Carmel resolves manager lawsuit Ex-employee to get $50,000 settlement

CARMEL – The former town manager reached a $50,000 settlement Thursday in a lawsuit she filed against the town claiming she was improperly fired in November 1998.

Glennis McSorley, who is now a selectman in the town, had been at odds with a previous board of selectmen and claimed that in violation of the Maine Whistleblower’s Protection Act she was fired after she sought advice from the Maine Municipal Association.

Earlier this year, a Penobscot County Superior Court justice threw out McSorley’s claims that she was discriminated against based on age and sex, but allowed the Whistleblower’s claim to move forward. A trial was expected to start sometime early next month, but a settlement was reached about noontime Thursday after a trial management conference, said McSorley’s attorney, Arthur J. Greif.

“I count it very much as a victory for Glennis,” Greif said. He thought that the settlement, negotiated with the town’s insurance company, was about 20 times the severance package offered to her in January 1999.

The settlement still has to be drafted on paper, but Greif said it requires the town’s insurance company to pay the bulk of the settlement, $47,500. The town is supposed to pick up the remaining $2,500, according to Greif.

Town Selectman Douglas Small said a message from Town Manager Tom Richmond left on his answering machine indicated that there had been an oral settlement, although Small asserted that the town or the board would not be footing any of the settlement cost.

He said that in previous discussions and a vote by the board, members had made in explicitly clear that the town was not at fault in any way and would not make a financial settlement, that it would be left up to the insurance company.

“If [the insurance company] made a settlement, they made it on their own,” Small said.