By: Loyd Willaford and Sarah Burke
In Caines v. City of New York, a former NYPD police officer and National Guard reservist alleged the department had illegally discriminated against him after he took military leave. The Second Circuit found that because the officer never experienced any negative actions due to his military status he could not successfully pursue his claim.
By: Loyd Willaford and Sarah Burke
In Taylor v. City of Shreveport, a group of Shreveport, Louisiana police officers sued their Shreveport Police Department (“SPD”) after they were required to submit detailed doctor’s notes after two days of sick leave. The SPD countered that the policy was necessary to determine fitness for duty. The District Court ruled that a jury could find that the policy was overly-broad and the SPD did not have a valid business reason to require it.
By: Loyd Willaford and Brittany Torrence
In Pasqualetti v. Unified Gov’t of Athens-Clarke County, the U.S. District Court of Georgia dismissed a former police officer’s claims that the Athens-Clarke County Police Department discriminated against him based on its perception that he suffered from a mental disability and that the Department retaliated against him when he filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
By: Loyd Willaford and Mathias Deeg
In Cortazzo v. City of Reading, the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that a Reading police officer’s “stress leave” did not qualify as a declared disability under the Rehabilitation Act. The Court also ruled that by maintaining disciplinary actions already in place, the City did not engage in any adverse employment actions in response to the officer’s leave.
By: Loyd Willaford and Sarah Burke
In Mitchell v. Community Education Centers, Incorporated, a Pennsylvania District Court ruled a former correctional officer was not wrongfully terminated after he wrote Pablo Escobar and Fidel Castro on the prison facilities sign in sheets. Because the officer had been placed on a “last chance agreement” and falsifying prison documents was a terminable offense, the District Court ruled that no reasonable juror could find that he was illegally discriminated against.
By Loyd Willaford and Sarah Burke
In Williams v. Baltimore County, an African American police officer alleged he was retaliated against after he was transferred to a new department. A Maryland district court disagreed, and found that a transfer without evidence of loss of pay, opportunities, or benefits was not an adverse employment action.
By: Loyd Willaford and Mathias Deeg
In Hensel v. City of Utica, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled that a former police officer’s claim of disability discrimination against the City of Utica could not proceed because he had failed to show that his claimed disabilities impaired his major life activities.
By: Erica Shelley Nelson and Sarah Burke
In Lange v. McGinnis, a Michigan police captain deleted all the files on a former employee’s hard drive before returning it to him. The employee sued the city and the captain alleging an illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The Sixth Circuit held that the police captain was protected from the suit under qualified immunity because nothing indicated his actions were impermissible. [Read more…]
By: Jim Cline and Geoff Kiernan
In Walter v. City of St. Peters, a Federal Court Judge in Missouri ruled that a police offer stated sufficiently plausible facts to survive a motion to dismiss his claim that the City, and the individual supervisors within the city, violated his First Amendment rights, when they refused to hire the officer as park ranger, as part of an unofficial policy of retaliating against workers for union activity.
By: Loyd Willaford and Sarah Burke
In Legg v. Ulster County, a pregnant corrections officer with a high risk pregnancy was denied light duty by her supervisors. The officer ended up suing the county, alleging she was denied light duty because she was pregnant. The Second Circuit agreed, and found the officer was entitled to take her case before a jury.
