Judge hears arguments in motion to dismiss former Baker City fire chief’s $999,999 civil suit against city

Published 3:11 pm Friday, July 25, 2025

A judge said he would decide by Sept. 10 whether to dismiss former Baker City Fire Chief Todd Jaynes’ $999,999 civil suit against the city, as the city’s attorney argued for in a June 20 motion.

Senior Judge Thomas Bradford of Newport, who was presiding in place of Judge Matt Shirtcliff, heard oral arguments on that motion during a 45-minute hearing Friday, July 25, in Baker County Circuit Court.

Bradford told Jaynes’ attorney, Richard Slezak, and the city’s attorney, Luke Reese, that he hoped to issue a ruling sooner than Sept. 10, but that he couldn’t guarantee that.

Friday’s hearing happened two years to the day that Jaynes signed a five-year employment contract with the city.

Jon France, then the city’s interim manager, negotiated the contract with Jaynes.

About seven and a half months later, on March 8, 2024, City Manager Barry Murphy fired Jaynes.

Although Murphy didn’t say publicly why he fired Jaynes, in a memo dated March 6 that was included as an exhibit with the city’s June 20 motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Murphy, who started as city manager in January 2024, wrote that he was not satisfied with Jaynes’ answers to several questions Murphy had about the fire department budget and other matters, and that Jaynes lacked certain firefighter certifications.

“Chief Jaynes is not qualified for this position,” Murphy wrote in the memo. “He has displayed significant weaknesses in his leadership, knowledge, and overall abilities as a fire chief.”

Jaynes filed the lawsuit on July 6, 2024. He is seeking $899,999 in economic damages and $100,000 in noneconomic damages.

Reese became the city’s attorney in early July, replacing Kirk Mylander, who wrote the June 20 motion seeking to dismiss the suit.

During Friday’s hearing, Reese told the judge that an evidence rule, known as the parol evidence rule, prevents Jaynes from arguing that France, in negotiating the contract in 2023, misrepresented terms of the contract that Jaynes signed.

That rule, Mylander wrote in his motion, “prohibits introduction of prior oral statements that contract an unambiguous written agreement.”

The written agreement is the contract Jaynes signed. Reese said during the hearing that the city’s “position is that the language is clear” in the contract — that it not ambiguous.

Therefore, Reese argued, Jaynes’ contention that statements France made during the negotiations can’t be used as evidence in the lawsuit.

Slezak disagreed.

He argued that the contract was void because France told Jaynes that although the contract included a “convenience clause” that allowed the city to fire Jaynes without cause, so long as it paid him a severance equal to three months of his salary (the city paid Jaynes $21,129), France also said Jaynes could have the job for five years or even longer if he wished to stay.

That was a “material misrepresentation,” Slezak said, and one that induced Jaynes to sign the contract despite his misgivings about the convenience clause.

Slezak told the judge that Jaynes had told France, before signing the contract, that he needed assurance that he could have the job for at least five years, as that would allow him to be fully vested in Oregon’s Public Employees Retirement System.

Slezak called that the “key element of this agreement.”

Slezak also argued that France implied to Jaynes that the convenience clause was included because the Baker City Council required that, even though France needed no approval from councilors to draft the contract.

(France did, however, need council approval to hire Jaynes, since the city charter doesn’t allow interim city managers to hire employees.)

Slezak also contended that the contract Jaynes signed, and under which Murphy fired Jaynes, was void because the five-year term in the contract is “inconsistent with” the convenience clause that allows the city to fire Jaynes without cause.

Reese responded by telling the judge that there is no evidence in the record that France or anyone else from the city told Jaynes that the convenience clause couldn’t be enforced.

The clause was in the contract that Jaynes signed, and Reese argued that nothing France told Jaynes during negotiations constituted a “knowingly false statement.”

Trial date

Although a jury trial is scheduled to start Sept. 15, Reese on July 11 filed a motion seeking to postpone the trial. Reese cited his recent entry into the case as the city’s attorney, which took place July 8.

The judge hasn’t ruled on Reese’s motion. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Aug. 18 at 11:30 a.m. in Baker County Circuit Court.

Slezak has objected in writing to Reese’s motion to postpone the trial.

City’s first attempt to dismiss suit

Mylander, the city’s original lawyer, argued in a Nov. 1, 2024, hearing that the contract Jaynes signed in July 2023 was not binding because none of the city councilors then was still in office when Murphy fired Jaynes in March 2024.

Mylander also told Baker County Circuit Court Judge Matt Shirtcliff that even if the contract was binding, the city did not breach the contract’s terms when Murphy fired Jaynes.

Slezak argued that the contract was binding and that Jon France, who was interim city manager when Jaynes signed the contract, misled Jaynes and induced him to sign the pact.

Judge Shirtcliff rejected Mylander’s motion, writing that the issues the attorneys raised about the contract were matters of “material fact” that should be decided at trial.