By Lindsey Kroskob
Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Arnold has ruled in favor of the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department in a wrongful firing lawsuit.
Former Laramie County Sheriff’s deputy Sean Ringrose sued the department in 2010, claiming that he did not violate department policies in the way he handled an incident at the Outlaw Saloon in late December 2009.
Ringrose was fired from the sheriff’s department Jan. 4, 2010, because officials believe he mishandled a fight between an off-duty Cheyenne Police officer and an F.E. Warren Air Force Base sergeant.
Ringrose and fellow deputy Kenneth Cook were working security for the bar at the time and were in uniform, though not on duty for the sheriff’s department.
In the fight, officer Russ Edwards punched airman Timothy Finch. Finch suffered a fractured cheek bone, broken eye socket and detached retina, court documents show.
Neither party pressed charges, and they left the bar without being arrested or cited. Finch was taken to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center by ambulance.
The sheriff’s department fired Ringrose and Cook “due to both deputies’ conduct in handling the aftermath of the altercation, including their failure to write reports and to timely investigate the incident,” documents show.
Ringrose’s attorney, Tara Nethercott, argued that her client didn’t violate any department policies in his handling of the incident and wasn’t provided adequate time to respond to the allegations against him.
She said he did write a report after he and Cook were instructed to by their superior, and that the only stipulation regarding report writing is that it must be done within the employee’s work week, which it was.
Nethercott argued that the county changed its argument at the initial hearing to say that Ringrose was fired for failure to follow proper police protocol, but that those allegations were not made in the final notice of termination letter.
But Arnold disagreed on all counts.
He said Ringrose was aware of the reasons for his termination from the beginning and that the alleged policy violations were clearly identified in his termination letter.
“Ringrose was terminated for his failure to comply with specific department policies,” Arnold wrote. “The policies set forth as the justification for Ringrose’s termination bear a reasonable relationship to his ability and fitness to be a deputy sheriff.”
Arnold wrote that Ringrose displayed unsatisfactory work performance in not preventing Edwards from leaving the scene after the fight, and for not writing a report and notifying his superior when a violent misdemeanor had taken place, per department policy.
“This court finds that there is substantial evidence in the record to support a finding that Ringrose did, in fact, violate the stated policies and that his conduct was cause for the discipline imposed,” Arnold wrote. “Further, the court finds that the (sheriff’s department)'s decision to terminate Ringrose was not contrary to the law of otherwise arbitrary and capricious.”
However, Arnold’s decision does contradict that of a Sheridan County judge, who ruled in favor of Cook on his appeal.
Cook won his appeal before Sheridan County District Judge John Fenn in May.
Fenn said that Cook did not violate any department policies in the way he handled the fight or in storing his department-issued shotgun in his brother’s locked safe.
The judge said that the evidence involving Cook’s case didn’t support Sheriff Danny Glick’s reasons for the termination.
Copyright 2011 Cheyenne Newspapers, Inc.