A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that was scheduled to go to trial next week over claims by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department's former top lawyer that he was fired because he was black and had spoken out against discriminatory practices at the agency.
Robert Wilson was fired in December 2011, three months after he defended himself before a legislative committee over allegations that he allowed his staff to take "inappropriate [paid] absences from work."
A legislative report released the previous summer showed that the department's legal division employees were paid for 2,520 hours of work that they didn't perform over a 2½-year period. The dollar value of the lost work hours was originally estimated at about $74,000, but it was later revised down to about $20,000.
Wilson offered no "direct evidence of discrimination," U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker said in a 38-page opinion and order granting the department's motion for summary judgment.
She also found that he had "failed to prove that defendants' proffered reasons for suspending and terminating him were a pretext for discrimination."
The judge noted that Scott Bennett, the department director, who recommended Wilson's dismissal, and the Arkansas Highway Commission, which voted to fire Wilson, said Wilson was ousted from his job for misconduct detailed in an audit and a report by an outside law firm, his failure to cooperate with an investigation into the misconduct.
The misconduct, they said, included Wilson directing or authorizing the deletion of statements certifying his employees' time sheets as accurate and allowing his employees to code paid time off as if they were working.
"Accordingly, defendants have met their burden of production to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for suspending and terminating Mr. Wilson," Baker wrote.
Wilson's lead attorney, Austin Porter Jr. of Little Rock, didn't return a call to his cellphone Monday evening. Bennett, who was out of town Monday, was aware of the ruling but wanted more time to study it before commenting, a department spokesman said.
Wilson, a 34-year veteran of the department who drew an annual salary of $120,000, sued the department, Bennett and the commission on Dec. 1, 2011. The commission members at the time the lawsuit was filed included R. Madison Murphy, John Ed Regenold, John Burkhalter, Tom Schueck and Dick Trammel.
The commission placed Wilson on leave with pay on Sept. 9, 2011, the same day Wilson testified before the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee.
Wilson told the committee that he began allowing his employees to take half a day off with pay every third Friday, on a rotating basis, in 1990, at the suggestion of his superiors.
In the lawsuit, Wilson said that the idea came about after he was summoned to meet with Dan Flowers, then the assistant director of the department, and Jane Wilson, then the human-resources director, in response to complaints from his subordinates about his "strict management style."
Wilson said he had tried on occasion to mete out discipline to some of his subordinates, but "was always met with resistance by his superiors, especially when the employee was white."
During the meeting with Flowers and Jane Wilson, the lawsuit alleged, "it was suggested by Ms. Wilson that Mr. Wilson should give his employees time off, to help increase productivity and morale."
Wilson said he studied "three different models" for giving employees some time off before deciding on one.
"Mr. Wilson presented this idea to Mr. Flowers and Ms. Wilson, who gave it their blessing, and told Mr. Wilson to implement this plan," the lawsuit asserts.
But Baker found that while Flowers confirmed he told Wilson to grant his employees time off to compensate them for time they worked beyond normal hours, "nothing in the record before the Court shows that Director Flowers knew about or directed Mr. Wilson's deletion of the certification statements."
Meanwhile, other departmental divisions employed similar practices, according to the lawsuit. One example Wilson offered was the human resources division, whose head, Crystal Woods, said in a deposition she used to grant unearned paid leave to employees who won trivia contests she conducted.
She said she stopped the practice in 2010 after she learned of the allegations involving Wilson's division. Bennett ordered an internal audit of the human resources divisions after he learned of it in February 2014. The results of the audit weren't immediately available Monday.
But Baker said Woods and other employees weren't similarly situated cases Wilson could use at trial.
"Unlike the allegations against Mr. Wilson, there are no allegations that Ms. Woods failed to attend meetings pertinent to her responsibilities or that she removed or directed the removal of a certification statement from her employees' time sheets," Baker said.
Wilson said that when he recommended in 2008 that the department settle valid discrimination complaints filed by two black female employees and then promote the women, it angered a white assistant to Flowers, who was often dismissive of such claims.
The same assistant also became angry with Wilson in 2009 when he helped a contractor who was a member of a minority group obtain a Supportive Services contract as a disadvantaged business enterprise, the lawsuit contended.
The judge said Wilson established evidence of retaliation for his recommendations on behalf of black employees who were discriminated against by the department and his dismissal, which happened several years apart.
"Mr. Wilson failed to show a prima facia case of retaliation regarding these incidents," she wrote.
Metro on 02/10/2015