The opinion
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS
DELTA DIVISION
DARREN SMITH PLAINTIFF
No. 2:20-cv-12-DPM
CITY OF FORREST CITY, ARKANSAS, a
Municipal Corporation; DEON LEE,
Individually and as Chief of the Forrest City Police
Department; and CEDRIC WILLIAMS,
Individually and As Mayor of the City of
Forrest City, Arkansas DEFENDANTS
ORDER
1. Darren Smith worked his way up to lieutenant at the Forrest
City Police Department. The road was less than smooth. Deon Lee, the
department’s chief, fired Smith. In this case, Smith makes various
claims about his firing. Many of the material facts are undisputed.
Where some genuine dispute exists, the Court takes the record in
Smith’s favor. Oglesby v. Lesan, 929 F.3d 526, 532 (8th Cir. 2019).
A few months after joining the department as a patrolman in 2014,
Smith made waves by questioning, in an official document, why the
department’s investigative division hadn’t looked into the death of
Louis Thompson. Like Smith, Thompson was a black man. Smith said
a white man’s death would have been investigated more thoroughly
and with better departmental resources. Local news outlets picked up
the story and scrutinized the department’s reasons. Notwithstanding
good performance, Smith didn’t get promoted to sergeant when he
became eligible. Smith believed he was passed over for speaking up
and highlighting the department’s potentially discriminatory
investigative practices. He was promoted to sergeant within a year of
joining the force.
The department disciplined Smith four times during his
approximately five years as a police officer. One of those disciplinaries,
from 2015, related to charges of unnecessary force against a minor; the
letter of reprimand Smith received should have been removed from his
personnel file after two years. It was not. Two more incidents, both in
2016, involved fraternization with and intimidation of coworkers. The
department demoted Smith in April 2016 and then reinstated him to
the rank of sergeant. The following year, in July 2017, he was promoted
to lieutenant. He was not disciplined for almost two years after that.
He remained outspoken about some of the department’s investigative,
disciplinary, and promotion practices. In April 2019, Smith got into a
shouting and shoving match with a citizen whose house was being
searched. Videos and reports circulated. Chief Deon Lee reviewed the
videos, reports, and Smith’s personnel file and decided to fire Smith.
He sent him a letter, stating the reasons, which included Smith’s
disciplinary history. Cedric Williams, the mayor of Forrest City,
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approved and said so in a letter to Smith after a brief meeting between
the two at city hall.
Smith sues over his lost job. He claims the defendants’ actions
violated Title VIL, 42 U.S.C. §8 1981 and 1983, and the Arkansas Civil
Rights Act — because those actions were race-based and gender-based,
plus in retaliation for Smith’s criticisms of the department. He also
presses a wrongful-termination claim under state law. The defendants
request summary judgment. Smith requests a trial. Are there any
issues that a jury must resolve? Torgerson v. City of Rochester, 643 F.3d
1031, 1042 (8th Cir. 2011) (en banc).
2. Some threshold points. First, the official-capacity Title VII
and ACRA claims against Lee and Williams duplicate the claims
against the City. Televen v. University of Minnesota, 73 F.3d 816, 819 (8th
Cir. 1996); Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality v. Al-Madhoun,
374 Ark. 28, 34, 285 S.W.3d 654, 659 (2008). All those official-capacity
claims will be dismissed without prejudice. Second, the individual-
capacity claims under Title VII and ARK. CODE ANN. § 16-23-107 will
be dismissed with prejudice. Supervisors can’t be held individually
liable under Title VII or the anti-discrimination provisions of the
ACRA. Clegg v. Arkansas Department of Correction, 496 F.3d 922, 925 (8th
Cir. 2007); Marrow v. City of Jacksonville, 941 F.Supp. 816, 820 (E.D. Ark.
1996). Third, the Court will deal with qualified immunity issue by issue
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because that immunity rises or falls with the merits. Burton v. Arkansas
Secretary of State, 737 F.3d 1219, 1229-35 (8th Cir. 2013).
3. Smith’s proof of discrimination is indirect, so the Court
applies the McDonnell Douglas framework. Lucke v. Solsvig, 912 F.3d
1084, 1088 (8th Cir. 2019); Banks v. Jones, 2019 Ark. 204, at *6-7, 575
S.W.3d 111, 116. Only a modest evidentiary showing is required, Lake
v. Yellow Transportation, Inc., 596 F.3d 871, 874 (8th Cir. 2010), and the
Court assumes Smith has made a prima facie case.
The City has offered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for
the firing. The department values its relationship with the community
and concluded that Smith’s use of force in the field, reasonable or not,
could damage that relationship. That's a legitimate reason to fire an
officer. Smith says that the City is barred by equity from relying on that
reason. Doc. 34 at 23-24. There’s no dispute about whether Smith
cursed at or pushed a citizen; he did both at the search scene. Smith
argues hard that the City is judicially estopped from asserting that he
did anything wrong in the search-related incident because the City
denied any wrongdoing by Smith in another case growing out of that
incident. The City’s denial came in its answer in the related case. And
the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed his Fourth Amendment claims
before the Court resolved them on the merits. In these circumstances,
there was insufficient reliance by the Court to estop the City from
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taking a contrary position in this case. Schaffart v. ONEOK, Inc., 686 F.3d
461, 469-70 (8th Cir. 2012).
The City gives other reasons for firing Smith, too. But if Smith’s
conduct in 2016 didn’t prevent the City from promoting him to
lieutenant in 2017, it’s doubtful those reasons, even in the aggregate,
justify his eventual firing. The City’s shoving-and-cursing reason
suffices. Smith’s claims come down to pretext.
Smith offers comparators, and says that they — plus Lee’s failure
to follow established departmental disciplinary policies— warrant an
inference of pretext. At this stage, the comparator standard is rigorous,
and Smith hasn’t found anybody who was similarly situated to him in
all relevant respects. Smith v. URS Corp., 803 F.3d 964, 970 (8th Cir.
2015). Smith was Forrest City’s only lieutenant. So, no white or woman
lieutenant is among those on Smith’s final list. Doc. 34 at 10-11. The
department’s leniency with young and inexperienced patrolmen
shouldn’t control its treatment of higher ups. The department treated
Smith similarly when, as a relatively new hire, he used unnecessary
force against a restrained minor. Doc. 39 at 11-12.
It’s true that Lee didn’t follow the letter of the department’s
policies in dealing with Smith’s misconduct, but Smith, in a plaintiff's
gambit, forcefully concedes that deviations were common. Doc. 39 at
26-27. The department routinely put function over form in disciplinary
proceedings. More importantly, there is no indication that the
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deviation here was a means for Lee to discriminate against Smith.
Russell v. TG Missouri Corp., 340 F.3d 735, 746-47 (8th Cir. 2003). At the
time there was no superior officer (other than the chief) to handle an
investigation and pursue discipline. The policy’s architecture, which
involved quasi-adversarial proceedings before the chief after another
supervising officer’s recommendation, simply did not fit the
circumstances. The parties’ dispute centers on Lee’s methods, not his
authority, under the policy. Disciplinary shortcuts sometimes raise
questions unrelated to unlawful discrimination, but there are none that
Smith’s pleading requires the Court to address.
Smith hasn’t offered sufficient evidence to support a verdict that
his firing was more likely motivated by race or gender than by his
unbecoming conduct. Schaffhauser v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 794 F.3d
899, 904 (8th Cir. 2015). In the circumstances, no reasonable juror could
find that Lee and Williams discriminated against Smith because he is a
black man. Burkhart v. American Railcar Industries, Inc., 603 F.3d 472,
473-74 (8th Cir. 2010). Lee’s and Williams’s actions were not
unconstitutional, so the City has no liability here, either. Turpin v.
County of Rock, 262 F.3d 779, 784 (8th Cir. 2001). In any event, Smith’s
firing was objectively reasonable, Herts v. Smith, 345 F.3d 581, 585
(8th Cir. 2003), and, even if they made a mistaken judgment, Lee and
Williams are entitled to qualified immunity on the individual-capacity
§ 1983 claims.
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4. The federal and state retaliation claims also fail. Smith has
not shown a sufficient connection between his challenges to the
department’s investigatory and disciplinary practices and his firing.
Blomker v. Jewell, 831 F.3d 1051, 1059-60 (8th Cir. 2016); Hill v. City of
Pine Bluff, 696 F.3d 709, 715-16 (8th Cir. 2012). A reasonable juror could
not conclude that, but for the Thompson incident and Smith’s frequent
in-office critiques of Lee’s personnel decisions, he would not have lost
his job. Again, the City has no liability, Burkhart, 603 F.3d at 473-74,
and Lee and Williams are immune from suit. Burton, 737 F.3d at 1236-
37.
5. Having resolved all of Smith’s federal claims, the Court
declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the wrongful-
termination claim. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3); Nagel v. City of Jamestown, 952
F.3d 923, 935 (8th Cir. 2020).
The defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Doc. 22, is
granted, with one carve out. Smith’s discrimination and retaliation
claims will be dismissed with prejudice. Smith’s wrongful-termination
claim under Arkansas law will be dismissed without prejudice. The
pending motions in limine, Doc. 41 & 43, are denied as moot.
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So Ordered.
D.P. Marshall Jr.
United States District Judge
25 Othber R0Al
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