Trial date set in clerk firing

A trial date for next August has been set for Emily Feller, who is suing the Bigfork School District for wrongful termination.

Feller was hired as a payroll clerk for the Bigfork School District in 2012, but had no training in payroll procedures. In June 2013 Feller had been asked to cancel three payroll checks for a district employee who had died and had not cashed the checks. Feller’s supervisor, Eda Taylor, asked Feller to communicate with the district’s auditor about the procedure, which she says she did, according to the lawsuit. However, Feller later received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service saying that Bigfork School District had underpaid taxes on the employee because of the three cancelled checks. Feller said she filed all of the tax payments to the best of her ability, the lawsuit says. Feller says in the lawsuit she was subject to “heightened degree of scrutiny and open hostility” from Taylor.

In April 2014, former Superintendent Russ Kinzer recommended to Bigfork School trustee chairperson Maureen Averill that Feller be dismissed. Feller attended a hearing with the board a month later, and she was fired. Feller claims she was not a probationary employee for the district, and was not fired for good cause. Feller is suing for lost wages, benefits, interest on the wages, and punitive damages, plus actual and compensatory damages. The trial is Aug. 1, 2016, in Flathead County District Court.