Sheely Lawsuit
STATE OF MINNESOTA DISTRICT COURT
COUNTY OF STEELE THIRD JUDICIAL DISTRICT
Deanna Sheely,
Court File No.
Case Type: Civil
_____________
Plaintiff,
v.
City of Owatonna; Jenna Tuma, individually;
Emily Thamert, individually; and
Rachel Boss, individually,
COMPLAINT
Defendants.
Plaintiff Deanna Sheely, for her Complaint against Defendants City of Owatonna, Jenna
Tuma, Emily Thamert, and Rachel Boss, alleges the following:
INTRODUCTION
1. This is an action under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (“MHRA”), Minn. Stat.
ch. 363A, and the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, Minn. Stat. § 181.932, arising from the City of
Owatonna's escalating campaign against its Communications Manager, Deanna Sheely: a
campaign that began when she was denied even an interview for a promotion for which she was
singularly qualified; intensified as a newly installed, much younger leadership team consolidated
power and pushed out older and independent-minded employees; sharpened after Ms. Sheely
reported her good-faith concern that the City's official budget communications to the public were
inaccurate; and culminated in her termination one day after the City Administrator—the principal
subject of Ms. Sheely's discrimination complaint—announced that an investigation she alone had
commissioned, received, and controlled had cleared the City of all wrongdoing.
2. Ms. Sheely is a 62-year-old communications professional with more than three
decades of experience, including prior service as Assistant Council Administrator and
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Communications Director for the City of Red Wing. Hired in September 2021 as Owatonna's first
Communications Manager, she built the City's communications program from the ground up,
earning her statewide recognition for her work. Under the prior City Administrator, she was rated
“meets expectations” (the highest available rating) in every performance category, and her peers
nominated her for the City's own culture awards.
3. Ms. Sheely’s success at the City of Owatonna changed when Jenna Tuma was
placed in authority over her in July 2024, and accelerated in August 2025, when—through a hiring
process designed and managed by Emily Thamert, without the outside recruiting firm that is
standard for city-administrator searches—Ms. Tuma became City Administrator, promoted Ms.
Thamert the same day into the position Ms. Tuma had just vacated, and Ms. Thamert in turn
installed Rachel Boss, approximately 28 years old, as Human Resources Director over older, more
experienced applicants. In short order, every person in the chain of command above Ms. Sheely
was younger than she is.
4. What followed was a purge. In the ten months after Ms. Tuma became City
Administrator, dozens of positions turned over in a workforce of approximately 150, with the
departures falling disproportionately on employees in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. The playbook was
consistent: pretextual performance allegations, the threat of termination, and a pre-drafted exit—
the City's written reminder that “[i]f, however, you resign from employment before such
disposition,” the allegations remain private, but if the employee refuses, they become public.
5. This case is about much more than a demanding manager who might prefer loyalty
or push through projects without meaningful public engagement. It is about an employer illegally
discriminating against older employees in favor of younger, more compliant ones, and retaliating
against an employee for reporting conduct she suspected, in good faith, was unlawful.
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6. Ms. Sheely's whistleblowing occurred during a particularly sensitive time for the
City. Public backlash had mounted first over the transparency of the City's budget and property
tax levy, and then over a roughly $60 million public safety facilities project. Amid public
accusations that the City was not being transparent about the budget, Ms. Sheely—walled off from
budget information by the same officials who then faulted her for lacking it—consulted multiple
sources, found varying figures under consideration, and flagged, in a draft communication
submitted for approval, the levy figure she believed in good faith to be accurate, which was higher
than the figure the City was communicating to the public. She was directed to use a different
number because the higher number “would spark a red flag out in our community,
” and then issued
a written reprimand the same day which omitted any mention of the levy amount. After Ms. Sheely
repeated her concern in writing on December 19, 2025, the adverse treatment escalated sharply.
7. On March 19, 2026, the City notified Ms. Sheely of its intent to place her on
immediate unpaid, non-disciplinary administrative leave without benefits and gave her one
business day to respond to a notice of intended discharge. She filed a formal age-discrimination
and harassment complaint the next day. The City responded by demanding, under threat of
criminal prosecution, that she surrender the evidence supporting her claims; by retaining an
investigator who has faced criticism from multiple directions—including by those who have hired
her—of bias and impropriety; by withholding from Ms. Sheely the findings, reasoning, and factual
bases of the resulting report; and by having Ms. Tuma—the principal subject of the complaint—
declare the complaint “disposed of in its entirety” with no discipline on June 4, 2026. The message
of the City's disposition was unmistakable: we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.
The City discharged Ms. Sheely the next day.
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8. Ms. Sheely brings this action to recover the compensation, benefits, and career the
Defendants took from her, plus damages for the significant emotional distress they inflicted.
PARTIES
9. Plaintiff Deanna Sheely is an adult resident of the State of Minnesota.
10. Defendant City of Owatonna (the “City”) is a Minnesota municipal corporation
located in Steele County, Minnesota. At all relevant times the City was Ms. Sheely's “employer”
within the meaning of Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16, and Minn. Stat. § 181.931, subd. 3.
11. Defendant Jenna Tuma is an adult resident of Minnesota. She has served as the
City's Administrator since August 8, 2025, and before that as its Assistant City Administrator
(from July 2024) and Parks and Recreation Director. She is sued in her individual capacity.
12. Defendant Emily Thamert is an adult resident of Minnesota. She has served as the
City's Assistant City Administrator since August 8, 2025, and before that as its Human Resources
Director. From August 2025 she was Ms. Sheely's direct supervisor. She is sued in her individual
capacity.
13. Defendant Rachel Boss is an adult resident of Minnesota. She has served as the
City's Human Resources Director since October 6, 2025, and before that as an HR specialist. She
is sued in her individual capacity.
14. At all relevant times, Defendants Tuma, Thamert, and Boss acted in the course and
scope of their employment and agency with the City and in the exercise of the authority the City
delegated to them as its senior administrative officials. Their acts and omissions alleged herein are
imputed to the City, which is liable for them both directly, as the acts of the senior officials through
whom it manages its workforce, and vicariously.
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JURISDICTION AND VENUE
15. This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action pursuant to Minn.
Stat. § 484.01 and Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 1, which authorizes a civil action directly in district
court for violations of the MHRA, and Minn. Stat. § 181.935, which authorizes a civil action for
violations of the Minnesota Whistleblower Act.
16. Venue is proper in Steele County pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 542.09 because the cause
of action arose in Steele County and because Defendants reside or maintain their principal place
of business there.
17. This action is timely. The unlawful practices alleged herein include discrete acts
occurring within one year of the commencement of this action, and constitute a continuing pattern
of discriminatory and retaliatory conduct culminating in Ms. Sheely's June 5, 2026 discharge.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
Ms. Sheely's hiring and record of excellence
18. The City hired Ms. Sheely on September 30, 2021 as its first Communications
Manager. She was hired by then-City Administrator Kris Busse, with whom she had a productive,
collaborative working relationship.
19. Ms. Sheely came to the City with more than 30 years of communications
experience, including approximately eight years as Assistant Council Administrator and
Communications Director for the City of Red Wing, senior communications roles at Xcel Energy
in the highly regulated nuclear power industry, and service as a Vice President at Minneapolis
College. She holds a master's degree in strategic mass communications.
20. As the sole employee assigned specifically to communications and collaborating
with colleagues from across the organization and with outside agencies, Ms. Sheely built the City's
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communications program from the ground up: its branding, website, social media presence,
newsletters, media relations, and communications planning. Her work earned a Minnesota
Association of Government Communicators award for the City's branding campaign;
communications counterparts from Northfield, Faribault, and Rice County met with her regularly
and sought her guidance as a mentor; and colleagues and outside observers regarded the City's
communications as far above those of comparably sized cities. In April 2025, coworkers
nominated her for the City's own culture awards, writing that she “runs a very important
department needed to have success…she is also the only person in the department.”
21. On December 7, 2022, Administrator Busse rated Ms. Sheely “meets
expectations”—the highest available rating—in every category of her performance review, with
positive comments throughout.
22. At hire, Ms. Sheely and Administrator Busse agreed that Ms. Sheely, whose
commute exceeds 30 miles, would work remotely one day per week and on bad-weather days.
That arrangement remained in place, without incident or criticism, for years.
The 2024 promotion pass-over and the immediate onset of hostility
23. In July 2024, the City created a new Assistant City Administrator position as part
of succession planning for Administrator Busse's anticipated retirement. Ms. Sheely and Jenna
Tuma, then the Parks and Recreation Director, both applied.
24. Ms. Sheely had held a virtually identical title—Assistant Council Administrator—
at Red Wing, together with a communications director role directly analogous to her Owatonna
position. She was not granted an interview. No explanation was provided. Upon information and
belief, the applicant screening and interview-selection decisions were guided by Administrator
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Busse and Ms. Thamert, then the Human Resources Director. Ms. Tuma, a younger candidate, was
selected and became Ms. Sheely's direct supervisor.
25. Ms. Tuma's treatment of Ms. Sheely changed immediately and dramatically once
she held authority over her. Where Ms. Tuma had been a collegial peer who valued Ms. Sheely's
expertise and input in areas both related and unrelated to communications, including on Ms.
Tuma’s job searches and interviews with other organizations, she quickly turned hostile: excluding
Ms. Sheely from meetings, gatherings, and discussions she had previously been part of, and
gravitating instead toward Emily Thamert and Rachel Boss. Other employees noticed and
remarked on the shift.
26. In or about August or September 2024—within weeks of Ms. Tuma assuming
authority over her—Ms. Sheely told Ms. Tuma she had left a requested letter on her desk. Ms.
Tuma replied, “What letter…your resignation?” and laughed. Ms. Sheely had drafted the letter at
Ms. Tuma's request, as part of her ordinary duties, and no performance concern had ever been
raised with her. The message of Ms. Tuma's “joke” was that Ms. Sheely's departure was already
on her new supervisor's mind.
“Wow, you don't look anywhere near that old!”
27. In October 2024, in a conversation about healthcare benefits, Ms. Boss asked Ms.
Sheely her age. Upon hearing the answer, Ms. Boss reacted with visible shock and said, “Wow,
you don't look anywhere near that old!”
28. Ms. Boss's treatment of Ms. Sheely became noticeably dismissive from that point
forward. Ms. Boss excluded Ms. Sheely from meetings and information-sharing related to shared
work, declined every offer Ms. Sheely made to coordinate, and—at a worksite event, in front of
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coworkers—publicly questioned whether Ms. Sheely should receive credit for attending part of a
drop-in event, when other employees' partial attendance went unremarked.
29. In January 2024, Ms. Tuma gave Ms. Sheely a birthday card and wrote on the
envelope: “OLD Lady Deanna,” revealing her own bias toward Ms. Sheely’s age.
30. In the fall of 2024, Ms. Sheely told Ms. Tuma that Ms. Boss and Ms. Thamert were
treating her dismissively and that she felt bullied. Ms. Tuma told Ms. Sheely to focus on her own
actions and, when Ms. Sheely asked for examples, Ms. Tuma changed the subject and raised her
voice. Ms. Sheely’s concerns about being bullied were not addressed and indeed she was further
excluded from meetings and discussions.
The August 2025 power consolidation
31. In February 2025, Administrator Busse announced her retirement; her last day was
August 7, 2025. Ms. Thamert, then Human Resources Director, designed and managed the hiring
process for Busse's replacement. No outside recruiting firm was retained—a departure from
standard practice for city-administrator-level searches, and conspicuous for a city that, upon
information and belief, relies heavily on outside consultants and recruiters.
32. Upon information and belief, the process Ms. Thamert designed surfaced notably
weak competing candidates, and applicants more qualified than Ms. Tuma were not advanced.
33. Ms. Tuma was appointed City Administrator effective August 8, 2025. That same
day, Ms. Tuma promoted Ms. Thamert—the person who had designed and managed the process
that produced Ms. Tuma's appointment—into the Assistant City Administrator position Ms. Tuma
had just vacated. Ms. Thamert became Ms. Sheely's direct supervisor.
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34. On October 6, 2025, Ms. Thamert promoted Ms. Boss, approximately 28 years old,
to Human Resources Director. Upon information and belief, several substantially older applicants
with far more human-resources and local-government experience applied and were passed over.
35. With these moves, the entire leadership chain above Ms. Sheely—City
Administrator, Assistant City Administrator, and Human Resources Director—was reconstituted
within weeks, and every person in that chain is younger than Ms. Sheely, in Ms. Boss's case by
more than three decades.
The purge of older and dissenting employees
36. Upon information and belief, in the months after Ms. Tuma became City
Administrator, dozens of positions have turned over in a City workforce of approximately 150
employees, with departures and involuntary leaves falling disproportionately on employees in their
40s, 50s, and 60s.
37. Upon information and belief, a number of these departures followed a similar
course: performance criticisms the employee disputed, followed by termination or a choice
between resignation and termination. In Ms. Sheely's case, the City coupled its allegations with a
written advisory that if the employee resigns “before such disposition,” the allegations remain
private under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, but that if the employee refuses, the
allegations and supporting data become public; upon information and belief, other departing
employees faced comparable pressure to leave quietly.
38. Upon information and belief, examples of this pattern include several others over
age 40, including Ms. Sheely, who were forced to resign or be terminated, such as: the Parks and
Recreation Director who succeeded Ms. Tuma in that role and proposed changes to systems Ms.
Tuma had built; a Facilities Manager who questioned certain expenses dictated by Ms. Tuma; a
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Finance Department employee who was terminated after raising concerns with a council member
about the proposed levy and public safety facility spending and who was placed on a performance
improvement plan with deadlines that the City's own outside consultant advised were unattainable;
a librarian who, like Ms. Sheely, was excluded from meetings and then criticized for not meeting
performance expectations the depended on the very meeting access she had been denied; and the
Finance Director, who was blamed for levy-estimate errors resulting from using a prior City
template that, upon information and belief, the county treasurer had already told Ms. Tuma and
Ms. Thamert was inaccurate, and who was then told to resign or be fired.
39. In February 2026, an employee at or near retirement age told Ms. Sheely that Ms.
Tuma and Ms. Thamert had encouraged her to go on medical leave, and that an action plan had
already been circulated for other employees to perform her tasks in her absence.
40. Upon information and belief, Defendants preferred younger employees and moved
to replace older ones because they believed younger employees would be more loyal, compliant,
and willing to conform, while older employees, with their accumulated experience, established
professional standards, and independent judgment, were more likely to question leadership and
less likely to fall in line.
41. When employees raised concerns at City forums about colleagues disappearing
without explanation, Ms. Tuma dismissed the concerns as typical turnover and stated that people
who are not aligned with the organization's purpose and values “will be happy to not be here.”
Systematic exclusion and the stripping of Ms. Sheely's duties
42. Beginning after the July 2024 pass-over and intensifying after the August 2025
consolidation, Defendants systematically cut Ms. Sheely off from the meetings, information, and
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decisions relevant to the assignments she is responsible for under her job description—and then
faulted her for the resulting gaps.
43. Ms. Tuma's standing weekly check-in with Ms. Sheely ended on May 23, 2025 and
was never replaced. Ms. Sheely's emailed requests for direction went unanswered. On June 4,
2025, she emailed Ms. Tuma for direction on Strategic Plan communications deliverables,
including a draft progress report due to the City Council; she received no response and later
discovered Ms. Tuma had sent the report to the Council and directors on August 28, 2025 without
involving her, which deviated from past practice.
44. In September 2025, Ms. Sheely learned from a coworker that the Administrative
Services team—the department in which she is listed on the City's organizational chart—had been
meeting weekly without her knowledge, with employees both above and below her on the
organizational chart in attendance.
45. In October 2025, Ms. Sheely discovered she had been excluded from City meetings
with Mayo executives concerning the discontinuation of birthing services in Owatonna—a
significant community issue requiring coordinated public communications. When she asked to be
included, Ms. Thamert told her the meetings were “intentionally kept to a smaller group.” When
Ms. Sheely asked why she was included in the parallel Allina meetings but not the Mayo meetings,
Ms. Thamert removed her from the Allina meetings as well without providing an explanation.
46. Ms. Sheely was excluded from the staff interviews conducted at all levels of the
organization in an organizational review performed by Abdo, an outside financial and
organizational consulting firm retained by the City; from correspondence between City leadership
and Rapp Strategies, an outside communications and public-affairs consulting firm retained by the
City whose work directly overlapped Ms. Sheely's; and from the development of a community
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survey that included questions about the effectiveness of City communications—a survey she had
requested be conducted for several years and which typically falls within the responsibility of the
Communications Manager.
47. In January 2026, Ms. Sheely learned from a public meeting notice that the City
Council would consider retaining Rapp Strategies for crisis communications. When Ms. Sheely
asked Ms. Thamert about this, Ms. Thamert told her the Council was told the City needed “a higher
level of expertise than we have on staff.” As Ms. Tuma and Ms. Thamert were aware, Ms. Sheely
has extensive crisis-communications training and experience in municipal government and the
nuclear power industry. No one asked about her capacity to take on the work.
48. In February 2026, Ms. Thamert informed Ms. Sheely by email that the Police
Department would operate its own social media presence—overseeing the City's social media is
Ms. Sheely's responsibility—and directed Ms. Sheely to turn over her Canva design files so
“someone else can produce the newsletter.” Ms. Thamert later acknowledged the purpose was to
ensure Ms. Sheely was “replaceable.”
49. On February 20, 2026, Ms. Thamert told Ms. Sheely she would never again present
to the City Council, ostensibly because her February 17 presentation ran long. Other City staff who
exceed their allotted presentation time—including younger staff—have not been barred.
50. On March 16, 2026, Ms. Thamert ordered Ms. Sheely—a manager-level
communications professional with deadline-driven work that requires a high level of attention to
detail—to staff the second-floor reception desk and to create a reference document of the tasks and
inquiries handled at that station. A clerical employee had volunteered to cover the desk and was
told her help was not needed. Ms. Sheely staffed the desk, assisted visitors, and began building the
task document. On March 18, when Ms. Sheely needed to step away from the reception desk to
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meet her weekly newsletter deadline, an administrative employee stepped in and added to the
document Ms. Sheely had initiated. Ms. Thamert then ended Ms. Sheely’s reception desk
assignment with an email crediting the administrative employee with creating the task list Ms.
Sheely had initiated and worked collaboratively to build. Ms. Thamert then characterized Ms.
Sheely's work as not meeting expectations.
The revocation of remote work
51. In mid-2025, Ms. Tuma revoked Ms. Sheely's remote-work arrangement by email,
citing a need for “building coverage” due to staff vacancies—although Ms. Sheely's job
responsibilities do not include providing walk-in coverage.
52. Other City employees, including younger employees, continued to work remotely
between one and four days per week. The City's Personnel Policy directs supervisors to consider
“perceptions of fairness among team members.” The disparity was never explained.
53. On October 30, 2025—a day when dense fog had made Ms. Sheely's 30-plus-mile
commute take roughly twice as long, and with the City's winter-parking communications already
published—Ms. Sheely asked about working from home on bad-weather days in anticipation of
winter weather. Ms. Thamert responded, “We don't need to have that conversation yet.” At the
November 25, 2025 meeting described below, Ms. Thamert refused any remote work while
asserting that “our communications manager role is so important”—a different explanation than
Defendants previously provided and even as they were stripping that role of its functions—and
Ms. Tuma recast Ms. Sheely's past use of an approved remote day while traveling as a passenger
as “really abusing what we're doing” and “a break of trust,” although no policy prohibited remote
work away from home and the practice had never been raised as a concern.
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The manufactured performance record
54. On March 31, 2025, Ms. Sheely received her first performance review since
December 2022, conducted by Ms. Tuma under a new four-level rating system. With no
performance issues documented in the intervening two and a quarter years, Ms. Tuma rated Ms.
Sheely “needs improvement” in two categories and gave her no rating above “consistently meets
expectations,” writing that Ms. Sheely “tends to lack an understanding of teamwork,” “struggles
with establishing and maintaining work relationships,” and that “[i]f she could attune herself to
other people's emotions, she would likely experience less conflict.”
55. When Ms. Sheely asked what situations or individuals these criticisms referred to,
none were identified. When she asked how she could improve her rating in the safety category,
she was told the category “doesn't really apply” to her office-based work—but the rating was not
adjusted.
The public safety facilities controversy
56. Throughout this period, the City was advancing a roughly $60 million project to
construct new police and fire facilities. The project generated significant public backlash over its
cost, its effect on property taxes, and the absence of meaningful public engagement, and drew a
citizen reverse-referendum effort and negative media coverage.
57. Ms. Sheely repeatedly advised early and robust community engagement and
transparent communications on the project, as she had urged on City initiatives throughout her
tenure. Her advice was dismissed—Ms. Tuma responded that the City was building a public safety
facility, not a community center—and the City instead followed its outside consultants' preference
for minimal public communications. In January 2026, a community member who toured
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comparable facilities told Ms. Tuma the City needed to improve its communication about the
projects: the same advice Ms. Sheely had been giving, and being ignored on, for months.
58. The project's political sensitivity gave Defendants a powerful motive to control the
City's public messaging—and to silence the communications professional who kept insisting that
the City's public communications be accurate, transparent, and engaged.
Ms. Sheely's protected report: the levy figure
59. Adopted in September 2025, the City's proposed 2026 budget required a double-
digit property-tax levy increase, driven in significant part by the public safety facilities project.
For years, the City had adopted comparatively modest levy increases; the proposed 2026 levy
marked a sharp departure under its new administrative leadership, and public criticism of the City's
budget transparency intensified accordingly. The City communicated to the public that the
proposed levy increase was 13%.
60. Between September and December 2025, the City's official budget presentations—
at the September 16, 2025 proposed-levy adoption, a November 18, 2025 study session, and the
December 2025 Truth-in-Taxation hearing—contained levy-comparison tables that did not
reconcile internally: their columns did not sum to their stated totals, they treated the Housing and
Redevelopment Authority levy inconsistently from one presentation to the next in a manner that
re-based the comparison while preserving the headline 13% figure, and at least one component
line item was back-solved to force a column to add. The City's public levy figures were, in short,
fluctuating and not checkable.
61. Ms. Sheely attempted to coordinate budget communications with the City's Finance
Director, as she had with the prior Finance Director, scheduling a series of standing meetings.
Upon information and belief, Ms. Tuma and Ms. Thamert repeatedly scheduled conflicting
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meetings over those appointments at the last minute—frequently enough that the Finance Director
remarked to Ms. Sheely that it could not be coincidence. This exclusion made it increasingly
difficult for Ms. Sheely to accurately draft communications relating to the development of the
2026 budget. Ms. Sheely nonetheless drafted a presentation for the November 18, 2025 public
budget meeting that included slides showing refinements made to the budget since the September
16 preliminary adoption. Ms. Tuma and Ms. Thamert turned the presentation over to Abdo to
finalize. What was presented publicly on November 18 was a different presentation: the budget-
refinement slides were gone, and Ms. Sheely—who attended the meeting—did not receive the
final version until 5:25 p.m. on November 19, after her related newsletter article had already been
drafted and published. Ms. Thamert later criticized Ms. Sheely for not including details from this
presentation in her draft article and cited this episode as evidence of a “trust” issue on Ms. Sheely's
part; asked to explain how, she provided no answer.
62. By November 19, the Finance Director’s position was vacant and Ms. Tuma and
Ms. Thamert would not meet with Ms. Sheely despite her repeated requests. Drafting a public
budget communication with no solid internal source of budget information, Ms. Sheely did her
own diligence: she consulted multiple sources, found varying figures under consideration, and
identified 13.9% as the figure she believed in good faith to be the levy increase that had been
certified.
63. Ms. Sheely did not publish the figure. She placed 13.9% in her draft, highlighted it,
and submitted the draft to her supervisors for approval so that an accurate figure would be shared
in City communications.
64. At a November 25, 2025 meeting described further below, Ms. Thamert directed
Ms. Sheely to use a figure of 13% to represent the preliminary levy increase that was certified in
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September, disputing Ms. Sheely's number and warning that a different figure “would spark a red
flag out in our community if it's something different than 13.” Ms. Sheely explained her basis for
using 13.9% in the draft message and her concern: “This is the number that was certified…It's not
that it's inaccurate,” and “I got that off of the state's website because I don't get information here.
I'm not in those conversations.” She stated her concern that the City communicate accurate
information to the public amidst ongoing public criticism that the City was not being transparent.
65. On December 19, 2025, Ms. Sheely responded to the November 25 meeting and
subsequent letter in writing, explaining that her “goal in that draft was to ensure the number was
accurate amidst public comments that the City is not being transparent,” that she had used what
she understood to be “the accurate figure certified with the State of Minnesota to ensure we are
transparently sharing accurate information,” and that she had brought the number forward in a
highlighted draft “so a decision could be made” prior to publishing the final article.
66. In these communications, Ms. Sheely reported, in good faith, facts that—if they
were as she understood them to be—would implicate violations of law, including Minn. Stat. §
609.43(4) (public officer or employee knowingly making a false “return, certificate, official report,
or other like document”), common-law misrepresentation, the fiduciary and public-trust
obligations that Minnesota common law imposes on municipal officers and employees, and the
integrity of the property-tax disclosure scheme established by Minn. Stat. § 275.065, under which
taxpayers receive statutorily mandated notices computed from the certified proposed levy and the
final levy may not exceed the certified proposal, among other laws.
67. Ms. Sheely's reports were also forward-looking: she reported, in substance, that if
the City continued communicating a levy figure to the public knowing that the underlying figures
were different, the City would be making knowingly inaccurate official communications.
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68. Whether Ms. Sheely's understanding of the certified figure was correct in every
particular is immaterial: her factual statements were made in good faith, were not knowingly false
or in reckless disregard of the truth, and were the product of Defendants' own decision to wall her
off from the underlying information. And the substance of her concern—that the City's public levy
figures were unreliable—was borne out by the City's own internally inconsistent presentations.
The irony bears noting: Defendants disciplined Ms. Sheely in the name of “accuracy” for
attempting to verify a public figure herself, at the very time the budget figures the City itself was
presenting to the public—prepared by or at the direction of City leadership—did not add up.
The November 25, 2025 meeting and letter
69. On the morning of November 25, 2025, Ms. Sheely asked Ms. Tuma for a minute
of her time; Ms. Tuma replied that she was “booked solid until February,” walked into the HR
Director's office, and shut the door in Ms. Sheely's face, after which Ms. Sheely heard laughter
from inside the office.
70. Later that day, Ms. Sheely arrived at what an ambiguous calendar invitation
described as a meeting with Ms. Thamert, in the office that Ms. Tuma, Ms. Thamert, and Ms. Boss
called “The War Room,” to find all three waiting. The meeting was a deliberate ambush, staged to
intimidate and bully Ms. Sheely by confronting her, without warning and alone, with the City's
entire assembled leadership; as Ms. Thamert put it, “I asked Rachel and Jenna to step in too
because that will lead right into a conversation about kind of expectations moving forward.”
71. At the meeting, Defendants denied Ms. Sheely's pending unpaid-leave request and
her remote-work request, raised the levy figure as an “error” bearing on “trust,” and read from a
letter titled “Performance Expectations” threatening discharge. The letter—signed by Ms.
Thamert, copying Ms. Tuma and Ms. Boss—recites vague, unmeasurable criticisms: inability to
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build relationships, failure to collaborate, not being viewed as a “trusted strategic partner.” It
identifies no specific individual, incident, or measurable standard. When Ms. Sheely asked for
specifics, none were provided.
72. The letter instructs Ms. Sheely not to be “defensive,” not to object “when
initially…responding” to management, and not to express concerns about City employees or
operations—directives that made any attempt at self-defense its own infraction.
73. When Ms. Sheely asked what, specifically, she could do differently, Ms. Tuma
responded: “I don't know that I'm gonna solve your problem for you to say here's what you need
to do.” Ms. Thamert added, “[Y]ou can't be part of the solution until you identify how you're part
of the problem.” The meeting closed with Ms. Thamert asking Ms. Sheely whether she even
enjoyed working at the City—inviting her to express a desire to leave.
74. The written letter omits the levy issue entirely, although it was the only concrete
example of any purported performance deficiency raised at the meeting.
The coaching that backfired
75. As part of the November 25 process, the City directed Ms. Sheely to complete
coaching sessions with Michael Beach, an acquaintance of Ms. Tuma. Ms. Sheely completed two
sessions, on November 26 and December 2, 2025. Mr. Beach told Ms. Sheely she was “an absolute
delight” and recommended she share with City leadership how successfully she had adapted her
communication style to build relationships.
76. Mr. Beach submitted a report to Ms. Tuma. The report was never provided to Ms.
Sheely and was never cited in any subsequent discipline—including the March 19, 2026 notice of
intended discharge—supporting the inference that it did not support Defendants' characterization
of Ms. Sheely not meeting performance expectations.
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The December 19 report and the escalation that followed
77. On December 19, 2025, Ms. Sheely emailed her written response to the November
25 letter and ambush meeting to Ms. Thamert, copying Ms. Tuma, Ms. Boss, and Mr. Beach. The
response rebutted each criticism with specific, named examples of effective internal and external
working relationships, repeated her levy report as described above, and asked to be told of any
relationship she was overlooking so she could address it.
78. After December 19, 2025, Defendants' treatment of Ms. Sheely escalated markedly.
Ms. Thamert and Ms. Boss engaged in weekly efforts to identify purported errors in her work, the
majority of which dissolved upon examination. Defendants manufactured deadline traps, including
an 11:06 a.m. email from Ms. Tuma demanding a response by noon and a meeting request sent at
approximately 9:30 p.m. for 7:30 the next morning. Additional duties were stripped; additional
meetings excluded her; and her attempts to correct the record with facts and documentation were
themselves characterized as defensiveness.
The February 11, 2026 verbal abuse
79. On February 11, 2026, Ms. Sheely met with a consultant for the public safety
facilities project architect at the consultant's request to share preliminary feedback from staff
regarding carpet selections. The task of facilitating the selection of branding elements such as
carpet, paint, etc. with outside consultants and/or the facilities manager for City projects was
consistent with Ms. Sheely's documented role in several previous projects.
80. Following a project team meeting where the consultant met Ms. Sheely, the
consultant sent Ms. Sheely carpet samples. Those samples had been spread out on the floor in
Ms. Sheely's office in plain sight for several weeks. During that time, the carpet samples were
visible from both of Ms. Sheely's office doors leading to the restroom hallway and the copier
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room and, of course, to anyone who came into her office. Ms. Tuma had visited Ms. Sheely’s
office on one occasion during this period. Ms. Tuma almost certainly saw the samples, but didn't
offer feedback or ask about them. Ms. Sheely attempted to ask Ms. Tuma about how to proceed
with providing the consultant with feedback on the samples, yet Ms. Tuma walked away before
Ms. Sheely could get her attention on the matter.
81. In response to the consultant's request for feedback, Ms. Sheely discussed the
samples and the consultant’s meeting request with the interim facilities manager and
then scheduled the meeting with the consultant and interim facilities manager. Once the online
meeting began, the interim facilities manager suggested forwarding the meeting invitation to Ms.
Thamert and Ms. Tuma, who both joined. Ms. Tuma angrily ended the meeting without any
feedback being shared or discussion occurring. The meeting was preliminary and informational.
No decision was made or purported to be made: Ms. Sheely was relaying feedback she had
received from Police Department leadership so the consultant could prepare options for a
decision that remained Ms. Tuma's to make at the next project team meeting.
82. Following the meeting, in an office with Ms. Thamert and the facilities manager
present, Ms. Tuma declared that she was “pissed,” said “This is MY project and here you are
having meetings behind my back making decisions,” accusing Ms. Sheely of conduct she had not
engaged in, said she could not trust her, and shouted at Ms. Sheely for approximately 15 minutes
with her finger pointed in Ms. Sheely's face, loudly enough to be heard down the hallway. Ms.
Sheely was not allowed to speak to offer an explanation or ask questions. After Ms. Tuma left
the room, Ms. Sheely broke down crying in front of the two witnesses. It was at least the third
occasion on which Ms. Tuma had shouted at Ms. Sheely during discussions about work.
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83. The next day, Ms. Thamert acknowledged to Ms. Sheely that shouting at
coworkers “isn't good”—and then directed Ms. Sheely to apologize to Ms. Tuma for “upsetting
her” and to make the apology non-defensive. Afraid of further retaliation, Ms. Sheely complied,
leaving a written apology under Ms. Tuma's door. The following day, as if nothing had occurred
between them, Ms. Tuma cheerfully solicited Ms. Sheely's input at a meeting with several others
present about the same carpet and paint samples.
84. Ms. Sheely's contemporaneous notes from this period record that she felt “trapped
in an abusive relationship.” Other employees, including directors, told Ms. Sheely they had
observed how badly Ms. Tuma treated her.
The March 19, 2026 notice: unpaid leave, one day to respond, and the resignation lever
85. On March 19, 2026—following the reception-desk assignment, and the same day
Ms. Sheely asked the City's HR department about Minnesota Paid Leave benefits in connection
with awaiting the results of a medical biopsy—Ms. Tuma called Ms. Sheely's personal cell phone
at approximately 6:25 p.m. and read a Notice of Intent to Discharge into her voicemail. Ms. Boss
emailed the notice to Ms. Sheely's personal email address within minutes.
86. The notice, signed solely by Ms. Tuma, placed Ms. Sheely on immediate
administrative leave that the notice itself styled as “non-disciplinary”—yet without pay and
without benefits; barred her from City property, email, equipment, and data; announced Ms.
Tuma's intent to discharge her effective March 24, 2026; and gave her until 8:00 a.m. on March
23, 2026—one business day—to respond. The City's personnel policy contains no provision
authorizing unpaid administrative leave in these circumstances, and the notice alleged no safety
threat or misconduct requiring immediate removal—only referring to vague and fabricated
performance-type concerns.
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87. The cut-off of pay and benefits was maximally coercive: Ms. Sheely is 62 years
old, and her health plan covers her retired husband and her disabled adult son.
88. The notice's stated grounds recycled the campaign that preceded it, including the
February 11 incident—recast as Ms. Sheely “undermining leadership”—the February 17 Council
presentation, a photo-consent matter inflated into “improper handling of private data,” the format
of a one-page handout, and the submission of talking points rather than bullet points for an all-
staff meeting.
89. The notice concluded by inviting Ms. Sheely to consider “voluntarily resigning,”
advising that if there is a final disposition of disciplinary action, the reasons and supporting data
“would be public data,” but that “[i]f, however, [she] resign[s] from employment before such
disposition, such data will not be public”—the same resignation lever, upon information and belief,
deployed against other older and dissenting employees.
Ms. Sheely's March 20, 2026 complaint—and the City's response
90. On March 20, 2026, Ms. Sheely filed a formal written complaint of harassment, age
discrimination, and hostile work environment under the City's personnel policy. Because the
officials responsible for the conduct—Ms. Tuma, Ms. Thamert, and Ms. Boss—were the very
people to whom complaints would ordinarily be directed, she submitted the complaint to the City
Attorney, copying Ms. Tuma, Ms. Thamert, and Ms. Boss. The complaint invoked the personnel
policy's prohibitions on age discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, described the conduct
alleged herein, and requested an investigation by an external party not subject to the direction or
approval of the three officials.
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91. The same day, Ms. Sheely's counsel served a demand letter and litigation hold on
the City Attorney asserting claims under the MHRA and the Minnesota Whistleblower Act. Ms.
Sheely declined to resign.
92. Also on March 20, Ms. Tuma directed the return of City property. When Ms. Sheely
asked about retrieving her personal belongings, she was not permitted to access her office, even
supervised; instead, Ms. Tuma emailed photographs of Ms. Sheely's office and directed her to
circle her personal items so they could be collected for her. Ms. Tuma wrote that she would
personally meet Ms. Sheely to deliver her belongings. After Ms. Sheely's complaint and counsel's
demand letter were served that day, it was a police captain—not Ms. Tuma—who met her at an
exterior door. Ms. Boss, while acknowledging receipt of the discrimination complaint, again
extended the offer to resign.
93. The City did not execute the announced March 24 discharge—but it also did not
formally tell Ms. Sheely what her status was. The announced discharge date came and went.
Stripped of pay and benefits on paper, Ms. Sheely was left to wonder whether her health coverage
remained in force and whether a paycheck would arrive. Not until April 1, 2026 did the City
confirm in writing that her leave would be paid with benefits, retroactive to March 19—an implicit
concession that the original unpaid, one-business-day posture was indefensible.
The retaliatory demands for Ms. Sheely's evidence
94. Ms. Sheely had lawfully recorded the November 25, 2025 meeting on her personal
phone, in a one-party-consent state, to document conduct she believed to be unlawful. The
recording is evidence supporting her claims.
95. On April 1, 2026—the same day the City informed Ms. Sheely’s counsel it would
investigate before responding to Ms. Sheely's claims—Ms. Tuma sent a letter directly to Ms.
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Sheely, bypassing her known counsel, captioned “Order to Provide Items.” The letter ordered Ms.
Sheely to surrender the recording “to me in person” within two days, asserted that she could not
retain the original or any copy unless the City later decided otherwise, and threatened “appropriate
employment, civil, administrative, and/or criminal action against you, up to and including,
discharge.”
96. Ms. Tuma repeated the demand by letter on April 2, 2026, and again on April 6,
2026, when she characterized Ms. Sheely's non-compliance as “insubordination” and an “insolent
response to directives.” Each letter was sent directly to Ms. Sheely although Ms. Tuma knew she
was represented by counsel.
97. A demand by the subject of a discrimination complaint that the complainant
personally surrender to her, on pain of criminal prosecution, the key evidence against her, has no
basis in the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act or any other law, and was calculated to
intimidate Ms. Sheely and suppress evidence.
“We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing”: the sham investigation
98. On March 25, 2026, the City retained attorney-investigator Michelle Soldo of Soldo
Consulting, P.C. to investigate Ms. Sheely's complaint. Upon information and belief, Ms. Tuma—
the principal subject of the complaint—commissioned and defined the scope of the engagement,
served as the investigation's sole point of contact, received its report, and controlled the
communication of its results. Every communication in the process—the notices, the leave letters,
the recording demands, the supplements to the notice of intended discharge, and the disposition—
issued from Ms. Tuma alone, including matters that would ordinarily come from Ms. Sheely's
direct supervisor or from Human Resources. Upon information and belief, the City Council did
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not take any part in assessing or acting on the complaint or the report, and the complaint was never
routed to any decision-maker independent of its subjects.
99. Ms. Sheely is not the first Minnesota public employee to question this investigator's
independence. In Veith v. City of Saint Paul, Court File No. 62-CV-21-5468 (Minn. Dist. Ct.,
Ramsey Cty.), a City of Saint Paul employee alleged that the city replaced its original investigator
with Ms. Soldo mid-investigation without explanation; that Ms. Soldo, while claiming to possess
the original investigator's complete file, required the complainant to begin the process anew; that
the complainant's counsel raised written concerns of a “deliberate and conscious effort…to conceal
and/or suppress the work of the original investigator”; that Ms. Soldo thereafter never responded
to the complainant or her counsel; and that the city then closed the complaint as not substantiated
based on Ms. Soldo's determination. Separately, an investigative report Ms. Soldo prepared for
another Minnesota city was publicly denounced by members of that city's own council and staff
as biased, as containing misinformation, as “based on a very small number of people that spoke
with her,” and as so heavily redacted that the council voted to demand an unredacted copy.
100. The concern is compounded by Ms. Soldo's connections. The City of North Branch
previously retained Ms. Soldo to investigate complaints against its City Administrator, Renae Fry,
and Ms. Soldo found the hostile-work-environment allegations not substantiated while leaving
serious transparency allegations against Ms. Fry unresolved. Ms. Fry is now the Steele County
Administrator and, upon information and belief, is frequently in contact with Ms. Tuma. That Ms.
Tuma—the principal subject of the complaint—selected an investigator who had previously
cleared an official who now administers the county in which the City sits and remains in regular
contact with Ms. Tuma further undermines any claim that the investigation was independent or
neutral.
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101. Ms. Sheely cooperated fully with the investigation. She sat for interviews on April
6 and April 14, 2026 and submitted a detailed timeline of events on April 13, 2026. The
investigator committed that she would follow up with Ms. Sheely if she received information
contradicting Ms. Sheely's account.
102. The investigator declined to interview the corroborating witnesses Ms. Sheely
identified, on the stated ground that they “were not involved in the performance management she
alleges was unjustified and discriminatory”—a scope limitation that, upon information and belief,
tracked what the subjects of the complaint told the investigator, and that excluded the testimony
most probative of Ms. Sheely's actual job role, of what treatment was normal, and of the pattern
of animus and turnover alleged in the complaint.
103. Upon information and belief, apart from Ms. Sheely, the investigator interviewed
only the three subjects of the complaint and one other person. The investigator never followed up
with Ms. Sheely as promised, although she received accounts contradicting Ms. Sheely's; her
counsel's written inquiry about whether the commitment would be honored went unanswered.
104. The investigator closed the record on May 27, 2026 and issued a report dated May
31, 2026 finding 18 of 19 allegations “not substantiated” and one—the February 11 shouting
incident—“sustained in part,” concluding that Ms. Tuma's conduct “was unprofessional and was
reasonably perceived by Ms. Sheely as intimidating and humiliating,” while characterizing it as “a
single and isolated occurrence” after declining to investigate the other shouting incidents Ms.
Sheely reported.
105. Upon information and belief, the report's “not substantiated” findings rest on a
recurring formula—that the investigation “established legitimate operational and business
reasons” for each challenged action—derived from the unverified accounts of the very officials
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accused, without independent corroboration and without testing those accounts against the pattern,
context, and relationships that the City's own policy requires be considered.
106. The report also mischaracterizes Ms. Sheely's complaint in a manner apparently
designed to disparage her and minimize her motivations, attributing to her an allegation that
leadership acted out of “jealousy” concerning her experience and accomplishments—a word and
concept that appear nowhere in her complaint—and renders a bare conclusion that her
whistleblower activity “is not supported by the facts and law,” with no disclosed analysis. A neutral
fact-finder has no reason to invent a motive for a complainant; the mischaracterization served to
recast a discrimination complaint as a personal grievance.
107. Ms. Sheely received only a heavily redacted summary of the report, which the City
first provided to her through her counsel on June 4, 2026. The redactions withheld not merely
names but the findings, reasoning, and factual bases for the investigator's conclusions—including
the claimed reasons for the changes in her working conditions—and the substantive discussion
attachment was withheld in its entirety, although the City's personnel policy provides that the
results of an investigation will be made available to the complainant. The redactions made it
impossible for Ms. Sheely to meaningfully respond.
108. On June 4, 2026, the same day the City provided her the redacted summary, Ms.
Tuma—the subject of the complaint—personally issued a “Notice of Disposition of Complaint”
declaring that the complaint was “disposed of in its entirety” and that “no disciplinary action was
taken,” and inviting Ms. Sheely to report any retaliation to Ms. Tuma herself. Even as to the one
allegation sustained against her, Ms. Tuma imposed no discipline—because the person responsible
for imposing it was the person who had engaged in it. In substance, the City investigated itself and
found no wrongdoing.
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The discharge
109. On June 3, 2026—before Ms. Sheely had been provided even the redacted
investigation report—Ms. Tuma issued a “Second Supplement” to the notice of intended
discharge, announcing that the City would proceed to discharge Ms. Sheely effective June 5, 2026
and giving her until 4:30 p.m. on June 4 to respond. The letter emphasized, “[a]s a courtesy,” what
the City itself tallied as 76 days of paid leave—approximately $27,003.60 in salary and $10,244.51
in benefits, by the City's own accounting—and again advised Ms. Sheely that if she resigned before
final disposition, the reasons for the City's action and its supporting data “will not be public.”
110. On June 4, 2026, Ms. Sheely's counsel responded that she could not meaningfully
answer the notice without the complete, unredacted investigation report, requested receipt of that
report and no fewer than 14 days after its receipt to provide a supplemental response, and asked
that no action be taken in the interim. The City provided neither the report nor the time.
111. On Friday afternoon, June 5, 2026—one day after Ms. Tuma declared Ms. Sheely's
complaint disposed of—the City discharged Ms. Sheely, effective immediately. The discharge
letter, signed by Ms. Tuma, states: “I made the final decision in this matter to discharge you from
employment with the City as only the City Administrator has the authority in the City to discharge
employees other than the City Administrator itself.” The principal subject of Ms. Sheely's
complaint thus confirmed that she alone made the final decision to discharge the complainant. The
letter asserts that Ms. Sheely's complaint “was thoroughly reviewed internally to ensure fairness
and objectivity”—a review conducted, upon information and belief, by no one independent of the
officials named in the complaint—and closes, “Good luck in your future endeavors.”
112. Upon information and belief, following Ms. Sheely's discharge, the City hired a
recent college graduate, several decades younger than Ms. Sheely, to serve in the City’s primary
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communications role, notwithstanding the fact that other, older staff with more communications
experience remain employed with the City.
Damages
113. As a direct result of Defendants' conduct, Ms. Sheely has suffered and continues to
suffer lost wages and benefits. Per the City's own January 2026 Total Compensation Statement,
her total annual compensation was $148,364.98, including earnings of $112,145.03. Her losses
include back pay, front pay reflecting her age and the specialized nature of her position in the
southern Minnesota labor market, health insurance covering herself and her dependents, retirement
contributions, and other benefits.
114. Defendants' conduct has caused Ms. Sheely severe emotional distress, humiliation,
anxiety, depression, and sleep disruption, with physical manifestations, all aggravated by the
deliberately public and punitive manner of her suspension and discharge, by the threats of criminal
prosecution made in connection with the demands that she surrender her recording, and by the
timing of the City's actions while she awaited biopsy results and potentially needing to use
Minnesota Paid Leave to undergo treatment.
115. 116. COUNT I
AGE DISCRIMINATION — MINN. STAT. § 363A.08, SUBD. 2
(Against Defendant City of Owatonna)
Plaintiff realleges and incorporates the above paragraphs as if fully set forth herein.
Ms. Sheely, age 62, is a member of a protected class under the MHRA, which
prohibits discrimination in the terms, conditions, and privileges of employment because of age.
Minn. Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 2.
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117. Ms. Sheely was qualified for her position and performed it capably, as reflected in
her 2022 review, her peers' recognition, the 2025 outside coach's assessment, and the City's
continued reliance on the communications program she built.
118. The City, through Ms. Tuma, Ms. Thamert, and Ms. Boss, subjected Ms. Sheely to
adverse employment actions because of her age, including: a materially downgraded and pretextual
performance review; a written reprimand threatening discharge; the revocation of her remote-work
arrangement while other, including younger, employees retained remote schedules of between one
and four days per week; systematic exclusion from meetings and information required by her job;
the stripping of her duties and their transfer to younger and preferred staff and outside consultants;
a demeaning reception-desk reassignment refused to a clerical volunteer; a bar on Council
presentations not applied to younger staff who exceeded their time; the decision to place her on
immediate, unpaid, non-disciplinary leave without benefits; and discharge.
119. The City also subjected Ms. Sheely to a hostile work environment because of her
age—including the conduct described above and repeated verbal abuse, ridicule, and ostracism—
that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of her employment. Even
the City's own investigator found that Ms. Tuma's conduct toward Ms. Sheely was “unprofessional
and was reasonably perceived by Ms. Sheely as intimidating and humiliating.”
120. Evidence that age was a motivating and determinative factor includes, among other
things: Ms. Boss's reaction upon learning Ms. Sheely's age (“Wow, you don't look anywhere near
that old!”) followed by immediately dismissive treatment; the reconstitution of the entire chain of
command above Ms. Sheely with younger officials, including the selection of an approximately
28-year-old HR Director over older, more experienced applicants; the disproportionate
concentration of departures among employees in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, including the
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encouragement of an employee at or near retirement age to take a leave for which a task-transition
plan was already circulating; the denial of an interview to the plainly qualified older internal
candidate in favor of a younger one; the transfer of Ms. Sheely's duties to younger and preferred
staff and outside consultants; and the City's post-discharge distribution of her duties and hiring of
a recent college graduate into a communications role performing duties Ms. Sheely had performed.
121. The City's stated performance justifications are pretextual, as demonstrated by,
among other things: the absence of any documented performance issue between December 2022
and Ms. Tuma's arrival as supervisor; the refusal, when asked, to identify a single specific
relationship, incident, or standard underlying the criticisms; the never-cited report of the City's
own hand-picked coach; the “gotcha” campaign whose accusations largely dissolved on
inspection; the City's reliance on trivialities (handout formats, bullet points) and on conditions it
created itself (the reception desk, the withheld information); and the double bind in which Ms.
Sheely was criticized for failing to be proactive in building relationships and then disciplined when
she took initiative—an unwinnable standard that exists to generate infractions.
122. The City's violation was intentional and, through its senior officials, deliberate. As
a direct and proximate result, Ms. Sheely has suffered damages as described above, in an amount
to be proven at trial and exceeding $50,000.
123. 124. COUNT II
REPRISAL — MINN. STAT. § 363A.15
(Against Defendant City of Owatonna and Defendant Jenna Tuma)
Plaintiff realleges and incorporates the paragraphs above as if fully set forth herein.
Ms. Sheely engaged in statutorily protected activity under the MHRA, including:
opposing practices forbidden by the MHRA; filing her March 20, 2026 written complaint of age
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discrimination, harassment, and hostile work environment; serving her March 20, 2026 demand
letter through counsel; and participating in the investigation of her complaint.
125. Defendants City and Tuma intentionally engaged in reprisal against Ms. Sheely
because of her protected activity, including by: demanding—directly to a represented complainant,
under threat of criminal prosecution—that she surrender the evidence supporting her complaint,
and characterizing her refusal as insubordination; structuring and controlling a self-exonerating
investigation of her complaint while she remained on leave; withholding the investigation's
findings and reasoning so that she could not respond to them; declaring her complaint disposed of
without discipline even as to the allegation sustained against Ms. Tuma; and discharging her one
day later, over her objection that she had not been given the findings.
126. Defendant Tuma participated in the alleged discrimination as a perpetrator within
the meaning of Minn. Stat. § 363A.15 and personally directed and committed the acts of reprisal
described above: she alone signed the notices, ordered the surrender of evidence, commissioned
and received the investigation, announced its disposition, and—as she confirmed in writing—alone
made the final decision to discharge Ms. Sheely.
127. The causal connection between Ms. Sheely's protected activity and the adverse
actions is established by, among other things, the timing and sequence of events; the identity of
the sole decision-maker with the principal subject of the complaint; the City's departure from its
own policies at every step; and the City's pattern of using pretextual discipline and the resignation
lever against employees who complained.
128. As a direct and proximate result, Ms. Sheely has suffered damages as described
above, in an amount to be proven at trial and exceeding $50,000.
COUNT III
WHISTLEBLOWER RETALIATION — MINN. STAT. § 181.932
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(Against Defendant City of Owatonna)
129. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates the paragraphs above as if fully set forth herein.
130. Ms. Sheely made reports, in good faith, to her employer of suspected and planned
violations of state law and common law within the meaning of Minn. Stat. § 181.932, subd. 1(1),
including: her highlighted draft regarding the proposed 2026 budget submitted for approval; her
verbal statements at the November 25, 2025 meeting; and her December 19, 2025 written
response—each reporting, in substance, that the levy figure the City was communicating to the
public diverged from the figure she in good faith believed had been certified, and that continuing
to communicate a figure known to be different or unverifiable would constitute knowingly
inaccurate official communication, implicating, among other laws, Minn. Stat. § 609.43(4),
common-law misrepresentation, the fiduciary and public-trust obligations of municipal officers
and employees under Minnesota common law, and the property-tax disclosure scheme of Minn.
Stat. § 275.065.
131. Ms. Sheely's reports were made in good faith: her statements were not knowingly
false or in reckless disregard of the truth; she attempted to obtain the information from the City
first and was refused; she consulted multiple sources on her own diligence; and she raised the
discrepancy through a highlighted draft submitted for approval rather than unilateral publication.
132. The City took adverse employment actions against Ms. Sheely because of the
concerns she raised. The escalation followed each report in close sequence: the same-day written
reprimand threatening discharge (which conspicuously omitted the levy issue it had been staged
around); the marked intensification of scrutiny, exclusion, duty-stripping, and manufactured
discipline after her December 19 written response; the reception-desk humiliation; the decision to
place her on immediate, unpaid, non-disciplinary leave without benefits; and the discharge. The
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levy “error” was the only concrete example of any performance deficiency offered at the
November 25 meeting, and Defendants' stated motive—that a different figure “would spark a red
flag out in our community”—confirms that Ms. Sheely was punished for insisting on accuracy that
threatened the City's public messaging.
133. Ms. Sheely's protected reports were a motivating factor in the adverse actions taken
against her. As a direct and proximate result, Ms. Sheely has suffered damages as described above,
recoverable under Minn. Stat. § 181.935, in an amount to be proven at trial and exceeding $50,000.
COUNT IV
AIDING AND ABETTING — MINN. STAT. § 363A.14
(Against Defendants Tuma, Thamert, and Boss, Individually)
134. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates the paragraphs above as if fully set forth herein.
135. Minn. Stat. § 363A.14 makes it an unfair discriminatory practice for any person
intentionally to aid, abet, incite, compel, or coerce another to engage in practices forbidden by the
MHRA.
136. Defendants Tuma, Thamert, and Boss each knowingly and intentionally aided,
abetted, incited, compelled, and coerced the discriminatory and retaliatory practices alleged herein,
and each substantially assisted the others with knowledge of the unlawful character of the conduct.
137. Defendant Tuma, among other things: initiated the hostility upon assuming
authority over Ms. Sheely; conducted the pretextual 2025 review; eliminated Ms. Sheely's
supervision and information channels; revoked her remote work; subjected her to repeated public
verbal abuse; jointly staged and participated in the November 25 ambush; issued the March 19
notice placing her on unpaid, non-disciplinary leave; demanded the surrender of her evidence
under threat of criminal prosecution; controlled the investigation of the complaint against herself;
and, by her own written admission, alone made the final decision to discharge Ms. Sheely.
3574-CV-26-1951 Filed in District Court
State of Minnesota
10/15/2026 10:21 AM
138. Defendant Thamert, among other things: designed the hiring process that
consolidated the younger leadership chain and installed Ms. Boss over older, more experienced
applicants; as Ms. Sheely's supervisor, carried out the exclusions and duty-stripping alleged above;
signed the November 25 letter and staged the meeting (“I asked Rachel and Jenna to step in too”);
directed Ms. Sheely to use the 13% figure to avoid “a red flag”; directed Ms. Sheely to apologize
to her abuser and not be “defensive”; conducted the weekly “gotcha” campaign; ordered and then
weaponized the reception-desk assignment; and acknowledged that the transfer of Ms. Sheely's
files was to make her “replaceable.”
139. Defendant Boss, among other things: made the age-based remark alleged above and
thereafter treated Ms. Sheely dismissively and excluded her from shared work; blocked her staff
from working with Ms. Sheely; participated in the “gotcha” campaign; participated in the
November 25 meeting; transmitted the March 19 notice to Ms. Sheely's personal email; and twice
communicated the City's resignation solicitations, including within hours of acknowledging
receipt of Ms. Sheely's discrimination complaint.
140. Each individual Defendant acted with knowledge of the others' conduct and with
the intent to further it, as evidenced by their coordinated staging of the November 25 meeting, their
joint participation in the documents and meetings described above, and their common deployment
of the City's pretext-and-resignation playbook against Ms. Sheely as against other older and
dissenting employees.
141. The individual Defendants' liability under the MHRA is not subject to the municipal
tort liability limits of Minn. Stat. ch. 466. As a direct and proximate result of their conduct, Ms.
Sheely has suffered damages as described above, in an amount to be proven at trial and exceeding
$50,000.
3674-CV-26-1951 Filed in District Court
State of Minnesota
10/15/2026 10:21 AM
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Deanna Sheely respectfully requests that the Court enter
judgment in her favor and against Defendants, jointly and severally as allowed by law, as follows:
a. Awarding Plaintiff back pay, front pay, and the value of lost benefits, in an amount to be
proven at trial;
b. Awarding Plaintiff compensatory damages, including damages for mental anguish and
suffering, in an amount up to three times actual damages pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 363A.29,
subd. 4;
c. Imposing a civil penalty payable to the State pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 363A.29, subd. 4;
d. Awarding Plaintiff all damages recoverable under Minn. Stat. § 181.935;
e. Awarding Plaintiff her reasonable attorney's fees, costs, and disbursements pursuant to
Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 7, and Minn. Stat. § 181.935;
f. Awarding pre-judgment and post-judgment interest as allowed by law; and
g. Granting such other and further relief as the Court deems just and equitable.
DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
Plaintiff demands a trial by jury on all issues so triable pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. P. 38.01.
Respectfully Submitted,
TRAUTMANN MARTIN LAW PLLC
Dated: August 7, 2026 /s/Daniel Wilcox
Daniel John Wilcox (#0401664)
370 Wabasha St. North, Suite 857
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102
Telephone: (612) 431-1825
Attorneys for Plaintiff Deanna Sheely
3774-CV-26-1951 Filed in District Court
State of Minnesota
10/15/2026 10:21 AM
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The undersigned hereby acknowledges that costs, disbursements, and reasonable attorney and
witness fees may be awarded pursuant to Minnesota Statutes § 549.211 to the party against
whom the allegations in this pleading are asserted.
/s/Daniel Wilcox
By: Daniel John Wilcox (#0401664)