Department of Vehicle Services v. Illinois Secretary of State Merit Comm'n , 2024 IL App (1st) 211635-U ( 2024 )

2024 IL App (1st) 211635-UNo. 1-21-1635
Order filed May 15, 2024
Third Division
NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the
limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
______________________________________________________________________________
IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
FIRST DISTRICT
______________________________________________________________________________
DEPARTMENT OF VEHICLE SERVICES, ) Appeal from the
SECRETARY OF STATE, STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Circuit Court of
) Cook County.
Plaintiff-Appellee, )
)
v. )
)
ILLINOIS SECRETARY OF STATE MERIT ) No. 21 CH 2587
COMMISSION and TERESA COLEMAN, )
)
Defendants, )
)
(TERESA COLEMAN, )
) Honorable
Defendant-Appellant). ) Raymond W. Mitchell,
) Judge, presiding.
JUSTICE LAMPKIN delivered the judgment of the court.
Justices D.B. Walker and R. Van Tine concurred in the judgment.
ORDER
¶1 Held: The judgment of the trial court, which reversed a decision by the Illinois Secretary
of State’s Merit Commission and reinstated a decision to discharge a Department
of Vehicle Services employee, is affirmed.
No. 1-21-1635
¶2 On May 26, 2021, plaintiff Department of Vehicle Services (Department), part of the
Office of the Illinois Secretary of State (Secretary), sought judicial review of a final administrative
decision issued by the Secretary’s Merit Commission (Commission) on April 21, 2021. The
Commission determined that defendant Teresa Coleman should be suspended for 180 days and
reversed an earlier determination by the Secretary’s Department of Personnel to terminate
defendant’s employment. Upon judicial review, the trial court reversed the Commission’s decision
and reinstated the determination to terminate defendant’s employment.
¶3 For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court. 1
¶4 I. BACKGROUND
¶5 Until August 12, 2020, defendant was employed by the Department as a cashier at a driver
services location on 99th and King Drive in Chicago, Illinois. On August 12, 2020, Stephen J.
Roth, the Director of the Secretary’s Department of Personnel, sent plaintiff a letter notifying her
that she was being considered for discharge and that she was suspended immediately. Defendant
was accused of making a false written or oral report and two different charges of failure to
cooperate and provide truthful answers in an official investigation. After defendant was permitted
to respond in writing, Roth followed up with another letter on September 17, 2020, informing
plaintiff that her employment was terminated the same day. Defendant subsequently appealed to
the Commission and a hearing commenced on February 11, 2021. The Secretary was represented
by two attorneys from the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, while defendant represented
herself pro se. The following is a summary of the evidence from the hearing.
1 In adherence with the requirements of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 352(a) (eff. July 1,
2018), this appeal has been resolved without oral argument upon the entry of a separate written
order.
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No. 1-21-1635
¶6 On June 8, 2020, Derry Pierce went to the Department’s location at 99th and King Drive
to renew his registration for a truck and a motorcycle that he owned. As part of COVID-19
protocols, there was a line specifically for registration renewal where customers did not have to
exit their vehicles. Defendant’s role that day was as a “runner,” which involved going to the
customers in their cars, bringing the customer’s credit card and receipt inside to the cashier to
process the transaction, and bringing the customer’s renewed registration sticker back out to the
car. Defendant approached Pierce, who gave her the renewal card for his motorcycle, driver’s
license and credit card, and verbally told her the license plate number for his truck. Defendant went
inside and returned with Pierce’s renewed motorcycle sticker and informed him that the truck’s
license plate, as described, did not exist. Pierce showed her a photo of the license plate and
defendant went back inside. When she returned, she told him that his plate was expired and he
would have to return the following day to purchase a new one. Pierce maintained that the plate
was not expired, and then he gave defendant his license and credit card and demanded a refund on
“everything,” including the registration for the motorcycle. According to Pierce, defendant
informed him that she could not provide him with a refund for the registration, and threw Pierce’s
belongings into the vehicle. Pierce exited the vehicle and confronted defendant from, according to
him, “10 or 15 feet” away. Pierce demanded a refund again and defendant walked away with the
unsigned receipt for the motorcycle registration.
¶7 Defendant went into the facility’s annex and asked for a manager to assist her. Marla Sims-
Rebeles, an assistant manager, investigated and found Pierce’s plate number in the computer
system and it was not expired. She gave Pierce the renewed registration for the truck and the
receipt. After Pierce signed the receipt for the truck registration, Sims-Rebeles asked for Pierce’s
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No. 1-21-1635
receipt for the motorcycle registration. Pierce informed her that defendant took it. Sims-Rebeles
went to find it and when she returned, she told Pierce that he had already signed it. Pierce examined
the receipt for the motorcycle registration and said that the signature was not his. Sims-Rebeles
voided the transaction for the motorcycle registration and completed a new transaction with a new
receipt for Pierce to sign. According to Sims-Rebeles, defendant was a dependable and reliable
employee who would take accountability for mistakes or wrongdoing.
¶8 Defendant’s statement to the Secretary’s Department of Police was admitted into evidence.
It stated that Pierce shoved the receipt and pen back toward defendant after she informed him that
she could not renew the plate for Pierce’s truck. She stated that the pen must have made contact
with the receipt as she was grabbing it.
¶9 Defendant’s response to Roth’s suspension notice was also admitted into evidence. In it,
defendant stated that she did not write anything on the receipt and that it must have been done by
Pierce because Pierce was “holding the controlled pen and inversely [sic] made the markings as
he was starting to sign and then stopped because he got upset.” Defendant stated, when she told
Pierce his truck registration could not be renewed, he got “loud and aggressive,” and then exited
his car and “got in [her] face.” Pierce, who was a police officer, also produced his badge, which
defendant interpreted as an attempt to intimidate her. She also noted that a typographical error
resulted in her initial belief that Pierce’s truck plate did not exist. Defendant claimed the entire
incident was “fueled by emotions and miscommunication not fraud and forgery.”
¶ 10 Kamilah Kindle, a manager at the 99th and King Drive location, testified that she was
working the cash register on June 8, 2020, and that defendant brought her a signed receipt for
Pierce’s transaction. It was office policy to note if a customer refused to sign a receipt, but that
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No. 1-21-1635
failure to sign a receipt did not invalidate the transaction. No one else handled the receipts for the
day after they were placed in the register and Kindle believed Pierce’s receipt had a full signature
on it rather than an accidental mark. When she compared the signatures on the first receipt for the
motorcycle registration and the receipt for the truck registration, she described them as
“completely different.” She said defendant was a “fine employee” who was not known to violate
policies.
¶ 11 Raymond Mikula, the Chief Deputy Director of Vehicle Services, testified that the
Department’s training for new employees focused in part on handling sensitive information like
credit cards. If a cashier neglects to follow established protocol for credit cards and receipts, they
may be subject to “progressive discipline, up to and including discharge.” He stated that if
protocols for credit cards and signatures are not followed, it would “open the office up to potential
problems with relation to ownership of vehicles,” and “if it’s related to a credit card, we’d be in
breach of contract with the credit card processing company, which would put all of our departments
at risk.” Mikula testified that defendant had only one prior disciplinary incident where she was
given a warning for tardiness.
¶ 12 Gina DiCaro, the Chief Deputy Director of Personnel, testified that the Secretary employs
a progressive discipline policy unless the violation is so severe that progressive discipline would
not be an adequate remedy. However, she explained that progressive discipline is meant to be a
training tool and, in some infractions, it is apparent that a lack of training is not the issue and it is
necessary to discharge the employee. In determining whether an infraction warrants discharge, the
Department looked at the impact the infraction had on the Department and its reputation, and the
impact on the public and the customer. The Department’s Code of Ethical Conduct prohibited
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No. 1-21-1635
making a false report and set out that such an act was subject to discipline up to and including
discharge. DiCaro explained that making a false report could encompass providing false details in
a witness statement, providing false testimony, or signing a credit slip for a customer. She reviewed
defendant’s statement, as well as the receipts in question, and found defendant’s statement to
Department investigators that the mark on the receipt was accidental to be suspect because the
“signature on the credit card receipt has loop and a swirl.”
¶ 13 DiCaro believed that defendant made a false report because the investigation indicated that
defendant signed Pierce’s signature on the credit card receipt. She also believed that defendant
failed to cooperate with an official investigation because she insisted that the signature on the
receipt was an accidental mark made by Pierce. DiCaro did not believe that defendant could be
trusted to follow the Secretary’s rules and Code of Ethics, and that defendant’s actions were the
sort that reflected negatively on the Department and the Secretary. She was of the opinion that
defendant’s actions met the applicable standard for discharge.
¶ 14 No criminal charges were ever filed against defendant, and there were no witnesses who
saw defendant sign or make any marks on the receipt. The receipts themselves were admitted into
evidence. One bore a clearly recognizable signature of “Derry Pierce.” The other receipt contained
markings on the signature line that did not contain any recognizable letters. It was comprised of
three connected and angled pen strokes that traveled up from the signature line, returned to the
signature line, and then up again. The third stroke terminated in a loop that then became a
horizontal line stretching to the end of the signature line. That straight line culminated in a small
hook.
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¶ 15 On March 24, 2021, the hearing officer Richard F. Pellegrino issued a 25-page
memorandum which recommended the termination of defendant’s employment. Twenty-three of
those pages recited Pellegrino’s factual findings from the evidence adduced at the hearing.
Approximately one page of that document was devoted to a section called “Analysis.” All but one
of the paragraphs in the Analysis section focused on the strength of the evidence as to whether the
charges against defendant were proven. The final paragraph in that section read: “Consequently,
the charges of making a false report, failing to cooperate and provide truthful answers during the
course of an official investigation cannot be ignored. The integrity of the Office of Illinois
Secretary of State relative to the public cannot be compromised in any manner.”
¶ 16 On April 21, 2021, the Commission issued its decision. The Commission, “having read and
examined the proofs, oral, documentary and written,” together with “the records and the findings
and rulings” concurred with the hearing officer’s conclusion that the charges against defendant
were proven. However, the Commission found that the charges did not warrant defendant’s
discharge. Instead, the Commission determined that defendant should be suspended for 180 days.
The Commission’s decision did not make any additional factual findings or disagree with any of
the hearing officer’s factual findings. It also did not dispute the hearing officer’s conclusion about
the necessity of safeguarding the integrity of the Office of the Secretary.
¶ 17 The Secretary subsequently filed a complaint for administrative review on May 26, 2021.
That complaint claimed that the Commission’s decision “to reduce [defendant’s] discipline from
discharge to a 180-day suspension [was] arbitrary, unreasonable, detrimental to the discipline and
efficiency of service of the Secretary of State, and public policy providing for the protection of
citizen’s sensitive personal and financial information.”
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No. 1-21-1635
¶ 18 After briefing, in which defendant represented herself pro se, the trial court reversed the
Commission’s decision. It found that the Commission “failed to substantiate its decision with
support from evidence, let alone make any finding inconsistent with the hearing officer’s findings,
as to why the appropriate, warranted level of discipline is a suspension rather than discharge.” The
trial court reasoned that the Commission’s decision was conclusory, and thus arbitrary and
unreasonable. As a result, the trial court reinstated the Department of Personnel’s decision to
discharge defendant and this appeal followed.
¶ 19 II. ANALYSIS
¶ 20 Although it is the trial court’s final judgment that gives rise to this appeal, our role is to
review the decision of the Commission, and not the reasoning of the trial court. Gatz v. Board of
Trustees of Village of Maywood Police Pension Fund, 2019 IL App (1st) 190556, ¶ 22.
¶ 21 The scope of review of an administrative agency’s decision regarding discharge is a two-
step process. Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities v. Civil Service Com’n,
85 Ill. 2d 547, 550 (1981). First, a reviewing court must determine if the agency’s findings of fact
are contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Id. In making this determination, the findings
and conclusions of the administrative agency on questions of fact shall be held to be prima facie
true and correct. 735 ILCS 5/3-110 (West 2020). Here, defendant has not argued that any of the
Commission’s factual findings were against the manifest weight of the evidence.
¶ 22 The second step is to determine whether the findings of fact provide a sufficient basis for
the agency’s conclusion that cause for discharge does or does not exist. Department of Mental
Health & Developmental Disabilities, 85 Ill. 2d at 551. No statutory definition of “cause” exists,
and our supreme court has defined it as “some substantial shortcoming which renders the
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No. 1-21-1635
employee’s 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.” Id. The administrative agency, rather than the reviewing court, is in the best
position to determine the effect of the employee’s conduct on the department. Hermesdorf v. Wu,
372 Ill. App. 3d 842, 852 (2007). Accordingly, the question of whether cause for discharge exists
should be determined by the administrative agency, and that agency’s decision will not be reversed
unless it is arbitrary, unreasonable, or unrelated to the requirements of service. Department of
Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities, 85 Ill. 2d at 551.
¶ 23 This appeal concerns only that second step: whether the Commission’s factual findings
have a sufficient factual basis to support suspension rather than discharge.
¶ 24 Plaintiff argues that this case is like Austin v. Civil Service Com’n. There, a corrections
officer was charged with negligence and improper handling of a contraband incident. Austin v.
Civil Service Com’n, 247 Ill. App. 3d 399, 400-01 (1993). The Department of Corrections issued
a notice discharging the officer, who then requested a hearing. Id. at 401-02. The hearing officer
recommended a 90-day suspension. Id. at 402. The Civil Service Commission rejected that
recommendation and ordered the officer’s discharge. Id. at 403. In doing so, it adopted the hearing
officer’s recommendation “to the extent not inconsistent” with its conclusion that the seriousness
of the officer’s conduct warranted discharge. Id. at 402-03. The commission’s decision stated it
did not concur with the hearing officer’s analysis of the incident. Id. at 403. On judicial review,
the trial court determined that discharge was too harsh of a penalty and remanded the case to the
commission to determine an appropriate penalty. Id. at 403. The commission then imposed an
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additional 90-day suspension in addition to the officer’s original suspension pending discharge.
Id. The trial court subsequently entered a final order and the officer appealed. Id.¶ 25 We affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Id. at 404. We reasoned that the commission’s
decision was conclusory, never explicitly rejected any of the hearing officer’s findings, and did
not make any findings inconsistent with those of the hearing officer. Id. We noted that a “reader
of the commission’s decision is left to divine which portion of the hearing officer’s decision it
found to be inconsistent with its conclusion,” and that the commission’s decision failed to set forth
any facts in its opinion to support its decision to discharge the officer. Id. at 404-05.
¶ 26 Likewise, plaintiff points to Bell v. Civil Service Comm’n, where the Department of
Registration and Education sought the discharge of an employee for falsifying time reports. Bell
v. Civil Service Comm’n, 161 Ill. App. 3d 644, 645 (1987). After a hearing, a hearing officer
recommended a 30-day suspension, but the Civil Service Commission rejected that
recommendation and ordered the employee discharged. Id. at 646. The trial court affirmed the
commission’s decision, but we reversed. Id. at 646, 650. We reasoned that, while the commission
is not required to accept the findings or recommendations of the hearing officer, it is required to
substantiate its decision by setting forth specific findings of fact or conclusions of law in support
of the decision not to follow the hearing officer’s recommendation. Id. at 649-50. We noted,
conversely, there was substantial evidence in the record to support the hearing officer’s “more
reasonable” conclusion that the employee misunderstood how to complete the time reports. Id.¶ 27 Both Austin and Bell are instructive here. Like in Austin, the reader of the Commission’s
decision is “left to divine which portion of the hearing officer’s decisions it found to be inconsistent
with its conclusion.” Austin, 247 Ill. App. 3d at 404-05. The hearing officer here, after making its
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findings of facts, concluded that the integrity of the Secretary cannot be compromised and that
discharge was warranted. It was clear that the hearing officer saw defendant’s signing of the
receipt, and her subsequent denials that she did so, to be serious enough that she could no longer
be trusted with handling customers’ financial information. Nothing about the Commission’s
decision provided any insight as to how or why it disagreed with the hearing officer. To the
contrary, the Commission concurred in the hearing officer’s findings entirely. Clearly, the
Commission believed that the less severe penalty of a 180-day suspension was more appropriate,
but its decision offered nothing to substantiate why. The Commission’s decision did not note any
problems with the hearing officer’s findings or facts that the hearing officer disregarded or weighed
improperly that would explain the departure from the hearing officer’s conclusions. The
Commission was not required to accept the hearing officer’s recommendation, but it was required
to set forth findings of fact and conclusions of law that explain the departure from the hearing
officer. 5 ILCS 100/10-50(a) (West 2020); Bell, 161 Ill. App. 3d at 649-50.
¶ 28 Defendant argues that multiple facts from the hearing testimony support suspension rather
than discharge. The registration renewal transaction did not need a signature to be processed and
Pierce ultimately purchased the registration sticker anyway. Defendant was never charged with a
crime regarding this incident, and her disciplinary record was virtually nonexistent save for one
instance of being warned for tardiness. All of these facts are arguably mitigating with respect to
the seriousness of defendant’s act of signing the receipt. But it must be noted that the two charges
of failure to cooperate or provide truthful answers had nothing to do with the forged signature
itself, and were instead related to defendant’s truthfulness.
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¶ 29 The hearing officer’s report omitted reference to the fact that a signature was irrelevant to
whether the transaction could be processed, and that defendant was not charged with a criminal
offense. The report also contained no discussion of defendant’s lack of disciplinary issues other
than a cursory statement of fact. Evidently, the hearing officer did not believe any of these factors
were enough to outweigh defendant’s apparent dishonesty about signing the receipt, the danger to
the relationships between the Secretary and credit card processing companies, and the overall
effect on the integrity of the Secretary’s office. If the Commission disagreed with that analysis, it
was obligated to explain why. Austin, 247 Ill. App. 3d at 405; Bell, 161 Ill. App. 3d at 650. Without
any explanation of what part of the hearing officer’s findings and conclusions the Commission
found objectionable or incorrect, we can only guess at why the Commission believed suspension
was the appropriate punishment.
¶ 30 It is not our function to inject our own judgment about what is best into this matter, or what
might be our preferred outcome. Our precedent directs us to find that conclusory decisions that do
not set forth facts to support them are arbitrary and unreasonable. Austin, 247 Ill. App. 3d at 405;
Bell, 161 Ill. App. 3d at 650. In this case, the Commission’s failure to explain itself rendered its
decision arbitrary and unreasonable.
¶ 31 Additionally, in one sentence in the appellant’s brief, defendant asks that we alternatively
remand this case to the Commission so that it can provide specificity for its decision. In support
of this, defendant cites only generally to 735 ILCS 5/3-111, which outlines the powers of the circuit
court, and provides no other argument. 725 ILCS 5/3-111 (West 2020). The failure to provide an
argument as to why we should do so is fatal. People v. Oglesby, 2016 IL App (1st) 141477, ¶ 205
(failure to cite authority or articulate an argument will result in forfeiture of that argument on
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appeal). Even if we were to consider the argument that defendant raises for the first time in her
reply brief, the case she cites is distinguishable. Cruz v. Dart, 2019 IL App (1st) 170915, ¶ 60
(remanding to the agency for clarification because there was no administrative finding that
continued employment was detrimental to the agency or that termination was necessary for the
“discipline or efficiency” of the agency). Here, there was clearly such a finding. The hearing officer
concluded that defendant’s actions threatened the integrity of the Department and the Office of the
Secretary––a conclusion the Commission did not challenge or refute.
¶ 32 Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
¶ 33 III. CONCLUSION
¶ 34 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the circuit court.
¶ 35 Affirmed.
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