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Civil Rights laws cannot be used to challenge an employer?s alleged unfair personnel practices unrelated to discrimination

Civil Rights laws cannot be used to challenge an employer?s alleged unfair personnel practices unrelated to discrimination
Lightner v City of Wilmington [NC] Police Department, USCA 4th Circuit, Docket #07-1442, decided November 3, 2008

Wilmington Police Department Lieutenant James J. Lightner claimed that he was suspended from the Wilmington Police Department in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983.

Disciplined for violating Department rules barring the fixing of traffic tickets, Lightner, a white male, argued that an African American female was disciplined less harshly for more egregious violations of such Rules. Lightner contended that that his conduct was similar to that of a female African American officer who was also disciplined for ticket fixing but that he was disciplined more severely for his conduct because he received an unpaid one-week suspension while she received only a paid one-day suspension?.."

The genesis of Lightner?s complaint was his superiors? learning of allegations that Lightner had ?fixed parking tickets.? Lightner was placed on paid administrative leave pending the completion of an investigation of the allegations by the Human Resources Department.

Ultimately Lightner was found to have violated various Department Rules by asking subordinate officers to fix tickets. Noting that ?ticket fixing was widespread? in the Department,? Lightner was faulted for having ?approached the ticketing officers as both a superior officer and as the Acting Division Commander of the Professional Standards Division.? Acting Deputy Policy Chief Bruce Hickman said that Lightner?s conduct, as Commander of the Professional Standards Division, "should be beyond reproach for professional and ethical behavior." The penalty imposed on Lightner: suspension without pay for one week ? a period that conformed with Lightner?s previously announced effective date of retirement.

Among the arguments advanced by Lightner in support of his claim that he had suffered unlawful discrimination was that his ?employer?s action was actually an attempt to cover up the employer?s own wrongdoing,? The Circuit Court of Appeals said that in so arguing, Lightner ?has pleaded himself right out of court.?

Title VII, said the court, was enacted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and other legislatively enumerated grounds. It is not a statute intended to police standards of general fairness in the workplace, or even to protect against the firing of an employee in order to cover up wrongdoing by an employer.

Dismissing his appeal, the Circuit Court said that Lightner had repeatedly argued that the ?real reason for his suspension was to cover up department wrongdoing.? Such action in Lightner?s situation does not constitute either race or gender discrimination and therefore is not actionable under Title VII.

The full text of the decision is posted on the Internet at:

http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/071442.P.pdf

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).