The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday gave new life to a case in which a state trooper said he was retaliated against for successfully appealing his firing almost a decade ago.
The court reversed a lower-court ruling rejecting the lawsuit brought by Highway Patrol Trooper Sage Hill in 2013. It sent the case back to the district court for further review.
Hill had argued that the state violated a law that barred discipline or discrimination “in any way” against employees who properly pursue civil service appeals.
Hill said the patrol retaliated against him by forcing him to move across the state to keep his job after the Kansas Civil Service Board ordered him reinstated. He was the only trooper who had been involuntarily transferred for at least four decades.
The ruling reversed a Court of Appeals decision that said employment retaliation claims should be limited to firings and demotions.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment and referred questions to the Highway Patrol. A Highway Patrol spokesman was unfamiliar with the opinion and would not comment.
Justices Caleb Stegall and Marla Luckert dissented, arguing the patrol was immune from the retaliation claim regardless of its merits
The high court ruling effectively expanded the scope of employment retaliation claims by finding that employers can be sued for actions that could discourage employees from exercising their rights under the state’s civil service law.
The lower courts had dismissed Hill’s claim, contending that he didn’t make a prima facie retaliation case and he didn’t show the Highway Patrol’s justification for the transfer was a pretext for something more sinister.
The Supreme Court disagreed on both issues.
To make a case for retaliation, Hill had to show he was harmed to the point where a “reasonable worker” might be disinclined from exercising their appeal rights under the law.
“It is undisputed Hill’s transfer did not diminish his compensation or job duties,” Justice Dan Biles wrote for the majority.
“But actions short of diminished responsibilities have been viewed as sufficient to avoid summary judgment, although ‘a mere inconvenience or an alteration of job responsibilities’ will not suffice.”
Hill was fired by the Highway Patrol in 2011 over a dispute with a supervisor who was investigating a civilian complaint against him.
He appealed the firing to the Kansas Civil Service Board, which reversed the firing although it agreed Hill’s misconduct merited discipline.
After reinstating Hill, the patrol decided to treat him as a new hire who could be “assigned” wherever needs were greatest.
The court noted that Hill’s transfer from Troop H in Cherokee County in southeast Kansas to Troop E in Finney County required him to move 400 miles for work.
The court also found that the Highway Patrol did not make those kinds of involuntary transfers because of the disruption they would cause troopers.
“The facts viewed in the light most favorable to Hill demonstrate Troop E is an objectively undesirable assignment to be transferred into as compared with other duty stations,” the court wrote. “Troop E is remote and the KHP has had difficulty retaining troopers there.”
The court also found that the Highway Patrol treated Hill differently, although the agency argued that the transfer was based on a trooper shortage in southwest Kansas.
The patrol conceded it treated Hill as a new hire — instead of as an experienced trooper — and transferred him to a different region after he was reinstated, the court wrote. It was undisputed that experienced troopers are not moved involuntarily after their initial assignment.
“Viewed in the light most favorable to Hill, this unquestionably establishes how the defendants treated Hill differently in his terms and conditions of employment as compared to his fellow troopers,” the court wrote.
“They denied him the insulation from relocation that other troopers enjoyed. Instead, they treated him as a new hire and forced him to relocate to keep the job he fought them to regain,” the court wrote.
“What’s more, they relocated him hundreds of miles away to a region obviously considered undesirable to most other troopers. And he was treated this way, i.e., stripping him of his status as a veteran trooper, only because of his successful civil service appeal.”
