Ex-Officer Battles City Over Medical Files : Culver City: He left in 1987 on a stress-related disability. His cancer is in remission and he’s trying to get his job back but is incensed that the city is demanding his cancer records as a condition for reapplying.

More than a decade after doctors diagnosed him with terminal colon cancer and gave him months to live, former Culver City Police Sgt. John Kennedy is battling a new opponent: the city he served with distinction for 12 years.

Kennedy, 46, whose cancer has been in remission since 1984, says he wants to reapply for his old job, which he left in 1987 on a stress-related disability.

But the heartwarming story of a cancer-beating cop rejoining his force may never happen because of a standoff involving Kennedy’s medical records.

Incensed by the city’s request that he turn over all medical records regarding his cancer as a condition to reapplying to the department, Kennedy has filed a complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and is threatening to follow up with a lawsuit.

“I’m a cop,” Kennedy said. “Either Culver City’s going to take me back, or we’re going to court.”

The ex-sergeant said he’s willing to take a physical and psychological exam--as all applicants are expected to undergo. But he and his attorney, Hiram Raldiris, argue that in demanding Kennedy’s cancer treatment records, Marlene Blauner, the city’s claims and safety coordinator, is applying an “exclusionary qualification standard” that violates the three-year-old federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

“The issue now is no longer: Does Sgt. Kennedy have a right to be reinstated?” Kennedy said. “The issue is: Does a recovered cancer patient have a right to return to the workplace?”

Blauner declined to comment on the claim, but City Atty. Norm Herring angrily lashed out at Kennedy, who was awarded the Police Department’s second-highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award Medal, upon his retirement six years ago.

“Kennedy has become a tremendous pain in the ass because he has not been forthright in his presentations to the news media,” Herring said. He accused Kennedy of taking conversations out of context, misapplying state disability provisions and “creating rights that don’t exist.”

Perhaps most significant, he suggested that Kennedy’s placement on disability, though technically attributed to job-related stress, was, in fact, a result of his cancer. As such, Herring said, the city has both the right and the obligation to review Kennedy’s medical records as they pertain to “a previously existing condition that caused him to be placed on disability.”

“We can’t say we’ll forget about the records and rely on Kennedy’s representation to a doctor,” Herring said. “You can’t forget what you know.”

One of the risks of rehiring Kennedy, the city attorney continued, is that he could get sick again and requalify for “the whole melange of benefits.”

But Kennedy, noting that he already receives full medical benefits under his $1,700-a-month disability package, said such arguments are just a handy excuse to engage in discrimination against cancer victims.

Kennedy said he requires a colostomy bag but runs 30 minutes a day, works out with weights and has had no symptoms of the disease since 1984, two years after his initial diagnosis. Other than the discrimination Kennedy says he has encountered at City Hall, he says the only thing standing between him and active duty is the completion of a three-week retraining course.

Also, Kennedy says he was offered a position by Police Chief Ted Cooke in June, 1991.

Herring, in a letter sent last month to Kennedy and his attorney, counters that Kennedy “was never offered re-employment by the City of Culver City or any employee.”

On Monday, Herring said Cooke only agreed to consider Kennedy if he applied for any openings.

“He’s not automatically entitled to be rehired when he chooses,” Herring said of Kennedy. Cooke did not return phone calls to his office.

Additionally, Herring and Kennedy are at odds over whether Kennedy is free to work elsewhere as a law enforcement officer.

While Herring contends Kennedy can “work wherever he wants to,” Kennedy says its not that simple and he accused the city of placing him in a “Catch-22.” situation. If he were to find work elsewhere, he said, Culver City could recall him at a moment’s notice, require that he take a physical and, if he passed, insist that he return to the department.

So rather than uproot his family and spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, Kennedy wants Culver City to give him physical and psychological exams, unprejudiced by any prior medical information. If he fails to meet Culver City’s standards, he says he will be free to work elsewhere and, he adds, to keep collecting his disability pension from Culver City.