Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—M.D. Tenn.: County probation officer fired after reporting director stole time gets trial on First Amendment retaliation claim, (Oct 17, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The county claimed the probation officer was fired for handbook violations after a hidden web camera was discovered on his computer.

A probation officer for Wilson County, Tennessee, who was fired after anonymously complaining about the probation department director’s alleged time theft, and after she discovered a hidden web camera on his computer pointed at her desk along with her time sheets, can proceed to trial on his First Amendment retaliation claim against the director and the county, a federal court in Tennessee ruled, finding the director was not entitled to qualified immunity and the employee was able to establish municipal liability against the county. The court, however, granted summary judgment against the employee’s state-law retaliation claims (Dunnam v. Wilson County, Tennessee, No. 3:24-cv-00231 (M.D. Tenn. Oct. 15, 2025)).

Time tracking. In May 2017, suspecting that the department director was stealing time by logging hours she did not actually work, the employee began tracking her absences. Although he stopped doing so after a year, he started up again in June 2022.

Complaint. In July 2023, after talking to the HR director, the employee submitted an anonymous complaint accusing the department director of time theft by taking time off without using sick or annual leave. After an investigation, the HR director found some timekeeping discrepancies but determined that the complaint was unsubstantiated and closed the investigation.

Termination. That fall, the director instructed another probation officer to use the employee’s desk to train a newly hired employee. While doing so, the probation officer discovered a hidden web camera pointed at the director’s desk, two videos showing her desk, her timesheets and work phone bills, and a court-ordered mental health assessment of a county judge, among other things. As a result, the employee was terminated for violating various handbook policies.

Claim against the director. Alleging that he was fired for reporting the time theft, the employee brought a Section 1983 First Amendment retaliation claim against the director, who asserted that she was entitled to qualified immunity. Turning to whether the employee engaged in constitutionally protected speech, the court found his complaint, which voiced his belief the director was wrongly paid for time she had not worked involved a matter of public concern.

He also spoke as a citizen when he filed his complaint, said the court, noting that he reported his concerns to the HR director, who was outside of his direct chain of command, and his job duties did not require that he report suspicions of time theft. Thus, said the court, the impetus of his speech was not to fulfill a job duty but to report an unrelated problem.

Pickering. Noting that Pickering does not extend protection to false statements that are knowingly or recklessly made, the court addressed the director’s assertion the employee made his complaint despite knowing it was false. While there was some evidence she had work obligations that required her to be out of the office, there was also evidence the HR director found that some of the employee’s time theft allegations were supported and the director admitted that the work she performed out of the office was infrequent. Thus, said the court, no reasonable officer could have concluded that the employee made his complaint with knowing, or reckless indifference to, its falsity.

Nor was the court persuaded by the director’s contention that because the employee’s actions caused negativity and distrust in the workplace, she had adequate justification for treating him differently than other members of the public. While Pickering requires that an employee’s right to comment on matters of public concern be balanced against the interest of the public employer in efficiently providing services to the public, the Supreme Court, observed the court here, has explained that in cases involving allegations of official misconduct and public corruption, “the employer’s side of the Pickering scale is entirely empty.” Accordingly, the employee sufficiently established that the director did not have an adequate justification to treat his speech on a matter of public concern as different from the speech of another member of the public.

Motivating factor. As to the director’s assertion the employee was fired because of his misconduct, not his speech, the employee presented evidence he was fired just weeks after his complaint, the director had begun to suspect that he made the anonymous complaint after learning of the hidden camera and timesheets on his computer, and none of the reasons given for his termination actually constituted handbook violations. Based on this, said the court, a reasonable jury could conclude that the director fired the employee in retaliation for his anonymous time-theft complaint.

Clearly established. Regarding whether the employee’s constitutional right was clearly established at the time the director purportedly violated it, the court explained that even though the employee had the burden to point to relevant authority showing this, the director still had to substantively address this issue. Because she failed to do so, the court denied her motion for summary judgment on this claim and allowed the employee’s claim against her to proceed to trial.

Claim against county. Turning to the employee’s claim against the county, the court noted that the county challenged it on both substantive grounds and on the premise that he could not establish municipal liability. Because the county’s arguments on the substance of his First Amendment retaliation claim mirrored the director’s failed arguments, the court rejected the county’s arguments for the same reasons.

Also rejected was the county’s assertion the employee could not establish municipal liability. Here, the court found ample evidence the director was a final decisionmaker with respect to her ability to hire and fire employees at the probation office. Indeed, both she and the HR director testified that she was the final decisionmaker regarding the employee’s termination. Moreover, she made this decision despite the HR director recommending against termination and in favor of some other form of discipline.

And while the county argued that the director did not have authority to set final policies, including handbook policies, the handbook specifically stated that “[m]anagement is entitled to modify, revoke, or replace any policies and procedures at any time,” and defined management as “[a] person/elected official appointed to a position that either directs, manages and/or supervises a department and/or employee within that department,” which, said the court, could encompass the director based on her job description. Because a reasonable juror could conclude that the director was a person with final decisionmaking and policymaking authority over hiring and firing decisions for the purposes of the Monell analysis, the court denied the county’s motion for summary judgment as well.

TPPA claim. The employee also asserted a claim under the Tennessee Public Protection Act, which prohibits an employee from being “discharged or terminated solely for refusing to participate in, or for refusing to remain silent about, illegal activities. The employee relied on the same causation arguments that he did for his First Amendment retaliation claim but the court pointed out that the TPPA’s “sole cause” standard for causation is far greater than the “motivating cause” standard applied in the First Amendment context. And this heightened standard, said the court, doomed his TPPA claim given the undisputed evidence the director had the authority to fire him solely for his handbook violations. Thus, the court granted summary judgment against this claim.

PEPFA claim. Nor could the employee advance his claim under the Public Employee Political Freedom Act, which prohibits a public employer from disciplining, threatening to discipline, or otherwise discriminating against an employee because the employee exercised their right to communicate with an “elected public official.” Although the parties agreed that the employee communicated his complaint to the HR director, who was not an elected official, the employee pointed out that courts have not yet ruled on whether the term “elected public official” includes agents.

But even if the HR director qualified as an agent of the mayor, for whom she worked, the employee provided no citation to any record evidence and the county, for its part, cited evidence she was not. Because the employee was unable to establish that he communicated his concerns about the director’s timekeeping to the mayor, in any manner, this claim also failed on summary judgment.

The case is No. 3:24-cv-00231.

Judge: Crenshaw, W., Jr.

Attorneys: Jerry Gonzalez (Law Office of Jerry Gonzalez) for Casey Dunnam. Emily Lambert (Lewis Thomason) for Wilson County, Tennessee. Nathaniel Craig Strand (O'Neil, Parker & Williamson) for Betsy Jakalski.

Companies: Wilson County, Tennessee

Cases: Retaliation Discharge PublicEmployees StateLawClaims TennesseeNews