Jones v. Gerwens, 86-7018-CIV-GONZALEZ.
| Decision Date | 06 January 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-7018-CIV-GONZALEZ.,86-7018-CIV-GONZALEZ. |
| Citation | 677 F. Supp. 1151 |
| Parties | Willie JONES, Plaintiff, v. Joseph GERWENS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
Patricia Williams, Miami, Fla., for plaintiff.
Gordon Rogers, Miami, Fla., for defendants.
THIS CAUSE has come before the court upon the Motion for Summary Judgment of the defendants, Joseph Gerwens, as Chief of Police of the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the City of Fort Lauderdale Police Department.
This is an employment discrimination action brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. (hereinafter "Title VII"). Plaintiff is a police officer with the City of Fort Lauderdale Police Department. He was suspended without pay for one (1) day and transferred from the Police Department's Mounted Unit to Uniform Patrol duties for the following alleged infractions: unauthorized use of a city vehicle; failure to obey a direct order; untruthfulness; and allowing an unauthorized civilian to ride in a city vehicle.
Plaintiff, who is black, contends that the disciplinary measures in question were racially motivated in that white police officers who committed allegedly similar offenses received lesser discipline or no discipline at all. Following plaintiff's transfer out of the Mounted Unit, a white officer was assigned to the Unit.
The defendants move for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination. "A Title VII disparate treatment plaintiff must prove that the defendant acted with discriminatory purpose." Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall Communications, 738 F.2d 1181, 1184 (11th Cir.1984). In order to make a prima facie case based on differential application of work or discipline rules, plaintiff must show that the misconduct for which he was disciplined was nearly identical to the conduct of another employee outside the protected class who was not disciplined. Id. at 1185. "When an individual proves that he was disciplined but one outside his class was not although both violated the same work rule, this raises an inference that the rule was discriminatorily applied against that individual regardless of the race or sex of the replacement." Id. at 1186.
Defendants argue that plaintiff cannot show that the police department failed to discipline similarly situated white police officers who committed offenses similar to plaintiff's. In their Answers to Interrogatories, defendants list 19 white police officers who were subject to discipline for untruthfulness, unauthorized use of a city vehicle, or failure to obey a direct order. Of those 19 officers, three were terminated and seven were given one- to 30-day suspensions without pay. The remaining nine white officers received either Counseling Forms or written reprimands. Furthermore, defendants have shown that a white detective was disciplined by a transfer out of the Detective Division. Both the Detective Division and the Mounted Unit are considered "specialty units" within the Police Department.
Plaintiff Willie Jones claims that white members of the Mounted Unit often used city vehicles for personal reasons without incident. The uncontradicted facts show that prior to October 21, 1985, Sergeant Dietrich, supervisor of the Mounted Unit, permitted the members of the Unit to use the city truck for personal use. However, at the time plaintiff used the truck, Sergeant Dietrich was no longer the supervisor of the Mounted Unit. Sergeant Ryan Runnerstrom became Supervisor of the Unit on October 21, 1985 and shortly thereafter informed plaintiff that he would run the Unit "by the book" and that things would not be the same as they had been under Sergeant Dietrich. Thus, plaintiff is not similarly situated to the white officers who used the city vehicle while working under Sergeant Dietrich's supervision. See Lynch v. Dean, 39 Fair Emp. Prac. Case 338, 345 (M.D.Tenn.1985)...
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Jones v. Gerwens
...for which he was disciplined was nearly identical to the conduct of a white employee who was not disciplined. Jones v. Gerwens, 677 F.Supp. 1151, 1152 (S.D.Fla.1988). With respect to the unauthorized use of a city vehicle, the district court held that white members of the Mounted Unit who h......