Dismissal of Employee Lawsuit in Police Case Upheld

The Court of Appeals of the State of Washington has affirmed a successful result that Patterson Buchanan obtained for the City of Algona in a case involving the placement of police officers on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. Two police officers sued the city in King County Superior Court after having been placed on paid leave during a four-month investigation into alleged misconduct and then exonerated and reinstated in their positions. Claiming that their work situation was untenable on their return, they asserted a variety of claims under both federal and state law.

Patterson Buchanan's attorneys first succeeded in removing the case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. On October 8, 2008, the Honorable Benjamin H. Settle issued an order dismissing all of the federal law claims on summary judgment and returning the state law claims to the state court. Then the Honorable Cheryl B. Carey of the state superior court on April 13, 2009, granted the city an order that (1) excluded materials on accepted police practices that the plaintiffs had submitted from an expert witness, and (2) dismissed their remaining claims.

On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that the superior court should not have excluded the expert opinions on police practices, which they said would have helped a jury understand some of the evidence in the case. They also asserted that the court erred in dismissing their negligent hiring and negligent supervision claims, because their supervisor was unfit for his position and the city had failed to ensure that he completed the investigation promptly. And they claimed the court should not have ruled that their breach of employment contract claim was precluded by their failure to exhaust their grievance procedure, because the city had denied their grievance and because the grievance process would have been futile.

Patterson Buchanan's attorneys, including Pat Buchanan, Sean Jackson, and Rhianna Fronapfel, argued in response that the expert opinions and all of the claims were properly dismissed because in each instance the plaintiffs failed to establish that there was an unresolved factual question requiring the case to go to trial.

In an unpublished opinion, the three-judge panel of Division I of the Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with all of the city's arguments. First, the plaintiffs failed to explain how the expert's opinions about police practices related in any way to their specific claim that their employment contract was breached. Their allegations concerning their supervisor, even if true, failed to address the salient issues for their claims of negligent hiring and supervision: whether he was fit for his job and whether he acted outside the scope of his duties. As for the breach of contract claim, the plaintiffs did not dispute that their own union had withdrawn their grievance, nor did they claim the union had wrongfully done so or that their grievance would have been futile. Moreover, they failed to present any evidence of the specific breach they asserted or to allege with specificity what other express or implied contractual terms the city had breached.

The case is Abel v. City of Algona.