Judge reverses $77K jury verdict for police chief who quit job to accept city's soon-rescinded offer
A jury awarded Eric Johnson nearly $77,000 in August. Because he quit his job as a police chief in Minneota, Minnesota, after entering into an oral contract to serve as police chief of Cold Spring-Richmond, he was entitled to damages when the job offer was withdrawn before he could even start work, the jury found.
But a Stearns County judge has now reversed the jury verdict, finding that all the requisite elements to satisfy a promissory estoppel case weren’t satisfied, the St. Cloud Times reports.
Although he relied on the contract to his detriment, Johnson knew that the city council had to approve the offer made to him by a top official. Plus, there was no need for him to resign so quickly from his Minneota job, and the evidence doesn’t show that he made any effort to withdraw his resignation and regain his old job once the new one fell through, said Judge John Scherer. Hence, Johnson’s reliance on the job offer wasn’t reasonable.
“It is hard to argue that the court should step in and enforce the promise to prevent an injustice when (Johnson) himself could have sought to prevent it,” the judge wrote. “It begs the question of whether there even is an injustice.”
Earlier Marshall Independent and St. Cloud Times stories provide additional details.
Hat tip: KVSC.
