This article appears in the February 2023 issue of our monthly newsletter, Public Safety Labor News, and is a follow-up to the June 2022 article Qualified Immunity Shields Employer From Liability For Illegal Dropbox Search (for subscribers only). Steven Bowers was a detective sergeant for the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department in Wisconsin. In February 2017,…
Anthony Copeland, a former firefighter of 26 years, was elected mayor of the City of East Chicago, Indiana in 2010. Shortly after he was elected, Copeland implemented certain cost-cutting measures to address the City’s deficit. One such effort was freezing the salaries and benefits of East Chicago firefighters, including abolishing terminal leave, freezing longevity pay…
Deputy sheriffs in Orange County in California are represented by the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS). The Orange County Employees Retirement System (OCERS) provides retirement benefits for AOCDS members. The County makes employer pension contributions to OCERS and collects employee pension contributions from AOCDS bargaining unit members and remits those funds to OCERS.…
Thomas Swartz was a firefighter working for the Bourne Fire Department in Massachusetts. All members of the Department had an identification card as well as an accountability tag. Both featured a picture of the firefighter. The photographs on the identification cards and accountability tags were inconsistent – some firefighters wore t-shirts in their photographs while…
Steve Jones was a supervisor for the paramedic program within the City of Loma Linda’s Fire Department in California. In January 2014, one of the employees who Jones supervised punched a patient. The employee told Jones about punching the patient. Jones failed to report the incident and when the incident came to light, Jones was…
This is a follow-up to the article Qualified Immunity Shields Employer From Liability For Illegal Dropbox Search in the June 2022 issue of Public Safety Labor News. Steven Bowers was a detective sergeant for the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department in Wisconsin. In February 2017, the Department was working with the television program Cold Justice on…
When the Town of Kingston, Massachusetts lost an arbitration decision and was ordered to reinstate a member of the Kingston Police Superior Officers Union, the Town challenged the decision in the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. In a brief, three-page decision, the Court rejected the Town’s arguments. The Court began by accepting the Town’s basic argument…
William Marx was employed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for 21 years and was a member of the SWAT team during the last ten years of his employment. In August 2018, Marx was involved in a shooting with an armed suspect who was barricaded inside the bathroom of an apartment for about 14…
Shaina Kirkland served as a patrol officer with the City of Maryville’s police department in Tennessee. While in that role, Kirkland periodically used her Facebook account to criticize the County Sheriff. Kirkland’s supervisors became concerned that her posts would undermine the Department’s relationship with their sister law enforcement agency, so they asked her to stop.…
At times in Public Safety Labor News, we’ll write about a case involving a motion for “summary judgment” or a “motion to dismiss.” A case involving Delaware firefighter Hiram Whatley gives us a great platform to describe the difference between the two motions. Whatley was a Wilmington firefighter for more than two decades. In June…
Jeffrey Layman is a police officer in Peoria, Illinois. On January 10, 2018, the City received a complaint from a local pastor about social media posts made by Layman. One post showed a photo on social of Layman wearing a t-shirt with the word “POLICE” on it, under which were the letters “BDRT” and then…
