A lawsuit filed by Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas, city attorney Richard Morrisroe and the city’s former human resources officer has been dismissed from state Supreme Court.

In March 2020, Rosas, Morrisroe and David Campola, former Dunkirk human resources director, filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Chautauqua County to overturn recent resolutions that sought the dismissal of Morrisroe and terminated Campola and Vicki Westling, an executive assistant. Named as defendants in the lawsuit were Dunkirk Common Council members Nancy Nichols, James Stoyle, Donald Williams Jr. and Paul VanDenVouver.

Rosas, Morrisroe and Campola asked the court to declare council resolutions 13 and 19 invalid because they were allegedly based on an invalid city statute and to restore Campola and Westling to their positions as appointed city employees. Rosas vetoed the resolutions removing the three employees, but the council chose to override Rosas’ veto only for Campola and Westling. Morrisroe was never removed from office.

State Supreme Court Justice Lynn Keane ruled that the claims brought by Morrisroe are moot because the council didn’t override Rosas’ veto.

Council members argued that the city charter does not list the human resources director as an executive appointed officer and member of the mayor’s cabinet. At issue are differing versions of the city charter. Rosas, Morrisroe and Campola point to an October 2017 resolution that included the human resources director as an executive appointment, but there was no copy of the amended charter on file at the state Secretary of State’s office.

During discovery motions earlier in the case, the council members’ attorney tried to find the version of the City Charter upon which the arguments made by Rosas, Morrisroe and Campola were based. The lawyers were told that the most recent version of the charter and City Code are on a server in the Dunkirk City Attorney’s Office.

State Municipal Law Section 27 requires a certified copy of a local law amending a city charter be on file with the state Secretary of State’s office within 20 days of its passage, and also that a certified copy of all local laws be filed with the clerk and that the clerk shall record all local laws filled in a separate book or books that are indexed by the clerk.

“The court declines to find that the amendments purportedly made by the Dunkirk City Council to the Dunkirk City Charter in 2017, and contained in the version of the City Charter contained on a server file in the Dunkirk’s City Attorney’s Office in 2020, were in effect and binding upon the parties in this litigation,” Keane wrote.

Because the court determined that Campola was not an executive appointed officer, Keane ruled that the Dunkirk City Charter did not apply. She also found Rosas lacks standing to pursue a claim in his official capacity because no violative actions were established.

“The court finds no basis to conclude from the record before it that a manifest injustice resulted from actions taken by the respondents,” Keane wrote.