A 12-member jury is scheduled to hear jury instructions and closing arguments from the two attorneys Wednesday afternoon, March 19, in a former Baker City firefighter’s $800,000 civil lawsuit against the city and former city manager Jonathan Cannon.

Judge Matt Shirtcliff released the jury after a 45-minute session Wednesday morning in Baker County Circuit Court after hearing testimony from two witnesses called by defense attorney Luke Reese.

Shirtcliff told jurors to return at 1:30 p.m. After closing arguments the jurors will start deliberating.

The trial started Monday morning, March 17.

Morning witnesses

Reese first called Cannon, who also testified on Monday.

Cannon told jurors Wednesday that he decided to fire Bybee in part because his absence — he went on leave in November 2020 after contracting COVID-19 while responding to an emergency call — resulted in a “significant” increase in overtime costs in the fire department as other employees had to fill in. It was also hard for firefighters to take vacation due to the staffing shortfall, Cannon said.

He also testified that based on reports from Bybee’s doctors, there was no timeframe for when Bybee, who suffers from long COVID, might be able to return to work.

“It seemed indefinite that this position would have to be held,” Cannon testified. “That began to weigh heavily on me.”

The city kept Bybee’s job open while he was on leave. He was paid for some of that period but not all.

Cannon fired Bybee on Feb. 7, 2022. Bybee filed the lawsuit in August 2023.

In response to Reese’s question, Cannon said the nature of Bybee’s illness played no role in how the city treated his situation.

Had he been injured on the job in a different way, the city would have handled it the same, Cannon said.

“COVID was a big deal,” he testified.

On cross-examination from Bybee’s attorney, Richard Myers, Cannon said he didn’t recall how soon, after firing Bybee, that the city hired someone to replace him.

Reese then called, as the final witness, Sgt. Wayne Chastain of the Baker City Police Department.

Chastain testified that he worked with Bybee “quite a bit” when police officers and firefighters responded to the same incident.

“I thought he was a good firefighter,” Chastain told jurors.

Reese then questioned Chastain about his evaluation of applications for the police department’s evidence technician, a job that opened just before Bybee was fired and for which Bybee applied in February 2022.

The city did not hire any of the applicants because the evidence technician working then, Lynne Magnuson, didn’t retire for about another year, Chastain said.

He testified that he scored Bybee’s application as 1, the lowest score on a scale of 1 to 5, in the areas of “completeness/neatness,” “experience” and “education.”

Chastain testified that Bybee’s application lacked detail on his education and special skills pertinent to the job. The application didn’t include addresses for Bybee’s references, and there were spelling errors, Chastain said.

Reese displayed the application on a video screen for jurors.

In response to Reese’s question, Chastain testified that he believes it would have been “challenging” to train Bybee for the job based on the application.

Chastain testified that he has subsequently talked with Bybee as a customer at Bybee’s off-road vehicle equipment business in Baker City.

Chastain told jurors that Bybee “has never steered me wrong” as a business owner.