Ex-lawmaker files second suit against city alleging wrongful termination

By Steve Green

Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 | 2:02 p.m.

Former state legislator and city of Las Vegas employee Wendell Williams has filed a new wrongful termination lawsuit against the city -- just days after a lawsuit from 2005 alleging the same thing was dismissed.

On Feb. 2, Clark County District Court Judge Michael Villani dismissed Williams' December 2005 lawsuit, agreeing with the city that the five-year rule for prosecuting such cases had expired in December.

Williams' attorney, Lawrence Semenza, said during the Feb. 2 hearing that a city attorney in April 2010 had verbally agreed to waive the five-year rule. But Philip Byrnes, an attorney for the city, said no one from the city had signed such a stipulation.

Villani dismissed the suit without prejudice, meaning it could be filed again.

Records show delays in bringing the case to trial in part were attributed to Semenza being unable to contact Williams.

In March 2010, he filed a motion to withdraw as Williams' attorney in part "due to the lack of communication between plaintiff and counsel." Semenza said in court papers he had made several calls to Williams and left several voice messages, but they weren't returned.

And in court papers filed in May 2010, Semenza said Williams had been absent from Las Vegas and had been unable to participate in depositions.

Nevertheless, Semenza later withdrew his motion to stop representing Williams.

The attorney said he had learned that Williams' wife, Zelda, had been diagnosed with a serious illness and "his non-response was only a consequence of personal priorities, not a lack of participating in the deposition process."

The new suit filed last week covers the same ground as the 2005 lawsuit.

Williams' suit says that while employed by the city as an administrative officer in the Department of Neighborhood of Services from 2001 through 2003, he also served in the Legislature.

Williams' suit says he and the city agreed to a revised work schedule during the 2003 legislative session, but discrepancies later arose over his use of a city cell phone and his timecard and he was fired on Dec. 1, 2003, from the job paying $75,182 per year.

The suit alleges Williams had previously agreed to reimburse the city for alleged overpayments in pay and for a portion of his city cell phone bill; and he had signed a "Last Chance Agreement" with the city in which he would remain employed subject to no further violations.

Because he had done these things, the city's firing of him amounted to a breach of contract and unlawful termination, his lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says that while serving as an assemblyman, Williams was contacted by the City Manager's Office and individual city council members to advocate for or oppose legislation affecting the city.

At one point he says he was contacted by then-Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald and asked to oppose legislation proposed by the State Treasurer that would affect her husband's employment with the State Treasurer, the lawsuit says.

After her husband lost his job with the State Treasurer, Boggs McDonald "turned against Williams," the lawsuit said.

"It was after this time that the allegations of Mr. Williams' misconduct intensified," the lawsuit said.

In 2006, the city attorney's office responded to the 2005 lawsuit, denying the allegations of wrongdoing and arguing Williams had no case since he was an at-will employee.

With the filing of the new lawsuit, city attorneys will again have the opportunity to argue that the statute of limitations for his claims has expired. Williams, in the meantime, has been consulting for and working with Las Vegas-area nonprofits.