Cotton v. Williamson Cnty. Gov't

650 F.Supp.3d 609

Timothy COTTON, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAMSON COUNTY GOVERNMENT, Defendant.

Case No. 3: 21-cv-00712

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division

Filed January 13, 2023

Bruce Eric Baldinger, The Law Office of Bruce E. Baldinger, LLC, Morristown, NJ, for Plaintiff.

Walter G. Luger, Walter G. Luger & Associates, LLC., Morris Plains, NJ, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, United States District Judge

Before the court is the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by defendant Williamson County (the "County") (Doc. No. 21) (identified in the Complaint as "Williamson County Government"), seeking judgment in its favor on plaintiff Timothy Cotton's claims of race discrimination and retaliation under federal and state law. For the reasons set forth herein, the motion will be granted and this case dismissed.

I. FACTS¹ AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiff Tim Cotton, an African American man, was employed by Williamson County beginning in 1991. He was first appointed to the position of judicial commissioner for the Williamson County General Sessions Court in September 2012 by General Sessions Judges Denise Andre and Al Nations. He was appointed to a second two-year term in 2016 by General Sessions Judges Denise Andre and Thomas Taylor. This lawsuit arises primarily from the fact that Cotton was not reappointed when his second term expired, in September 2020.

In Williamson County, judicial commissioners are appointed by the two sitting General Sessions Court judges. At all times relevant to the Complaint, judicial commissioners were appointed to four-year terms. Judicial commissioners perform a variety of functions that involve the exercise of independent judgment, all of which fall within the scope of the judges' authority but are delegated to the commissioners. These include setting bonds, making probable cause determinations for arrest and search warrants, and issuing warrants, juvenile petitions and criminal summonses. Once appointed, full-time judicial commissioners can only be removed from office during their term by ouster, governed by Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 8-47-101 et seq. See Tenn. Op. Atty. Gen. No. 00-126 (Aug. 7, 2000). Judges of the General Sessions Court can counsel judicial commissioners and provide guidance, but they do not have the authority to terminate the appointment of a judicial commissioner during his or her term. A judicial commissioner's decisions in the performance of his duties are subject to review only by the General Sessions judges and not by other commissioners.

The Williamson County General Sessions Court employs several judicial commissioners at any given time, one of whom is designated as the judicial commissioner supervisor. The supervisor is responsible for scheduling the commissioners' shifts and various other tasks, including counseling the other judicial commissioners about their decisions, but the supervisor does not have the authority to remove another judicial commissioner from office or to alter his work product.

Quentin Henderson became supervisor in 2016.² In August 2017, Henderson resigned and Ricky Brown, a White man, was promoted to supervisor. On April 23, 2018, Cotton filed an EEOC charge, alleging discrimination on the basis of race/color and claiming that Williamson County "denied him the opportunity to apply for, and failed to promote him to the position of Supervisor of the Magistrate Office," when Ricky Brown was selected to replace Quentin Henderson in August 2017. (Doc. No. 28-1, Cotton Dep. 124;³ see also Doc. No. 28-9.) The EEOC issued a right-to-sue letter without a finding of discrimination on August 6, 2019, but Cotton did not file a lawsuit within ninety days of his receipt of that notice. The only lawsuit he has filed against Williamson County asserting Title VII claims is the present suit, filed on September 13, 2021.

On August 31, 2018, Cotton engaged in a "prank" involving another judicial commissioner, Matthew Mezzatesta, who has cerebral palsy and challenges with balance. As Cotton was finishing his shift and Mezzatesta was beginning his, Cotton turned off all the lights in the office and hid from Mezzatesta. Mezzatesta tried to call the plaintiff to ask what was going on, but Cotton did not answer. When Mezzatesta proceeded into the office, the plaintiff jumped out to scare him, causing Mezzatesta to lose his balance and fall. The fall resulted in injuries to Mezzatesta that required a trip to the hospital by ambulance.

The plaintiff testified that it was a "regular practice" among all of the judicial commissioners to play pranks on each other (Doc. No. 28-1, Cotton Dep. 142; see also Doc. No. 28-5, Heithcock Dep. 82) and that Mezzatesta wanted to be included in the practice. Cotton at some point counseled him against his doing so, knowing that Mezzatesta had cerebral palsy and difficulty walking. Cotton also admitted that his actions resulted in injury to Mezzatesta and were inconsistent with the expectations set forth by the code of judicial ethics.

Cotton received formal written counseling in connection with the incident involving Mezzatesta (the "Mezzatesta incident"). Cotton refused to sign the written counseling and instead submitted a letter to the General Sessions judges claiming that he was being unfairly targeted, as others also participated in office "pranks," but no one else had been counseled for such behavior. The judges sent Cotton a letter dated September 10, 2018 addressing his response to the counseling. The letter documented the judges' opinion that counseling was warranted by the fact that Cotton's conduct had "potentially resulted in injury to a fellow employee." (Doc. No. 24-2, at 47.) The letter also established that the counseling "did not result in any action adverse to [Cotton], and [would] not result in any so long as the behavior is not repeated." (Id.) In addition, Cotton admits that, prior to the Mezzatesta incident, neither Judge Andre nor Judge Taylor was aware that other judicial commissioners engaged in pranks at the office. Cotton is also not aware of any other office horseplay incident or prank that resulted in injuries to anyone.

Judge Taylor testified that the prank and Cotton's response to the counseling made him particularly angry, because Taylor perceived the prank as an instance of bullying a particularly vulnerable individual, and he considered Cotton's response to be insensitive and self-serving. (See Doc. No. 29-3, Taylor Dep. at 58 ("I just thought that that was - you know, Mr. Cotton's picking on the most . . . fragile person in that office showed a lack of character that just couldn't be ignored and couldn't be rewarded.").) Judge Andre was also deeply troubled by Cotton's failure to express any remorse for the incident and instead acting defensively. (Doc. No. 28-2, Andre Dep. 111.)

On February 8, 2019, Ricky Brown resigned from his position as judicial commissioner supervisor, and Judges Taylor and Andre selected William "Tommy" Heithcock to replace him. Taylor testified that they selected Heithcock because he was retired law enforcement, and Taylor had known him for thirty years and felt he could trust him. Heithcock had been a detective and a patrolman and was already working as a judicial commissioner. Andre testified that Heithcock was an experienced judicial commissioner who had forty years of law enforcement experience, many of it in the warrants division, and he "had the maturity that [they] were looking for." (Doc. No. 28-2, Andre Dep. 67.)

Cotton did not know that Brown was resigning until Heithcock had already been selected to replace him, so he had no opportunity to apply for the position. On December 6, 2019, Cotton filed a second EEOC charge alleging race discrimination and retaliation in connection with the selection of Heithcock as judicial commissioner supervisor on February 8, 2019.

In January 2020, the Williamson County Mayor's Office received an anonymous complaint about Cotton's sleeping on the job. In response to that complaint, shift changes were made to provide closer supervision of the plaintiff. There is no dispute that Cotton slept on the job while working as judicial commissioner. Between 2014 and 2018, while working the night shift as a judicial commissioner, Cotton also worked a full-time job during the day. Cotton testified that having the full-time day job did not interfere with his ability to work as a judicial commissioner. (Doc. No. 28-1, Cotton Dep. 83.) Asked when he slept, he stated that he slept at night in the judicial commissioner's office "when there was down time and in the evening when [he] got off from the other job." (Id.) How much he slept at night in the office "varied depending on how busy the office was." (Id. at 84.)

The matter of Cotton's sleeping on the job first came up as an issue sometime between 2012 and 2016, when one of the judges sent a supervisor down to tell him that "an officer had said something about [his] sleeping on shift." (Id. at 86.) Quentin Henderson, when he was supervisor, talked to Cotton about sleeping on shift, in response to complaints from officers, and specifically told him, "if [the judicial commissioners on night shift] were going to sleep," they should go "somewhere where the officers didn't see [them] and wouldn't go and complain." (Id. at 106.) According to Cotton, although other people also slept on the job, Henderson told him the complaints were only directed toward him. (Id.) Henderson also told him that the "judges didn't want to hear complaints about [Cotton] sleeping at work." (Id. at 107.)

According to Cotton, it was common practice during his employment for judicial commissioners to rest or sleep when there was down time during the night shift. (Id. at 83, 106, 266-70.) That statement is disputed, but the court accepts as true, for purposes of the defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, that Cotton was not the only judicial commissioner who slept during the night shift. In September 2018...