YOUNGSTOWN — The attorney representing Sarah Brown-Clark, a former Youngstown clerk of courts seeking back pay, told a judge the city’s request to dismiss the case is “improper” and “premature.”

James Vitullo, Brown-Clark’s attorney, wrote in a response to the city’s dismissal request that his client’s “complaint states valid claims under Ohio law, and she is entitled to proceed to discovery and adjudication on the merits, as such claims are particularly appropriate for resolution on a full factual record, not at the pleading stage.”

Brown-Clark filed the lawsuit April 21 with Robert Buch, a city senior assistant law director, seeking the dismissal nine days later by Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney.

Buch contends Brown-Clark’s argument that an implied contract for pay raises was breached isn’t valid under state law.

Buch wrote: “Based on the face of plaintiff’s complaint, her sole theory of recovery is breach of an implied contract” with her alleging “without evidence or citation to statute/ordinance that an implied contract was formed with the city.”

Brown-Clark’s first case, filed Dec. 28, 2023, was a petition for a writ of mandamus. It was dismissed March 11, 2025, by Judge John M. Durkin of common pleas court and then appealed to the 7th District Court of Appeals. She voluntarily dismissed the case Oct. 17 before a decision was reached.

The legal dispute in the first case centered on interpretation of Ohio Revised Code Section 1901.31 regarding clerks of courts and specifically a provision exempting certain cities and counties with populations under 100,000 residents, including Youngstown, from having an appointed clerk of courts and requiring that person be elected.

Under that requirement, the clerk of court would get 85% of the municipal court judges’ salary.

In a March 7, 2024, motion to dismiss that was converted by the court to a motion for summary judgment, city Law Director Adam Buente wrote the statute states if a city’s population is under 100,000 and its court’s revenue is less than its expenditures “the clerk of court of a municipal court shall receive the annual compensation that the legislative authority prescribes.”

There are exemptions included in the law, but not for Youngstown, Durkin ruled.

In the new lawsuit, Vitullo argues that because the city paid 85% of a municipal court judge’s salary to Brown-Clark for 18 years, it resulted “in an implied contract” for the final six years on the job.

In his response to the motion to dismiss, Vitullo wrote the city “speaks with a forked tongue. For nearly 20 years, the city disregarded the very law it now invokes to defeat the plaintiff’s claim.”

Vitullo wrote that the city, since 2000, “unilaterally adopted its own formula for calculating the plaintiff’s salary, deliberately ignoring the statutory requirements. Eighteen years later, for ostensibly political reasons, the city abruptly abandoned its longstanding practice and began applying the statutory formula. Having ignored the statute for nearly two decades, the city now seeks to weaponize it to deny the plaintiff compensation it itself consistently agreed to provide.

Vitullo wrote: “Through its prolonged disregard of the statutory scheme, the city created a clear and reasonable expectation regarding the plaintiff’s compensation, only to later insist that the plaintiff cannot enforce that expectation. This conduct epitomizes bad faith.”

Buch wrote in his motion to dismiss: “Public employee compensation is governed by legislation authority, not theories of implied contract which may arise from the doctrines of promissory estoppel/detrimental reliance. A public officer’s compensation is government by statute/ordinance and no contractual right exists beyond what the legislative authority provides. Plaintiff makes no reference to any legislative authority in her complaint and relies solely on the theory of implied contract.”

Council voted 4-3 on Dec. 20, 2023, against giving Brown-Clark a $7,181 raise for 2023. She filed the lawsuit eight days later for raises not given by the city over the last six years of her term.

The city pays 60% of the Youngstown clerk of courts’ salary with Mahoning County paying the rest.

The rejected legislation by council would have increased the city’s portion of Brown-Clark’s annual salary from $67,389 to $74,570 in 2024. Overall, her annual salary would have gone from $117,103 to $124,284 that year.

In the first lawsuit, Brown-Clark claimed the city and Finance Director Kyle Miasek improperly froze her salary at the 2018 rate of $67,389. With salary increases under state law, Brown-Clark stated she is owed $28,298 over the six years. The county paid the raises to Brown-Clark during those six years.