The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals permitted a retaliation claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to proceed to trial after the worker presented evidence that the employer treated him differently from similarly situated employees.
On Jan. 22, 2017, the plaintiff, a Black police officer employed by the Detroit Police Department, pulled into a gas station near his home. Unbeknownst to him, the gas station was the site of an active police investigation of a reported incendiary device. Due to thick fog, the plaintiff could not see the fire trucks or police cars at the gas station. Once the plaintiff saw a uniformed sergeant emerge from the fog, he identified himself as a police officer.
The sergeant screamed at the plaintiff and ordered him to put his hands up. The sergeant then placed handcuffs on the plaintiff and walked him out of the gas station, belittling him as "stupid and dumb" in front of other officers.
The plaintiff complained to the department that he had been mistreated during the January 2017 incident. After an internal affairs investigation, the plaintiff was charged with three code-of-conduct violations—including neglect of duty for failing to document his viewing of the gas-station video in his activity log—and was suspended for three days without pay. The plaintiff had visited the gas station twice during the internal affairs investigation, including once while in uniform and a marked police vehicle, and withheld video evidence of the incident at the gas station from the department by observing that he was a union steward.
The plaintiff, who was suspended, claimed retaliation for filing a complaint about the January 2017 incident in which he indicated that his mistreatment constituted discrimination based on race. The city, however, claimed that the plaintiff was suspended for violating various department regulations that the court found constituted "a legitimate, nonretaliatory basis" for the city's actions. Consequently, the plaintiff needed to show that the justification was not the real reason he was disciplined.
The plaintiff testified that he and another officer engaged in the same misconduct—failing to complete an activity log—and that while the plaintiff was suspended in part for that conduct, the other officer was not investigated or charged. The other officer testified that he normally did not complete an activity log.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer.
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The 6th Circuit concluded that there was a genuine dispute of fact as to whether the differences in position and applicable regulations justified the differential treatment received for not completing an activity log.
Strickland v. City of Detroit, 6th Cir. No. 19-2373, (April 22, 2021).
Professional Pointer: By administering and enforcing company policies in a uniform and consistent manner, employers may avert claims of discrimination.
Roger S. Achille is an attorney and a professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.