The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri’s denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity to two individual defendants who had been sued for First Amendment retaliation under Section 1983. The decision hinged on whether a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether the plaintiffs—two former police officers—spoke as citizens on matters of public concern when they complained in writing to the mayor about the police chief.
The case, Noon v. City of Platte Woods, Missouri, 94 F.4th 759 (8th Cir. 2024), is the second federal lawsuit involving the termination of appellees Thomas Noon and Christopher Skidmore, both former police officers for the city’s police department. During their employment, Noon and Skidmore raised several concerns about Police Chief James Kerns, culminating in their sending a “complaint packet” to Mayor John Smedley and the city’s board of aldermen. The complaint packet included a list of complaints about Kerns’s leadership, noted “over 180 violations” of the police department’s standard operating procedures, and concluded by stating, “It is our belief that our oath of office to serve the community requires this action.”
