Interlocutory Appeal – Qualified Immunity

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Percy Taylor v. Joseph Ways, et al.,

Case No.: 20-1410; 20-1411

Officials: FLAUM, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Interlocutory Appeal – Qualified Immunity

Plaintiff Percy Taylor was fired from his job as a police officer with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Taylor contends it was because of his race. He has sued the Sheriff’s Office under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and defendants Joseph Ways, Zelda Whittler, and Gregory Ernst under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Defendants maintain that Taylor was terminated for having fired pellets with an air rifle at his neighbor in March 2011, a charge that Taylor denies.

Defendant Ernst was the lead investigator assigned to Taylor’s case. Taylor offers evidence that Ernst engineered his firing based on racial animosity. Taylor also asserts that defendants Ways and Whittler, who are or were senior officials in the Sheriff’s Office, are liable because they both reviewed Ernst’s final report of his investigation and endorsed his recommendation that Taylor be fired.

The district court denied the individual defendants’ motions for summary judgment based on the defense of qualified immunity, and they have brought these interlocutory appeals of those denials. As we explain below, the district court correctly denied qualified immunity to Ernst. The district court erred, however, in denying qualified immunity to Ways and Whittler. We therefore affirm in No. 20-1411 and reverse in No. 20-1410, and remand the case to the district court, where Taylor’s Title VII claim remains pending.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.