A trial has been scheduled for Sept. 15-19 in former Baker City Fire Chief Todd Jaynes’ $999,999 civil suit against the city.

Jaynes filed the suit on July 6, 2024.

City Manager Barry Murphy fired Jaynes in early March 2024.

The jury trial would take place in Baker County Circuit Court.

Jaynes is seeking $899,999 in economic damages and $100,000 in noneconomic damages.

Kirk Mylander, an attorney for CIS of Tigard, the city’s insurance provider, filed a motion on Sept. 5, 2024, seeking to dismiss Jaynes’ lawsuit.

Mylander, along with Jaynes’ attorney, Richard Slezak, made arguments on the motion in a hearing before Judge Matt Shirtcliff on Nov. 1, 2024.

Shirtcliff denied Mylander’s motion in a Nov. 12 letter.

The judge set the trial dates during a status check hearing March 24.

Mylander argued, both in his written motion and during oral arguments Nov. 1, that the five-year employment contract Jaynes signed in July 2023, when he was hired as fire chief, was not binding because none of the city councilors in office then was still in office when Jaynes was fired eight months later.

Mylander also contended that even if the contract was binding, the city did not breach its terms. Mylander pointed out that the contract includes a provision allowing the city to fire Jaynes, without cause, so long as it pays severance. The city paid Jaynes $21,129, equal to three months of his salary, as prescribed in the contract.

In a Dec. 29, 2024, filing, in response to a series of questions from the city’s attorney, Slezak wrote that Jaynes did not receive a severance check from the city.

Slezak countered that the 2023 contract is binding, and that Jon France, who was interim city manager when Jaynes signed the contract, misled Jaynes about the possibility of his being fired and thus induced Jaynes to sign the pact.

During the Nov. 1 hearing, Mylander described Jaynes’ lawsuit as “buyer’s remorse.”

“There’s just no basis for him to argue that he was fraudulently misled,” Mylander said.

In the lawsuit, Slezak wrote that Jaynes had objected to the clause stating that he could be fired without cause. Jaynes signed the deal anyway because France told him the clause was a formality and that Jaynes would have a job for as long as France was city manager, and even longer, if he wanted it.

Slezak wrote in the lawsuit that Jaynes, who moved to Baker City from Jerome, Idaho, “intended this to be his last job before retiring and he needed assurance that he would be employed for at least five years to allow sufficient time for his Oregon PERS retirement benefits to vest.”

Shirtcliff, in his letter denying Mylander’s motion for dismissal, wrote that there are “material facts at issue” in the lawsuit and as a result dismissal is not appropriate.

The judge didn’t rule about the validity of Jaynes’ complaint, but rather that those “material facts at issue” are sufficient to allow the lawsuit to proceed to trial.