Although not a judge, the crimes committed by Arbitrator Gary D. Altman, acting as a judge, have cost me my tenured teaching career in Methuen. It is my contention that this criminal was illegally influenced by the Massachusetts Teachers Association ("MTA") to rule against me.
My proof is that no one could possibly be as incompetent as Altman's ruling would prove him to be and the fact that the MTA, which refused to represent me in this arbitration case, was singing the praises of Altman by name in federal court, days before the release of his ruling.
Altman also "congratulated me" at the conclusion of the arbitration hearing for getting another job as a teacher in Lawrence - a fact that was not communicated to him by me and a fact that I believe was shared with him by the MTA to appease his conscience and convince him to rule against me.
It should be noted that such " ex parte" communication (i.e. communication about the case, absent the presence of both parties) is illegal.
These are the reasons why I suspect my teachers' union ("MTA") and not my employer of illegally influencing Altman.
The MTA certainly had a motive. I have a multi-million dollar lawsuit pending against them for breach of its duty of fair representation, negligence, and retaliation.
Since I had already succeeded at two prior evidentiary hearings on the issue of my wrongful termination, it would have made it difficult if not impossible for the MTA to justify its negligent failure to provide me with legal services and arbitration costs to which I was entitled as a paying union member, if I had succeeded for a third time on the merits of my case.
I was fired for reporting an act of workplace harassment via email to 25 specific staff members in Methuen, which the school creatively interpreted as a violation of a prior agreement between me and the previous superintendent.
The school system's personnel manager and superintendent both stated at court-recorded evidentiary hearings that I was fired for sending the email and that I would NOT have been fired if I had not sent it.
These evidentiary hearings were conducted by the Division of Unemployment Assistance and its Board of Review, which both concluded that the email was NOT grounds to fire me.
Even the arbitrator, who would have had to contradict findings that had become final with the failure of Methuen to appeal the unemployment case further, had to concede that the email was not a violation of the prior agreement and that it was not grounds to fire me.
So instead, the arbitrator came up with his own "theory" to justify my dismissal, which he called the school system's "progressive discipline."
This "progressive discipline theory" required the arbitrator to ignore the burden of proof that the school system was legally required to overcome; ignore the fact that I did not have the opportunity to confront the school system's witnesses against me (because none were at the hearing to question); and ignore the pages and pages of well-supported facts and argument contained in my arbitration brief and reply brief, which confirmed the FACT that the school system's "progressive discipline" was nothing more than a paper trail of fraud, baseless allegations, and First Amendment-defying reprimands, generated by six specific staff members and the former superintendent to run me out of the school system.
I refer to the arbitrator's progressive discipline argument as a "theory" because the school system did not even attempt to justify the "other" disciplinary actions against me with either witnesses or evidence that had not already been discredited by me at the hearing and in my post hearing briefs.
The arbitrator's "progressive discipline theory" also required him to disregard item 3 of the "Prior Agreement", which was signed on June 29, 2006 and which unambiguously states:
Mr. Thompson shall not be in violation of this agreement for any actions statements, either orally or in writing, made prior to the execution of this Agreement.
Incredibly the arbitrator accepted the school's absurd claim that this provision would only apply "so long as there were not any future disciplinary actions".
This claim is not any less absurd than an insurance company providing collision coverage "so long as" you do not get in an accident.
I know exactly why this provision was included in the agreement because I wrote it. It was included to wipe the slate clean and prevent the school from ever referencing the baseless paper trail that had been generated over the previous three years to run me out of the school system.
And since the arbitrator admitted that the email was NOT a violation of the prior agreement, then there were not any "future disciplinary actions" to even cite to allege that this provision should not apply.
Ironically, what the arbitrator called "progressive discipline" is my evidence of employer fraud, employer retaliation, workplace harassment, and the "grounds" for my federal court lawsuit against the school system and the MTA - a lawsuit that I made known to the superintendent a month before she came up with her pretext excuse to fire me.
The "issue" before the arbitrator was whether there was just cause under General Law chapter 71, section 42 to dismiss me from my tenured teaching position. Under this law, the school district had the burden to prove that I was dismissed for inefficiency, incompetency, incapacity, conduct unbecoming a teacher, insubordination, or failure on the part of the teacher to satisfy teacher performance standards.
From the list of reasons that a school district can reference to justify the dismissal of a teacher with professional status; "conduct unbecoming a teacher" and "insubordination" were the only reasons even referenced.
With the burden of proof to overcome, the school district did not produce a single first hand witness to testify that I had been "insubordinate" and based its "conduct unbecoming a teacher claim" solely on its opinion that my reporting of workplace harassment to a select group of teachers at the high school was "unbecoming."
The arbitrator himself referred to my behavior as "unbecoming" in his "Decision and Award" with a reference to an arbitration case that called a "pattern of persistent disruptive behavior and clashes with colleagues" unbecoming a teacher.
For this case to apply, it would require that I was actually guilty of "a pattern of persistent disruptive behavior and clashes with colleagues", which I was not!
This conclusion was reached by blindly accepting the school system's unsupported fraud on the arbitrator as fact.
The "school disruptions" that were blamed on me can be counted on three fingers:
(1) I wrote a letter on the corruption occurring in my local union's nomination and
election process and distributed the letter to my fellow union members via faculty mailboxes (which happens to be a protected union activity).A small group of union-connected lunatics at the high school responded to the letterby running around the school to rant and rave to whoever would listen; by stealing the letter from individual faculty mailboxes at the high school; and by falsely accusing me of using school supplies and students to produce and distribute the letter.(2) I faxed a letter to the MTA's regional office, requesting an investigation into
Methuen's nomination and election process (another protected union activity), and I discreetly shared the letter with four union members, who each kept the content of the letter to themselves.The MTA forwarded this private letter to my Union President, Diane Dandreta, who I was suing atthe time and who illegally passed this letter around the school to generate her own disruption in the school setting at my expense.(3) I received an anonymous harassing note in my faculty mailbox and shared the note
and my thoughts on who would write such a note in a private email addressed to 25 teachers.The same group of union-connected lunatics found out about the email and, once again, ran around the school during school hours to rant and rave to whoever would listen or was forced to listen to their nonsense.With the exception of my own union's persistent efforts to slander me with false allegations, which were only a disruption for me, these three incidents represent ALL of the school "disruptions" during my nine plus years at Methuen High School.
I was disciplined and ultimately fired for behavior that pales in comparison to the "over the top" reaction from my enemies, who did not receive so much as a slap on the wrist for their more significant "hand" in the disruptions.
With regard to alleged "clashes with colleagues", I got along quite well with the vast majority of teachers at the high school.
The only people who had a problem with me, for no other reason than because they did not like what I had to say about my union, are the individuals who I call out by name in my email - the same six people who the superintendent questioned exclusively to arrive at her wildly biased opinion of me and my impact on the "atmosphere" at the high school.
The only evidence that the arbitrator required for proof of the lies expressed by the school system was that someone wrote these lies down on paper.
And it was apparently irrelevant to the arbitrator that the majority of these lies were written by the former superintendent, whose character, integrity, and paper trail were not only challenged, but discredited by me at the arbitration hearing and in my post hearing briefs.
The only thing that the principal and superintendent proved at the arbitration hearing, as "first hand witnesses", was that the union president and her five accomplices put on a tear-filled performance for the superintendent to dupe her into believing that their ignorant, malevolent opinion about me represented that of the majority of teachers at the high school.
For the record, I never had a one on one "clash" or "confrontation" with any of these people during my nine years at the high school.
Their irrational hatred toward me was based ENTIRELY on the fact that I sued one of their friends (the union president) and exposed the corruption in our union's nomination and election process.
That is the full extent of what they know about me, my character, and the relationships that I have with other teachers at the high school.
Unfortunately for me, this vocal minority has the ear of the high school and central office administrators in the school system, who incompetently believe whatever these lunatics say to them.
Article XII of the Massachusetts Constitution (which affirms the rights secured by the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment) states that "every subject shall have the right to produce all proofs that may be favorable to him, to meet the witnesses against him face to face, and to be fully heard in his defense."
The school system did not produce a single first-hand witness at the evidentiary hearing to testify because, as I argued at the hearing and in my briefs, there was not a single individual at the high school, who could substantiate the slander being expressed about me without committing perjury.
Altman's due process-defying response to this argument was that the Employer, specifically Jeanne C. Whitten, who became Superintendent just six months before firing me, did not have to produce any firsthand witnesses because her hearsay testimony was good enough.
As argued by Altman in his Decision and Award:
Superintendent was new to the school system and had no prior history with Mr. Thompson, thus her observations were not biased or influenced by past events.
Whether the superintendent was "biased or influenced by past events" is irrelevant since it is a fact that she did not "observe" anything herself or testify to anything herself that supported her decision to fire me.
The superintendent testified to the fact that her negative opinion of me was based entirely on the agenda-driven hearsay conveyed to her by the six people who I call out in my email as my six enemies at the high school.
I do not dispute that the superintendent accurately "parroted" the lies that were told to her, what I take issue with is the fact that these false witnesses were not at the hearing for me to confront under oath.
M.G.L. c. 71, § 42 also required the school district to provide me with the grounds for my dismissal in "sufficient detail".
In the arbitration case of Whittier Regional Voc. Tech. High School v W.R. (AAA # 11 390 2098 95), the arbitrator overturned the dismissal of a long-term teacher with the finding that the district's claim that the dismissal was based upon conduct unbecoming a teacher, insubordination, failure to follow directives and school policy, and knowingly making false statements in documentation regarding students and a parent did not constitute "detailed grounds" for dismissal.
The only "detailed" reason given for my dismissal was the email, which the school creatively called "insubordination, conduct unbecoming a teacher, extreme disruption of the efficiency and effectiveness of the educational process at Methuen High School, and other just cause, including a violation of the terms of an Agreement reached with [me] on June 29, 2006."
Also, pursuant to M.G.L. Chapter 71, Section 42, the school district was the party with the burden of proof to overcome.
In the arbitration case of Hester v. City of Lawrence, the arbitrator noted the absence of first hand witnesses to rule that there was insufficient evidence to warrant [Hester's] termination and ordered him back to work with back pay.
The arbitrator in this case concluded that the presence of first hand witnesses, who the employee could cross-examine, was "a necessary component at the hearing to buttress the city's position."
With a reference to the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects every citizen's right to due process and equal protection under the law, the arbitrator established his "standard" for admissible evidence with his denial of my attempt to submit the findings from two previous evidentiary hearings into evidence, referring to this documentation as "inadmissible hearsay".
What can be verified is that this "standard" was only a restriction for me since the school system's evidence did not include a single exhibit in support of the arbitrator's "progressive discipline" theory that was anything but school-generated "inadmissible hearsay".
Another double standard should be noted here.
On September 27, 2007, at the appeal of the unemployment decision, which was appealed by the "Town of Methuen" after the Division of Unemployment Assistance ("DUA") ruled against them, my attorney referenced the initial disqualification letter for unemployment benefits, where it states that I was discharged because "I continued, after warning, to engage in inappropriate behavior in violation of a June 29, 2006 agreement between [my] work and [my]self."
When the superintendent was asked to explain the violations of the agreement that had occurred prior to my email and produce the "warning" that I had allegedly received for violating that agreement prior to Whitten's notice to dismiss me, the school's attorney jumped in to object and allege that Whitten could not answer these questions with the claim:
I don't think Dr. Whitten can answer any questions about the disqualification for benefits. She didn't author it. It's a decision made by the agency. And the wording is chosen by the agency.
But that did not stop the superintendent and the principal from commenting on numerous baseless warnings and reprimands that I had received and that they had not "authored" at the arbitration hearing.
In fact, the only document with the superintendent's name on it, prior to her dismissal letter, was the notice of intent to dismiss me, which was also signed by the principal, who told me himself that this particular document was authored by the school system's lawyers and not him, when I asked him to explain the lies contained in that particular document at a job fair that we both attended in Lowell.
The school system was allowed to submit whatever it wanted into evidence over my objections while I was precluded from submitting several exhibits into evidence, including the evidence which substantiated some of the fraud contained in the Employer's post-hearing brief.
I was also "muzzled" when I attempted to communicate the school's "double standard" interpretation of "conduct unbecoming a teacher" with a reference to the indiscretions of my own department head, who did not receive so much as a slap on the wrist for his very public arrest in a prostitution sting.
It is self-evident to anyone who examines the briefs and reply briefs submitted by both parties and compares them to the arbitrator's 29-page Decision and Award, that the arbitrator completely disregarded every substantiated argument and rebuttal contained in my 34-page brief and 19-page reply brief and based his findings exclusively on the discredited hearsay and fraud conveyed by the school system's lawyer, Ed Lenox.
I discredited the school system's hearsay "sources" one by one on pages 6-11 of my post-hearing brief and discredited the school-generated paperwork one exhibit at a time on pages 11-24 of the same brief.
A reply brief then became necessary when Attorney Lenox resorted to fraud in his post-hearing brief to slander me.
Arbitrator Altman literally had no other choice but to rule in my favor if he were to have adhered to the law and had based his ruling on the admissible evidence and testimony presented at the arbitration hearing and argued in the post-hearing briefs.
When the American Arbitration Association informed me that they do not hold their arbitrators accountable, I filed a motion on April 25, 2008 to amend my federal court lawsuit to add the arbitrator as a defendant.
This motion was denied by U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock on May 2, 2008 with the claim that I had remedy in state court to hold the arbitrator accountable pursuant to M.G.L. c. 150C.
After reviewing M.G.L. c. 150C § 11 to learn that it gives superior court the power to vacate an award for several reasons upon "application" of a party, I made a trip to Lawrence's Essex Superior Court in person to inquire about the application process pursuant to this specific law.
In response to my request for information regarding M.G.L. c. 150C, a clerk handed me a "Complaint for Judicial Review" template.
I immediately questioned the fact that this template was written as a "complaint" and not an "application" and the fact that it was written pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A, § 14 and not M.G.L. c. 150C.
The clerk assured me that this template applied to both General Laws and that an "application" was the same thing as a complaint for judicial review.
Accepting this information as accurate, I filed a complaint for judicial review on May 13, 2008, well within the 30 day time period to appeal the arbitrator's decision.
With the exception of replacing M.G.L. c. 30A with M.G.L. c. 150C and modifying the claims for relief to comply with M.G.L. c. 150C; I followed the template to the letter.
A task required to follow the template meant listing the "decision-maker" as the defendant.
Since it is the arbitrator's name on the "Decision and Award", I logically assumed that Altman should be listed as the defendant and served him with the summons and complaint via the American Arbitration Association per their instructions.
Three Essex Superior Court judges (Judges Thomas Murtagh, Francis McIntyre, and David Lowy), whose crimes against me are detailed elsewhere on this website, have obstructed justice for over a year now to avoid hearing this complaint for judicial review of Altman's law-defying ruling.
ARBITRATOR GARY D. ALTMAN
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity and human malice...
Aldous Huxley
Listed below are links to the documents that Altman had to ignore to rule against me - documents which a ten year old could understand to conclude that I was wrongfully dismissed.
