Appeals court rules Yakima had right to fire officer

YAKIMA, Wash. - The state Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a ruling that the city of Yakima was justified in firing a police officer even though an arbitrator had ruled he should get his job back.

It's the second time the city has won a key decision related to the termination of Officer Mike Rummel.

A three-judge panel from the state appellate court in Olympia issued the ruling.

"The city is obviously encouraged by the ruling. All along that is what the city maintained: that the arbitrator exceeeded his authority," city spokesman Randy Beehler said.

Union attorney Jim Cline did not return a phone message left at his office Thursday afternoon.

Rummel was fired in 2005 over claims that he was insubordinate and had misused his badge to enter a bar while off duty. City officials say those actions violated a last-chance agreement they had put together after Rummel was arrested in 2002 for drunken driving.

First, he called a then-girlfriend, who works at the city's emergency dispatch center, despite an order from a supervisor that he was not to contact her. Second, he showed his badge to a bouncer at a downtown bar.

Union officials countered that the phone call was brief and that Rummel showed the badge only after another friend pointed out that he was a police officer. He said he was there to retrieve a friend.

The appeals judges said the last-chance agreement allowed Rummel to be fired if he violated any of the conditions. Therefore, the arbitrator should not have considered whether the phone call was long enough to constitute a violation, according to the appeals ruling.

The arbitrator also went beyond his authority when he ruled that the firing was part of the dispute over drug testing, the judges found.

Rummel and union officials say Rummel was fired because he became a pawn in police Chief Sam Granato's quest to institute random drug testing.

Granato has denied any retaliation, saying that union officials falsely characterized his comments at a meeting where the Rummel case was discussed.

The state Public Employment Relations Commission has already held that Granato did not fire Rummel as part of the push for drug testing. That ruling has also been upheld by a Thurston County judge.

Rummel filed a lawsuit against Granato and the city last October in U.S. District Court in Yakima.

That case is pending.