Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—W.D. Wis.: Outspoken jail administrator advances bias, First Amendment retaliation claims, (Jul 15, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

Neither the letter informing the employee of her demotion nor the letter informing her of her termination provided any basis for the adverse actions.

Denying summary judgment against the federal sex, race, age, and national origin discrimination claims of a white jail administrator of Scottish and Polish descent who was terminated at the age of 53, purportedly for failing to investigate an inmate’s sexual assault allegation, a federal court in Wisconsin found fact issues as to whether she was meeting her employer’s legitimate expectations and whether its reason for firing her was pretextual. The court also allowed the employee to proceed to trial on her First Amendment retaliation claim, finding that at least some of her speech at county board meetings was protected by the First Amendment (Lavasseur v. County of Ashland, No. 24-cv-872-wmc (W.D. Wis. July 13, 2026)).

Twenty years after she was hired as a correction officer, the employee was promoted in 2021 to jail administrator. Not long after that, she began attending meetings of the county board as well as some of its subcommittee meetings where she provided, among other things, updates on the jail and discussed various budgetary concerns. Some of the meetings were held during business hours and others were held in the evenings.

Call off your dog. Believing she was a distraction and should spend more time working at the jail, the county administrator told her to stop attending the meetings while she was on duty. He also told the sheriff to “call off your dog” but the sheriff responded that the employee was his employee to direct as he saw fit. The administrator later directed the chief deputy, who identifies as white, Hispanic, and Native American, to order the employee not to attend board meetings.

Budget concerns. In late 2022, the employee told the sheriff she believed the administrator’s proposed budget did not meet the sheriff department’s needs. She also told the administrator the budget proposed by the chief deputy for the sheriff’s dispatch division was “wrong.” She ultimately reported her concerns to the county’s outside auditor.

Sexual assault investigation. In September 2022, an inmate reported possible sexual misconduct between two other inmates. After a jail sergeant questioned one of the inmates several times, he and the employee determined that no further action was needed. The next month, however, one of the accused inmates claimed he had been sexually assaulted. The employee informed the sheriff and contacted several outside agencies to investigate. When they all declined, she asked a county detective to investigate and purportedly informed the chief deputy.

New sheriff in town. When the sheriff decided not to run for reelection, the deputy chief was elected in November 2022. Before he left office, the sheriff presented the employee with a letter of appreciation for all her work. The administrator, however, asked the county’s corporate counsel to investigate the employee regarding the sexual assault investigation.

Demotion and termination. Shortly after the deputy chief took office, the administrator recommended the employee’s termination. The new sheriff decided to demote her instead. Before that, however, he informed her that “Nobody can attend [board meetings] on duty nor speak on behalf of the sheriff’s office. I will handle all that....Any concerns or budget requests can be voiced through me.” Eleven days after she received a letter informing her of her demotion, the employee was told that she had been terminated. The demotion and termination letters provided no basis for the actions and when the employee asked the county attorney why she had been fired, he replied “I don’t know.”

Replacements. The employee was replaced by a younger man of Native American descent who had no prior jail experience. Several days after he took over, an inmate died of a drug overdose, which was not investigated by the county. The replacement later resigned due to his involvement in a hit-and-run incident. He was replaced by a 46-year-old woman who was having an extramarital affair with the new sheriff.

Discrimination claims. Regarding the employee’s Title VII and ADEA discrimination claims, the county argued that she did not identify a similarly situated individual who was treated more favorably. Though she pointed to the male who replaced her, the county contended that he was not similarly situated because he was appointed as an interim administrator. The court, however, noted that he was introduced as the jail administrator, paid as the jail administrator, had the same duties and responsibilities as the employee, and reported to the same supervisors.

There was also evidence he was treated more favorably as the administrator and new sheriff chose not to investigate his role in the inmate’s overdose but created an ad hoc committee to investigate the employee’s response to the alleged sexual assault incident. The administrator also told the employee to stop attending board meetings while inviting her replacement to attend a subcommittee meeting.

Legitimate expectations. As to the county’s contention the employee was not meeting its legitimate expectations, the court noted that while a reasonable jury could accept the county’s explanation that she was demoted and terminated because of her poor handling of the sexual assault complaint, it could also conclude she was meeting her employer’s legitimate expectations. She had just recently received a letter of appreciation from the former sheriff for her work performance and had received no criticism regarding her management of the jail prior to her termination.

Pretext. A reasonable jury, said the court, could also find the county did not actually terminate the employee because of her handling of the sexual assault complaint. The potential victim of the initial complaint was interviewed repeatedly by jail staff but denied any sexual assault. After he changed his story, the employee promptly notified the sheriff, asked outside agencies to investigate, and then assigned the investigation to a county detective not associated with the jail. And while the then deputy chief claimed he was not promptly notified of the incident, he never talked to the employee about this alleged failure. From this, said the court, a reasonable jury could conclude that the deputy chief and administrator would have at least questioned the employee about her handling of the alleged sexual assault if the failure were really so significant that it required firing her after her more-than 20-year tenure. Accordingly, the court denied summary judgment against this claim.

First Amendment retaliation. Responding to the employee’s claim she was fired because she engaged in protected speech while speaking at county board and committee meetings on various topics related to the sheriff’s office, the county argued that she was speaking as an employee, not as a private citizen. Finding this to be a close question, the court noted that for a plaintiff’s speech to lack constitutional protection, it must constitute “‘government employees’ work product’ that has been ‘commissioned or created’ by the employer.”

Here, observed the court, the employee argued that she signed up for the public-comment portion of the meetings on her own initiative to talk about wage and staffing for county employees both within the jail and outside the jail with the latter falling outside her area of supervision. In addition, her speech occurred both during and after normal business hours and she talked about COVID funds and errors she had identified in the administrator’s county-wide budget that she discovered on her own time via public records requests, some of which were unrelated to the jail’s budget.

Not authorized. “Thus,” said the court, “even if plaintiff’s speech was broadly related to her professional duties as jail administrator, the record contains no definitive evidence suggesting that plaintiff’s statements to the County Board were entirely ‘work product’ that was ‘commissioned or created’ by defendants, nor that she was speaking directly up the chain of command, which would have meant either the Chief Deputy or Sheriff.” Rather, the court found the evidence indicated she was speaking in part on public policy matters that the administrator did not authorize and with which he did not agree.

Further, the court noted, the administrator’s repeated warnings to the employee about her speech, including telling her that attending the board meetings was not part of her job, also supported the conclusion her speech was protected by the First Amendment. Similarly, after the deputy chief was elected sheriff, he told the employee that “Nobody [but him] can attend on duty nor speak on behalf of the sheriff’s office.”

Finding that the employee presented sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find she was terminated at least in part for her protected speech that bothered both the administrator and the deputy chief as to her frequency of attendance and content of her speech at the board meetings, the court denied summary judgment against this claim as well.

The case is No. 24-cv-872-wmc.

Judge: Conley, W.

Attorneys: Ben Hitchcock Cross (Cross Law Firm) for Kimberly J. Lavasseur. Mark Andrew Sauer (Mallery & Zimmerman) for County of Ashland, Dan Grady, and Brian Zupke.

Companies: County of Ashland, Wisconsin

Cases: Discrimination SexDiscrimination AgeDiscrimination NationalOrigin RaceDiscrimination PublicEmployees Discharge Retaliation WisconsinNews