Mattice v. City of Stafford

1

Stephen Mattice, Appellant, v. City of Stafford, Appellee.

No. 126,397

Court of Appeals of Kansas

August 2, 2024

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

Oral argument held April 9, 2024.

Appeal from Stafford District Court; Steven E. Johnson, judge.

Kurt A. Harper and Dylan P. Wheeler, of Depew Gillen Rathbun &amp McInteer, LC, of Wichita, for appellee.

Allen G. Glendenning, of Watkins Calcara, Chtd., of Great Bend, for appellee.

Before Cline, P.J., Atcheson and Pickering, JJ.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Stephen Mattice contends the mayor and members of the Stafford City Council orchestrated his termination as police chief because he informed them the city administrator had retaliated against him for telling an outside law enforcement agency that a former officer had an improper sexual relationship with a minor. So Mattice has sued the City for wrongful termination. The City counters that Mattice was ill-suited for his job-something it says had become apparent to everyone within a few months- and he was fired for incompetence rather than legally protected whistleblowing. So the City characterizes Mattice's complaint about the city administrator as a ploy to neutralize or at least deflect from his poor work performance.

The Stafford County District Court granted the City's motion for summary judgment. In doing so, the district court failed to correctly apply the stringent standards weighing against summary judgment. The City presented plausible evidence and concomitant legal arguments supporting its theory of the case. But Mattice responded with plausible evidence and arguments for his whistleblower claim circumstantially suggesting an impermissible retaliatory intent animated his termination. Conflicts over material factual representations must be left for jurors (or a district court sitting as the fact-finder) to resolve during a trial after they have seen and heard the witnesses and examined any documentary evidence. A district court cannot make those credibility determinations from a disembodied summary judgment record consisting mostly of affidavits and deposition excerpts. We therefore, reverse the district court's entry of judgment for the City and remand for further proceedings.

Factual and Procedural History

Because the standards governing review of motions for summary judgment in the district court and on appeal directly shape how the record evidence must be examined, we begin there. See Bouton v. Byers, 50 Kan.App.2d 34, 36, 321 P.3d 780 (2014). The central principles are well-known and regularly recited. The district court must view the properly presented evidence in the most favorable light for the party opposing the motion, here Mattice, and give that party the benefit of every reasonable inference that might be drawn from the evidence. Taking the evidence in that manner, the moving party, here the City, needs to demonstrate the absence of any genuine dispute over the material facts and, in turn, an entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. Trear v Chamberlain, 308 Kan. 932, 935-36, 425 P.3d 297 (2018); Miller v. Hutchinson Regional Med. Center, 63 Kan.App.2d 57, 59, 525 P.3d 10, rev. denied 317 Kan 845 (2023). As we recently explained, the party requesting summary judgment "[b]asically . . . submits no reasonable construction of the evidence would permit a jury to return a verdict for the opposing party." 63 Kan.App.2d at 59. Issues turning on intent or motive are particularly ill-suited for determination on summary judgment because proof of an intangible mental state typically rests on inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence. See Hill v. State, 310 Kan. 490, 520, 448 P.3d 457 (2019); Rosen v. Hartstein, No. 108,479, 2014 WL 278717, at *4 (Kan. App. 2014) (unpublished opinion) ("Courts generally should be cautious about granting summary judgment when the controlling issue turns on intent[.]").

An appellate court applies the same standards in reviewing a challenge to a district court order granting summary judgment. We, therefore, examine the record in the best light for Mattice and disregard evidence that detracts from or undermines his factually supported assertions. Because neither we nor the district court should weigh conflicting evidence generally or resolve credibility disputes, the decision to grant summary judgment functionally presents a question of law we assess without deference to the district court. See Adams v. Board of Sedgwick County Comm'rs, 289 Kan. 577, 584, 214 P.3d 1173 (2009); Miller, 63 Kan.App.2d at 59.

Against that legal backdrop, we look at the evidentiary record in a way that largely discounts the City's representations that dispute or conflict with Mattice's version of the relevant circumstances. It is, then, a decidedly one-sided view of the circumstances. And, accordingly, we do not mean to suggest how those disputes and conflicts could or should be resolved in a trial.

At the outset, we mention that the district court previously granted the City's motion to dismiss under K.S.A. 60-212(b)(6) on the grounds that Mattice's petition failed to state a legally cognizable claim for whistleblowing. A panel of this court reversed that ruling and remanded the case to the district court. Mattice v. City of Stafford, No. 122,907, 2021 WL 4227730, at *1 (Kan. App. 2021) (unpublished opinion). The parties then undertook discovery, and the City filed its motion for summary judgment. Our earlier ruling has no direct bearing on this appeal both because that decision was based on the allegations in the petition and not on the evidence developed during discovery and because a more stringent legal standard governs motions to dismiss. Williams v. C-U-Out Bail Bonds, LLC, 310 Kan. 775, 784, 450 P.3d 330 (2019) (motion to dismiss under K.S.A. 60-212[b][6] proper only if allegations in petition fail to support claim on any theory).

The facts developed in discovery show Mattice started as police chief in July 2018 after formally accepting the job earlier that year. The record is skimpy on his professional background. Mattice worked in law enforcement elsewhere for many years but had never headed a department. The City also hired two officers without experience shortly before Mattice came on board; they completed their mandatory state training in August. Stafford is a small community, so Mattice and the two rookies formed its full complement of commissioned police officers. In the municipal hierarchy, Mattice reported to City Administrator Jami Downing.

Shortly after he started as police chief, Mattice had a conversation with a former Stafford police officer who said he had reported to then-Chief Doug Brown that another officer had an ongoing sexual relationship with an underage girl. Brown purportedly told the reporting officer that he had disciplined the offending officer. By the time Mattice became chief, Brown had died, and neither of those officers still worked for the City. But the offending officer apparently worked in the Stafford County Sheriff's Department. Mattice could not find a disciplinary record or any documentation of an investigation in the police department's files.

According to Mattice, at that point, he understood the sexual contact occurred several years earlier when the girl was less than 16 years old, making the relationship a crime. See K.S.A. 21-5506(a) (indecent liberties); K.S.A. 21-5506(b) (aggravated indecent liberties). Mattice concluded he should report the circumstances to an outside law enforcement agency for investigation and thought the Kansas Bureau of Investigation would be the logical place. Mattice asserts that in early October 2018, he gave Downing, in his words, "a heads up" that he would be contacting the KBI. Mattice recalls Downing telling him the matter had already been looked into and not to stir things up for the former officer. Mattice believed Downing was friends with the officer.

Mattice then communicated with an agent in the KBI's Great Bend office. After investigating the information, the KBI concluded the young woman was 16 years old during her relationship with the former Stafford police officer, so nothing criminal occurred.

Mattice contends that in the meantime, Downing began treating him coldly, started micromanaging him and the police department, and unfairly criticized his work. They apparently clashed over several specific matters. According to Mattice, his working relationship with Downing continued to deteriorate, and especially given the size of the municipal government, he found the situation both stressful and damaging to the department's operation. On December 5, Mattice met with Mayor Julie Lyon at her residence and outlined the workplace problems as he saw them. He suggested that Downing be removed as his direct supervisor. At Mattice's request, he met with Mayor Lyon and the city council on December 7, a Friday. During the meeting, held largely in executive session, Mattice presented and then read a detailed letter describing the poor work environment and his assessment of the causes. He later said he perceived the councilmembers as being receptive to his concerns and his suggested solution.

The city council met the following Monday, again in executive session, and directed Downing to ask for Mattice's resignation and to terminate his employment if he refused. Downing and Lyon met with Mattice the next day. Downing fired him.

The City's counternarrative suggests Mattice had work-related problems almost from the start of his employment. He purportedly failed to properly schedule code enforcement and had difficulty setting the officers' work hours, leaving the city without a visible police presence at times. In affidavits prepared during discovery, Lyon and City Attorney Don Knappenberger stated...