PHILADELPHIA - The City of Chester was partially granted its motion for summary judgment in a racism case filed by a white former police officer.
Justice Harvey Bartle III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted Joseph Juisti leave to file a surreply on Sept. 20. The court granted the city its motion for summary judgment to dismiss Juisti’s claim that it violated the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, but it denied summary judgment on the rest of Juisti’s claims: reverse racial discrimination and retaliation that violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The court granted the Fraternal Order of Police William Penn Lodge (FOP) its motion for summary judgment against Juisti’s breach of duty of fair representation claim.
Juisti’s days as a police officer began in April 2013 and ran until January 2018. He resigned as an officer because of stress and anxiety from the alleged discrimination, harassment and retaliation he faced while on the job.
He said his requests for overtime were denied and that he had to endure unnecessary discipline and other forms of retaliation from his African-American supervisor, Captain Marilyn Lee. He said Police Commissioner Otis Blair, who is also African-American, retaliated against him along with Captain William Shaw, who is Caucasian, and Chester Mayor Thaddeus Kirkland, who is also African-American.
He said he was cited for not complying with the dress code when he came to work with white-framed sunglasses following a stroke that made his eyes more sensitive to light. Blair told Juisti that the sunglasses weren’t professional and compared him to the Terminator, the lawsuit claimed.
Juisti said he would have to leave work early that day to get new sunglasses. He came back to work with black-framed sunglasses. Blair said that there’s no rule about white-framed sunglasses but said that they were inappropriate.
In his suit, Juisti pointed to three officers who wore similar sunglasses with frames like white or other colors and did not receive any repercussions.
Also during his time with the police department, Juisti filed 11 grievances with the FOP with issues against his supervisors concerning overtime shifts and disciplinary concerns. The FOP ruled in favor of Juisti for three of those grievances via an informal meeting process and said it would pay Juisti retroactively for a certain amount of overtime shifts. It said that two of his issues didn’t have merit, and the other five are still open. The city has said it won’t consider the grievances until the current case is decided.
Juisti is a disabled person as explained in the ADA after a stroke impacted his seeing ability, the court said, but Juisti's argument that he suffered adverse actions because of his disability when a supervisor told him his sunglasses were inappropriate didn’t hold up with the court.
“Other than this one incident, Juisti was never challenged about wearing sunglasses at work from the time that he suffered his stroke until the time he left employment with the city in January 2018,” said the court.
“This one isolated incident did not alter the terms, conditions, or privileges of his employment or otherwise affect his opportunities or status as an employee.” He also didn’t prove that he was asked to wear different sunglasses due to his disability, the court said.
As for his claim against the FOP for breach of duty of fair representation via Pennsylvania common law, Juisti argued that the FOP didn’t properly settle all of the 11 grievances that he filed and that it didn’t secure payment from the city as reimbursement for the grievances that were ruled in his favor. But, the court said, “given the wide discretion that a union such as the FOP possesses in fulfilling its duties, a reasonable juror could not conclude that the FOP’s decision to pursue grievances in such a manner constituted a breach of its duty to fair representation.”
The court denied summary judgment in the racial discrimination and retaliation claims, saying that there are genuine disputes of material fact.