Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—D. Colo.: Government employee, targeted for layoff after associating with Latino group, gets TRO, (Sep 19, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

She had supported a mayoral candidate who was the founder and leader of Latinos United Neighbors Association, after which she had experienced performance downgrades and other retaliatory measures.

A temporary restraining order was granted by a federal district court in Colorado enjoining the city of Denver from terminating an employee until the court adjudicates the employee’s motion for a preliminary injunction. According to the employee, a series of antagonistic actions were taken against her after her association with Latinos United Neighbors Association (LUNA) and its leader, including a reduced performance rating, exclusion from meetings, and the discretionary application of a four-factor matrix utilized during layoff decisions. However, her motion for a preliminary injunction against her Title VII retaliation claim was denied for failure to establish irreparable harm (Calderon v. City and County of Denver, No. 24-cv-02406-NYW-TPO (D. Colo. Sept. 17, 2025)).

The employee in this case has worked as the Director of Operations and Innovation in the Office of Social Equity & Innovation (OSEI) in the Office of the Mayor since 2004.

Mayoral election. During the 2023 mayoral election, the employee supported a candidate who was the founder and leader of LUNA, a Latino community organization. The candidate did not qualify for the runoff election and she then endorsed the incumbent candidate who would go on to win the election. The mayor knew that the employee was associated with his rival candidate and LUNA.

Job threats. In July 2023, the employee applied for but did not receive the Chief Equity Officer (CEO) position under the mayor. The person who was chosen for the job allegedly “repeatedly confronted, criticized, and threatened” the employee about her affiliation with LUNA and the mayoral candidate, who had been critical of the mayor and his administration. The employee was told that her association with the candidate “could reflect poorly on” her and that she could not “be on both sides of the table.” The employee felt her job was being threatened, so she stopped attending LUNA meetings.

Performance downgrades. In September 2023 and February 2024, the employee received reduced performance ratings from the CEO.

Position undermined. The employee also alleged that the defendants took various actions to “undermine” her position between June 2024 and August 2025, including continually criticizing and scrutinizing a position on her team, failing to support her efforts to retain a full-time position on her team, and excluding her from key OSEI meetings.

Lawsuit. In August 2024, the employee filed this lawsuit. When she filed her first amended complaint in November 2024, she was “angrily” confronted by a mayoral deputy who was upset over being mentioned in the suit. At this point, the employee alleged that a target had been placed on her, and during the winter of 2025, the mayoral deputy gave her the lowest performance rating of her career.

Laid off. On August 18, 2025, the employee was informed that she was being laid off. The mayoral deputy told her that the decision was reached upon application of a four-factor matrix used to “rank” employees for possible layoffs. The employee’s salary and benefits were set to expire on September 18.

Subsequently, the employee moved for preliminary injunctive relief on her First Amendment claims. Here, she asked the court to “require Defendants to maintain her salary, benefits, and employment status until this action is resolved by settlement or jury verdict.”

Disfavored? First, the court addressed the defendants’ argument that the employee’s motion was a disfavored injunction requiring a heightened standard of proof. The defendants argued that ordering the city to maintain the employee’s position would be a mandatory injunction and grant the employee all the relief she could obtain at trial. The court disagreed.

According to the Tenth Circuit, “[a]n injunction is mandatory when it requires defendants to do something they were not doing during the most recent peaceable status quo—that is, the last uncontested period preceding the injunction.” Pryor v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 99 F.4th 1243, 1255 (10th Cir. 2024).

In this instance, it was undisputed that the employee was to continue in her position until September 18. Thus, the last peaceable status quo includes the city continuing to employ the employee and her receiving her salary and benefits. Enjoining the employee’s termination would not grant her all the relief she could obtain at trial, explained the court, noting that she was seeking non-economic and punitive damages on her Title VII claims that would not be encompassed by her ordinary employment benefits. Accordingly, the court found the requested injunction was not the type of disfavored relief requiring heightened scrutiny.

Title VII claims. Turning to the preliminary injunction factors, the court first addressed the employee’s Title VII claims. Here, the court found she was unable to establish irreparable harm. Legal remedies, including backpay and reinstatement, are generally adequate for the termination of employment and associated benefits, said the court, and the employee had failed to demonstrate that her case is the “generally extraordinary situation” where the loss of employment and benefits cannot be remedied with money damages. As such, the motion was denied insofar as the employee was seeking a temporary restraining order as to her Title VII retaliation claim.

First Amendment claims. Next, the court considered the employee’s request for injunctive relief on her First Amendment claims. The court looked to the likelihood of the employee’s success on these claims utilizing the factors outlined by the Pickering/Garcetti test.

Official duties. First, the court looked to whether the employee engaged in speech pursuant to her official duties. Here, the employee suggested that her association with and support for LUNA and the mayoral candidate occurred outside of her official duties. She averred that she “took paid time off” to attend at least one LUNA meeting and suggested that the defendants in fact disapproved of her affiliation with LUNA and the mayoral candidate. The defendants did not address this testimony nor did they provide any evidence that specifically delineated the employee’s duties, if any, that would have included LUNA. Thus, this factor weighed in the employee’s favor.

Public concern. As to whether the employee’s speech related to a matter of public concern, she argued that it did so because it was related to the candidate’s mayoral campaign and issues of local government. This too was undisputed by the defendants and the court concluded that this factor weighed in the employee’s favor as well.

Efficiency. Turning to the government’s interest in efficiency, the employee asserted that there was no need to limit her association with LUNA and the mayoral candidate because such association “did not cause any disruption to the Defendants’ operations.” She averred that she told the CEO that her employment with the city was separate from the candidate’s conduct and statements. The defendants did not address or dispute this point. Accordingly, the court found the employee’s free speech interests outweighed the city’s efficiency interests.

Intent. The fourth factor concerned the defendants’ intent. Here, the defendants argued that they “faced an unprecedented budget crisis and developed a City-wide layoff plan to address it.” They further contended that because the employee was laid off pursuant to this plan, she could not show that her termination was “accompanied by evidence of improper motive.” The court was not persuaded.

According to the employee, a series of adverse actions were taken against her that could be reasonably traced back to her association with LUNA and the mayoral candidate. The defendants’ counterargument, that her termination was necessitated by the layoffs and governed by the four-factor matrix, was unavailing.

Although the defendants contended that they followed the four-factor matrix “when weighting its criteria and applied the criteria uniformly across all necessary selections,” the matrix as applied to the employee did not necessarily prove this. Two of the factors—length of service and average overall performance—were considered non-discretionary. The other two factors—skills and abilities—were discretionary, and the mayoral deputy assigned significantly lower scores to the employee than another comparable director, an individual who had only been on the job for 10 months and had no performance reviews. At this stage, the court could not find that the matrix was a purely objective criterion that dispelled the inference of a retaliatory motive.

Protected conduct. As to the final factor—whether the defendants would have made the same decision absent the protected conduct—the court determined that this too weighed in favor of the employee. Having found that the employee established a likelihood that her termination was motivated by her political associations, the court could not conclude that the defendants would have taken the same actions if she were not associated with LUNA or the mayoral candidate.

Equities, public interest. Turning to the final preliminary injunction factors—the balance of equities and the public interest—the city argued that granting the motion would “erode[] the fiscal integrity of the layoff plan and the Mayor’s budgetary goals,” and expressed fear that enjoining the employee’s termination could inspire others to sue in an attempt to “block or delay” layoffs.

Although the court found the defendants’ fiscal and administrative responsibilities to be important, they did not outweigh the employee’s First Amendment rights. Further, any concerns about copycat litigation were purely speculative, said the court. Accordingly, the employee’s motion for a temporary restraining order was granted and the defendants were enjoined from terminating her employment until the court could fully adjudicate her motion for a preliminary injunction.

The case is No. 24-cv-02406-NYW-TPO.

Attorneys: Steven Lee Murray (Murray Law) for Jessica Calderon. Chad A. Trulli, Denver City and County Attorney's Office, for City and County of Denver, Office of the Mayor.

Cases: IndividualRights Discharge PublicEmployees RemediesDamages Retaliation ColoradoNews GCNNews