A lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in the employment practices at the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department can proceed to trial, but a request for judicial oversight of the agency's hiring was denied in a ruling issued by a federal judge Friday.
U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes also dismissed two defendants from the lawsuit filed against the department and others by Darren Smith, a former Arkansas Highway Police officer. Ron Burks, chief of the highway police, a division of the state agency, and his top assistant at the time, Maj. Paul Claunch, remain as defendants in both their official and individual capacities.
A jury trial is scheduled for April 20 in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
Holmes issued the order in response to a motion for summary judgment the department filed in seeking to avoid a trial. Both sides said they were generally pleased with the 28-page ruling, which granted parts of the motion and denied other parts.
Carolyn Witherspoon, a private attorney in Little Rock who represents the agency in the lawsuit and other employment matters, said Friday afternoon that she had not had the opportunity to speak with agency personnel. But she noted that the "facts and allegations are construed in the light most favorable" to the party opposing the motion.
"We are relieved that the Court dismissed [two] of the employees," she said in an email. "We are confident that the other employees and the Department did not intentionally discriminate against the Plaintiff or anyone else.
"We believe that once our responses to the plaintiff's allegations are presented to a jury that we will prevail."
Douglas Carson, a Fort Smith attorney who represents Smith, said Holmes' ruling reflected his and his client's belief that "we had a strong case."
"We always expected to be in court and to win the trial," Carson said. "The judge's decision today assured us we will have that trial."
Smith, who is black, filed the lawsuit in May 2013, accusing the highway police and Burks, who is white, of racial bias in employment practices, including Smith's firing in July 2012. According to the lawsuit, white officers are given the majority of promotions, and black officers are punished more severely than white officers for the same policy violations.
Smith's lawsuit said Burks fired him for lying during a grievance hearing involving Smith, who was seeking reimbursement to pay relatives who helped him move when he was reassigned.
Smith denied that he lied.
The department has denied Smith's allegations.
Holmes said the evidence Smith proffered to show that department terminations "disproportionately borne by African-Americans reflected ongoing, systemic discrimination" was too thin to support judicial oversight of department hiring.
Smith's evidence showed that for the years 2008 and 2012, the department workforce was about 80 percent white and 20 percent black, but of the department's firings in those two years, the racial split was about 50-50 -- 27 whites and 26 blacks.
Holmes said the statistics covered the agency overall and not just the highway police.
"Furthermore, termination reports for two years are not, by themselves, sufficient to warrant continuing oversight over the Arkansas Highway Police or the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department," the judge wrote.
Holmes dismissed Capt. Jeff Holmes, no relation, and Lt. James Moore from the lawsuit because he said Smith provided insufficient evidence that the poor evaluation Jeff Holmes gave Smith and that Moore's failure to give Smith a merit raise were "motivated by unlawful animus" to establish a civil-rights claim against them.
But the judge said Burks "instigated Smith's termination, and the recommendations by Claunch and Burks ultimately led to that termination," and, given that "genuine disputes of fact exist as to whether the decision to terminate Smith was an act of racial discrimination, Claunch and Burks are not entitled to summary judgment on Smith's [civil-rights] claims against them."
Metro on 08/23/2014