Tenino and Tukwila are municipalities in the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia area.
Tukwila fired a police officer in 2017 after internal investigations found he “falsified reports, failed to report the use of force and showed a pattern of using a taser or threatening to use one when it wasn’t warranted.” Tukwila’s disciplinary records also “claim [he] wrongfully punched a 15-year-old boy in the face while responding to a disturbance call at a Tukwila McDonalds” after grabbing “the wrong person” (see story here).
But in 2018 the city of Tukwila “agreed to revoke his termination, reverse all findings of misconduct and remove the disciplinary records from his personnel file,” and paid him $75,000 “in exchange for his promise to resign from the police department and remain quiet under a confidentiality clause” (see story here). That deal was signed by Tukwila’s mayor, the cop, and a police union representative.
It didn’t stay secret forever. More than 5 years later, after the ex-cop landed another police job at Tenino, Seattle TV station KING 5 found out about his history through public records requests and “sources familiar with [the] case.” KING 5 also found that, “At the front of each internal file, the city included a memo explaining that it ‘reconsidered’ the cop’s termination and reversed all sustained findings before he ‘voluntarily resigned’ to pursue employment elsewhere.”
A police leadership expert called it “inappropriate” and a “cover up.”
Elsewhere turned out to be the city of Tenino. KING 5 says it’s “unclear if the City of Tenino knew about or had access to [the] settlement agreement or the disciplinary records,” but Tenino took him off the streets and assigned him to desk duty right afters KING 5 ran its story.
It’s unclear what Tenino knew because its officials haven’t been forthcoming either. They didn’t respond to KING 5‘s inquiries. Then, at a city council meeting, the mayor said, “When Mayor Wayne gets an email from KING 5 or Russian state media or CNN asking about a person or a member of our team, I’m not going to talk to them about personnel matters,” in a remark that equates reputable U.S. media companies with Russian propaganda. Way to go, dumbass.
Hizzoner added, “We’ll be very transparent about it.”
Using that episode as a template, let’s assume for discussion’s sake that two hypothetical cities with bad mayors are playing kickball with a bad cop. In our hypothetical, City B has suffered reputational harm and financial loss because it unwittingly hired an unsuitable police applicant because City A concealed his disciplinary records and paid him to go trouble some other employer with his behavior. Does City B have a cause of action against City A for fraudulent misrepresentation?
Good law school question. Now answer the same question using a car salesman selling a lemon car as an analogy. Be ready to answer at Friday’s class. What’s the same? What’s different? Same or different result? (And yeah, this is the sort of thing law professors do to law students.)