in fear for their life, their safety, their property.\u201d\nConsidering the agency\u2019s factual findings as prima facie true and correct, as we must, there is no reason to believe those findings were against the manifest weight of the evidence. See Yeksigian v. City of Chicago, 231 Ill. App. 3d 307, 310, 596 N.E.2d 10 (1992). An administrative agency\u2019s decision is not contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence and must be sustained on review unless the opposite conclusion is clearly evident. O\u2019Boyle v. Personnel Board, 119 Ill. App. 3d 648, 653, 456 N.E.2d 998 (1983).\nOnce we determine the agency\u2019s findings of fact are correct, we then decide whether those findings support cause for the discharge. See Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities v. Civil Service Comm\u2019n, 85 Ill. 2d 547, 550-51, 426 N.E.2d 885 (1981). We agree with the Board and the trial court. They do.\nRivlin\u2019s reliance on People v. Floyd, 278 Ill. App. 3d 568, 663 N.E.2d 74 (1996), is misplaced. That was a criminal case, the standard more demanding. \"Cause\u201d in this setting has been defined as \"some substantial shortcoming which renders the employee\u2019s continuance in office in some way detrimental to the discipline and efficiency of the service and which the law and sound public opinion recognize as good cause for his no longer, holding the position.\u201d Kreiser v. Police Board, 40 Ill. App. 3d 436, 441, 352 N.E.2d 389 (1976), aff\u2019d, 69 Ill. 2d 27, 370 N.E.2d 511 (1977).\nThe reasons for discharge here, unlike those in Kreiser, are not \"so trivial as to be unreasonable or arbitrary.\u201d Kreiser, 40 Ill. App. 3d at 441. The facts here more closely resemble an employee\u2019s acts of violence that resulted in discharge in Yeksigian. There was nothing arbitrary or unreasonable about the Board\u2019s decision to discharge Rivlin.\nCONCLUSION\nThe trial court decision affirming the Board\u2019s discharge of the appellant is affirmed.\nAffirmed.\nMcNAMARA and CERDA, JJ., concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "PRESIDING JUSTICE WOLFSON"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Gerald A. Goldman, Arthur R. Ehrlich, and Jonathan C. Goldman, all of Law Offices of Goldman & Ehrlich, of Chicago, for appellant.",
      "Michael G. Rosenberg, Robert L. Abraham, and James J. Zabel, all of Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Law Department, of Chicago, for appellees."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "ALLEN W. RIVLIN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. CIVIL SERVICE BOARD OF THE METROPOLITAN WATER RECLAMATION DISTRICT OF GREATER CHICAGO et al., Respondents-Appellees.\nFirst District (4th Division)\nNo. 1\u201496\u20143055\nOpinion filed June 5, 1997.\nGerald A. Goldman, Arthur R. Ehrlich, and Jonathan C. Goldman, all of Law Offices of Goldman & Ehrlich, of Chicago, for appellant.\nMichael G. Rosenberg, Robert L. Abraham, and James J. Zabel, all of Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Law Department, of Chicago, for appellees."
  },
  "file_name": "0857-01",
  "first_page_order": 877,
  "last_page_order": 879
}