VERSUS 9th JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT. LOUISIANA COLLEGE and JOE AGUILLARD RAPIDES PARISH, LOUISIANA PETITION FOR DAMAGES

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1 TIMOTHY L. JOHNSON DOCKET NUMBER: VERSUS 9th JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT LOUISIANA COLLEGE and JOE AGUILLARD RAPIDES PARISH, LOUISIANA PETITION FOR DAMAGES The petition of TIMOTHY L. JOHNSON, a resident and domiciliary of Rapides Parish, Louisiana respectfully represents: 1. First made defendant is LOUISIANA COLLEGE, a Louisiana non-profit corporation domiciled in Pineville, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. JOE AGUILLARD is the President of Louisiana College and has proclaimed himself to be the employer of all persons working at Louisiana College. JOE AGUILLARD is a resident of and is domiciled in Pineville, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. 2. Venue is proper in Rapides Parish because all parties reside and are domiciled in Rapides Parish, and plaintiff s causes of action arose therein. 3. TIMOTHY JOHNSON first started working for defendants on August 1, His initial position was Vice-President of Institutional Advancement, responsible for public relations, church relations, enrollment management and alumni relations. TIMOTHY JOHNSON was subsequently promoted to Executive Vice-President, responsible for international and new program development, as well as the same duties as his prior position. In this new position, he was second in administrative order in the management hierarchy. 4. Up until his final review, which was a contrived and retaliatory review (as detailed in subsequent paragraphs below), TIMOTHY JOHNSON s annual performance reviews were perfect, 48 points out of 48 points (two examples are attached as Exhibit A ). He had never been written up or disciplined in any way.

2 5. TIMOTHY JOHNSON had a written employment contract with Louisiana College (see Exhibit B )(The original was signed by all parties). The Provisions of the Personnel Policies of Louisiana College were expressly incorporated into the employment contract between plaintiff and defendants. 6. In 2009, a whistleblower provision was added to the Personnel Policies of Louisiana College. This section, numbered 830.8, demands high standards of business and personal ethics from the employees and trustees of Louisiana College. Moreover, it is the responsibility of all trustees and employees to comply with these standards and to report violations or suspected violations in accordance with (the policy). Thus, Louisiana College requires its employees to report violations and suspected violations of its high standards of business and personal ethics. 7. Section C of the Louisiana College whistleblower policy states that no trustee or employee who, in good faith, reports a violation of this standard (the high standards of business and personal ethics ) shall suffer harassment, retaliation, or adverse employment consequence. 8. If an employee report under the Louisiana College whistleblower policy concerned the misconduct of the President, then the policy mandated that the report be made to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Louisiana College. 9. On or about December 9, 2012, TIMOTHY JOHNSON reported misconduct of JOE AGUILLARD, and he did so in full compliance with the whistleblower policy of Louisiana College (after meeting with JOE AGUILLARD on December 6, 2012 to discuss the matter).

3 10. TIMOTHY JOHNSON s reported three concerns about the misconduct of JOE AGUILLARD. First, he reported to the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Louisiana College that JOE AGUILLARD intentionally misled the Louisiana College Board of Trustees and donors regarding a $10 million pledge from the Cason Foundation. Specifically, JOE AGUILLARD had informed TIMOTHY JOHNSON and Gilbert Little (the Capital Campaign coordinator for Louisiana College) that the Cason Foundation had pledged 20% ($10,000,000) of the funding required to help fund the building of the divinity and law school. On December 2, 2012, JOE AGUILLARD also made this misrepresentation to another donor. This was not true, as there was no promise of funding. JOE AGUILLARD knew this information was not true because he had received a letter on October 17, 2012 from the Cason Foundation specifically stating that they were not going to donate any money for the building of the divinity and law school. Clearly, JOE AGUILLARD s actions did not constitute high standards of business and personal ethics. 11. TIMOTHY JOHNSON s second and third concerns relate to LC Tanzania, a project of Louisiana College for educating teachers in Tanzania and to consider setting up a Bible school in Tanzania. TIMOTHY JOHNSON s concerns were that (a) JOE AGUILLARD misappropriated Caskey School of Divinity funds for expenses relating to LC Tanzania and (b) JOE AGUILLARD intentionally misled the Louisiana College Board of Trustees and Louisiana College donors regarding the promised funding for LC Tanzania. 12. Specifically, JOE AGUILLARD told Randall Hargis, the CFO of Louisiana College, and Chuck Quarles, the Vice-President of Integration, Faith and Learning and the Dean of the Caskey School of Religion, that he had permission to use donated funds for the LC Tanzania Project. He did not have that consent. JOE AGUILLARD spent $60,000 of donated funds, without permission from the donors and in contravention to the instructions of the donors, on the LC Tanzania Project. He was going to spend an additional $120,000 but was stopped by TIMOTHY JOHNSON.

4 13. Once the Cason Foundation learned that Dr. Aguillard was spending their money, against their wishes and directives, on LC Tanzania and had misrepresented their funding commitments to Louisiana College, they terminated all donations to Louisiana College. This resulted in an annual donation loss of approximately $2,000,000 per year. 14. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, along with the Executive Committee, of Louisiana College retained the law firm of Kinney, Ellinghausen, Richard and DeShazo to investigate the concerns made by TIMOTHY JOHNSON. In violation to his obligations to Louisiana College, JOE AGUILLARD did not cooperate in the investigation. The Kinney Firm issued a report on March 17, 2013 that found that TIMOTHY JOHNSON s complaint which verified the accuracy of TIMOTHY Johnson s concerns. The report found that JOE AGUILLARD made statements that were in actuality conclusively false concerning the alleged $10,000,000 gift from the Cason Foundation. The report found that the Cason Foundation had affirmatively and unequivocally stated that their donations were not to be used on LC Tanzania, which completely discredits any claim by (Joe) Aguillard that the Cason s had a change of heart concerning funding for that project. The report found that JOE AGUILLARD made material misrepresentations to the Board of Trustees of Louisiana College, and that he misappropriated $60,000 from the Cason Foundation to fund LC Tanzania. 15. In other words, the Kinney Firm report verified all of TIMOTHY JOHNSON s concerns and denounced the loathsome conduct of JOE AGUILLARD. 16. The Kinney Firm submitted its report to the Louisiana College Board of Trustees on March 17, In immediate and obvious retaliation for TIMOTHY JOHNSON s good faith (in fact, accurate) report of JOE AGUILLARD s misconduct, JOE AGUILLARD decided to conduct an ultra vires interim evaluation of TIMOTHY JOHNSON. While all of TIMOTHY JOHNSON s prior

5 evaluations were scored at 48, a perfect score, the interim evaluation had a final score of 8. Assuming, arguendo, that it was proper for JOE AGUILLARD to conduct any evaluation, particularly one of someone who had recently reported his egregious misconduct, the evaluation was a thinly disguised attempt to rebuke TIMOTHY JOHNSON for reporting JOE AGUILLARD s dishonest and chicanery. Among other things, the evaluation gave TIMOTHY JOHNSON 0" out of 4" because he supposedly did not adhere to his contractual obligation regarding Confidentiality Contract requirement to go through the President before working with Board Members (translation: He did not like TIMOTHY JOHNSON following the whistleblower policy s explicit directive to report presidential misconduct to the Chairman of the Board as opposed to the perpetrator). 17. JOE AGUILLARD s retaliation continued when, in May 2013, he declined to renew TIMOTHY JOHNSON s employment contract. This again raises the issue of why LOUISIANA COLLEGE, which pledged to protect whistleblowing employees from retaliation, would allow JOE AGUILLARD to have anything to do with the employment contract renewal for TIMOTHY JOHNSON. 18. As an employee of LOUISIANA COLLEGE, TIMOTHY JOHNSON had a duty of loyalty, which included his obligations under the whistleblower policy of LOUISIANA COLLEGE. TIMOTHY JOHNSON was loyal to the College and he fully complied with his obligations under the whistleblower policy (which was part of his contract). 19. JOE AGUILLARD, who is likewise an employee of LOUISIANA COLLEGE, confuses the obligation of LOUISIANA COLLEGE employees to be loyal to the college with a nonexistent duty (except perhaps in the mind of JOE AGUILLARD) to be loyal to him. Loyalty to JOE AGUILLARD apparently would include a requirement to ignore unlawful and unethical behavior by JOE AGUILLARD, at the risk of being fired. Nevertheless, JOE AGUILLARD has repeatedly contended that he is an employer of Louisiana College employees. Therefore, for the purposes of this lawsuit, JOE AGUILLARD is contended to be a joint employer of TIMOTHY JOHNSON.

6 20. At all relevant times herein, JOE AGUILLARD was acting within the course and scope of his employment with LOUISIANA COLLEGE. 21. The reports by TIMOTHY JOHNSON to LOUISIANA COLLEGE obviously had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with personal and institutional integrity and honesty. Though JOE AGUILLARD has since suggested that TIMOTHY JOHNSON is a Calvinist or aligned with Calvinism (neither one of which is true), this is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to call attention away from JOE AGUILLARD s malfeasance. 22. The actions of JOE AGUILLARD and LOUISIANA COLLEGE breached TIMOTHY JOHNSON s employment agreement with LOUISIANA COLLEGE, including but not limited to allowing blatant and overt retaliation against TIMOTHY JOHNSON in specific contravention of the contractually binding whistleblower policy. 23. Astonishingly, the Board of Trustees of LOUISIANA COLLEGE elected to ignore the dishonesty of JOE AGUILLARD because it was politically expedient to the Board and honesty and integrity apparently were not. 24. As a result of the defendants breach of contract, plaintiff has sustained damages, including loss of past and future income. Furthermore, the defendants breach of contract was in bad faith. Thus, pursuant to Louisiana C.C. 1997, TIMOTHY JOHNSON is also entitled to a judgment for all damages resulting from the defendants bad faith breach of his employment compensation contract, including but not limited to damages for mental anguish and pain and suffering.

7 WHEREFORE, PLAINTIFF PRAYS that, after all due proceedings, he be awarded a judgment against all defendants for actual damages, including but not limited to mental anguish and pain and suffering; FURTHER PRAYS that, after all due proceedings, there be judgment against defendants for costs of court, pre- and post-judgment interest; and FURTHER PRAYS for all general and equitable relief to which he is entitled in these premises. Respectfully submitted, LAW OFFICES OF BRYCE J. DENNY By: BRYCE J. DENNY Bar Roll Number: Polk Street Mansfield, Louisiana Telephone: (318) Facsimile: (318) ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF Please Serve: Louisiana College c/o Joe Aguillard 1140 College Drive Pineville, Louisiana Joe Aguillard 1140 College Drive Pineville, Louisiana 71360