In a response to lawsuits against Butler, the city's solicitor has requested that the Butler County court drop it, claiming that the city did not have a contract with the two men who filed the suits.

Former city police Chief Ronald Brown and former Deputy Chief David Adam sued the city in April, demanding about $62,000 combined for lost compensation time, pensions and personal days. Both men worked for the police department for 28 years before retiring in 2018.

In the lawsuits, Adam and Brown claim that the city breached its contracts with them by miscalculating their individual pensions and compensation for overtime, adding that both were entitled to payment for unused sick and vacation days.

But city solicitor Thomas Breth argued in his response to the suit that the city did not have a contract with Brown and Adam, and that their employment with the city was part of a local ordinance and subject to a collective bargaining agreement. In Breth's argument, a distinction is made between a formal contract and the local ordinance that the two men were employed under.

Citing a city case in 1977, Breth writes that the complaint can't be considered by the court because it wasn't brought up as a mandamus action — an order that a court can issue to the city. In this case, Breth is arguing that if Adam and Brown want more money, they have to get the county court to issue an order that would force the city to pay them.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, a mandamus shouldn't be used if the plaintiff has a legal remedy, such as a lawsuit. The “mandamus is an extraordinary remedy,” the office website states, and that it should only be used in “exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.”

Brown and Adam are pursuing this suit for monetary judgment through their lawyer, Al Lindsay.

According to Brown's lawsuit, his salary was $91,395 at the time he retired, yet the city incorrectly calculated his pension at a lower salary of $88,660.

Adam's lawsuit makes a similar claim, arguing that $74,500 was the salary used to calculate the pension he was owed at the time of his retirement, a figure lower than his $78,700 salary.

A review of the city's ordinance reflects the figures the two men calculate as their salary. However, an amended ordinance that was passed later reduces the salary of the two men to the figure that they received.

Brown is seeking $32,564.50 from the city and Adam is seeking $29,178.32.

Breth also rebuked Brown and Adam, saying that part of their lawsuit “was not for any other purpose other than to include inflammatory and incendiary remarks intended for public attention.”

Mayor Ben Smith placed both men on administrative leave in July 2018 in response to a no-confidence vote taken by the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 32 in June.