Douglas Dowie, the former head of the Los Angeles office of Fleishman-Hillard, has filed a lawsuit against his former employer alleging his employment agreement was breached when he was fired Jan. 5.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that the public relations firm only fired him because it needed a “scapegoat” and had to “curry favor” with federal investigators who are investigating the firm’s public contracts.
“The question for Fleishman ultimately is going to be, ‘Why did you fire Doug?’ What is it that Doug did that would result in his termination after all these years of highly regarded service?” said Michael Faber, a Santa Monica attorney representing Dowie. “Our contention is they’re trying to sacrifice Doug in the hopes that the U.S. Attorney will not go after Fleishman itself.”
Dowie is seeking a total of $5 million to $6 million, which includes future earnings based on a 15-year time span he had expected to work, Faber said.
Fleishman officials dismissed the suit as groundless.
“This lawsuit has absolutely no merit,” said Richard Kline, Fleishman’s regional president, senior partner and L.A. general manager. “If this litigation goes forward, I’m confident that the facts will show we treated Doug more than fairly. Given the ongoing investigation and pending litigation, it’s simply not appropriate for me to comment further.”
Dowie has been at the center of a storm after allegations surfaced last July that the public relations firm overbilled the city in its $3 million annual contract with the Department of Water and Power. That resulted in him being put on paid leave.
Dowie was one of three executives with “management responsibility” on the DWP contract who left the firm on Jan. 5. A week later, a former Fleishman vice president who managed the DWP contract was indicted by federal prosecutors on charges he helped submit $250,000 in fraudulent bills to the city department. That executive, John Stodder, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of wire fraud.
Dowie’s lawsuit states that Fleishman, “in an act of cowardice, summarily placed plaintiff on paid administrative leave, all the while assuring him that, ‘We are not trying to distance ourselves from you’ and that it was only trying to ‘diffuse (sic) the situation,'” the suit states.
The lawsuit claims Dowie was unaware he would be fired because he had received repeated praise for obtaining the Department of Water & Power contract now being examined by federal and county investigators.
In the past few years, Dowie was praised by Kline and Fleishman’s former regional president, Doug Michelman, for being a “smart, hard-nosed manager” with “strong leadership skills” who had “strategic relationships with senior elected officials and business leaders,” the suit states.
In a conference call last year, the co-chairman of Fleishman’s operating committee, William Anderson, along with Chief Operating Officer Kurt Wehrsten, told Dowie his job was secure and that someday “we’ll all be singing, ‘Happy Days are Here Again,'” the suit states.
Dowie received at least three salary increases from $90,000 in 1991 to $370,000 in 2004 and several promotions. Even after federal investigators issued subpoenas to Fleishman in early 2004, as part of its investigation into city contracts, Dowie was promoted to become the firm’s co-chairman of the national public affairs practice group, the suit states.
Dowie alleged he would not have agreed to paid administrative leave “had he known that by doing so he would forfeit his right to resign without being terminated” and that he was “summarily terminated, without warning and without good cause,” the suit states.
Dowie has been unable to find a job since he was fired, Faber said.