Lawsuits against Little Rock Police Chief Keith Humphrey by two of his assistant chiefs should be thrown out of court because Humphrey did not do anything wrong, his accusers have not shown evidence that he did anything wrong, and they cannot show they were injured by his actions, the lawyers for the chief and city say in the most recent round of pleadings.
Assistant Chiefs Hayward Finks and Alice Fulk, joined by some lower-ranking officers, claim in separate suits that Humphrey, now about 16 months on the job, has been out to get them because their testimony in a fatal police shooting inquiry contradicted his public statements, embarrassing him and making him look bad. They filed suit a week apart in April.
But Humphrey's lawyers, Khayyam Eddings and Michael Moore of the firm Friday, Eldredge & Clark, have now petitioned the courts to throw the lawsuits out, arguing that Humphrey's accusers have shown no evidence of wrongdoing sufficient to provide grounds to sue.
The attorneys say that even if the accusations against the chief were true, the actions the plaintiffs have complained about, such as being yelled at, receiving critical performance reviews or job reassignments or being denied permission to attend some training programs, were within the chief's authority and did not result "in actionable adverse job action or "harm" under the law.
None of the plaintiffs has shown a pay cut or a lost promotion or pay raise because of any illegal act by the chief, according to the pleadings. Also, their claims of retaliation against Humphrey that they made under the Arkansas Whistleblower Act and the Arkansas Civil Rights Act are misapplications of those laws, the chief's lawyers state.
Lawyers for the city similarly argue that the lawsuits should be dismissed, describing the accusations "replete with inflammatory allegations" but made with little or no proof of wrongdoing. The attorneys, Susan Keller Kendall, Thomas Kieklak and Justin Eichmann of Springdale, state in the pleadings filed Thursday that the lawsuits sound like "a press release designed to embarrass the chief of police and enlist support for the public campaign against him."
"The most insipid" and "far-fetched notion" in the litigation is the accusation that anything the chief might have done amounts to a felony crime, the lawyers state, referring to claims made under the Arkansas Crime Victims Act that Humphrey has retaliated against the officers for their testimony.
None of the plaintiffs has shown any proof of being injured in any way or threatened with injury by any illegal act of the police chief, the pleading states.
"The plaintiffs allege what amount to what they consider to be at most coarse treatment and managerial decisions to which they disagree, but they have failed to allege harm or a threat of harm, and certainly none that resulted from an 'unlawful' act by the defendants," the pleadings state. "The plaintiffs have not and cannot allege a single unlawful act by Chief Humphrey."