The federal lawsuit against the city of Umatilla, its police officials and a former police sergeant is heating up.
Umatilla City Manager David Stockdale, police Chief Darla Huxel, police Lt. Keith Kennedy, former police Sgt. Bill Wright, the city of Umatilla and others are defendants in a $26 million lawsuit alleging Wright failed to investigate the rape of a 13-year-old girl in 2018 and failed to investigate another teen girl’s report of sexual assault in 2022. The lawsuit also alleges Huxel and Kennedy failed to supervise Wright, and Stockdale and the city failed to provide resources for police training.
Attorneys in the case in recent months have fired at each other in a series of court filings that collectively top 140 pages.
Motions to dismiss
The attorney for Wright on May 18 filed a motion to dismiss the case, and attorneys for Huxel, Kennedy and the city on May 19 also filed a motion to dismiss. The primary argument in each asserts the court should dismiss the case because the plaintiff failed “to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”
The plaintiff, Jane Doe, failed to allege any “ultimate facts,” the motions state, that Wright treated her differently from another person or group in a similar situation. Without such facts, the complaint fails to explain how Wright violated her constitutional right to equal protection and therefore the case should not proceed.
Even if Wright’s police work was shoddy, according to Wright’s motion, the lawsuit “fails to allege that another group of people, similarly situated, received better treatment.”
Wright’s motion to dismiss also contends dismissal is correct because there are no allegations “Wright undertook any affirmative conduct that placed” the plaintiff “in danger.”
The motion for Huxel, Kennedy and the city includes much of those arguments and also explains the plaintiff cannot show Huxel and Kennedy failed as Wright’s supervisors or the city of Umatilla failed to properly train or supervise its police department employees.
“Notably, Plaintiff does not, and cannot, identify a policy, practice, or custom, that amounts to ‘deliberate indifference,'” the second motion states. “Plaintiff simply cites to her own purely conclusory assertions in support of her claim.”
The motions also argue the lawsuit fails under the “economic loss doctrine,” the common-law doctrine that states a party usually is not liable for negligently causing a stranger’s purely economic loss without injuring his person or property. The lawsuit “does not allege personal injuries or property damage,” according to Wright’s motion, therefore the only way of establishing a negligence claim is if a “special relationship existed between Plaintiff and Wright,” and Wright and the plaintiff’s relationship was nothing more than a “basic, arm’s length citizen-police officer relationship” and not a “special relationship.”
The two motions also argue Wright, Kennedy and Huxel also are entitled to qualified immunity.
Plaintiff responds
Terry Scannell and Christopher E. Hayes, with a Tigard law firm, and Patrick Gregg, with Corey Byler & Rew in Pendleton, filed a 46-page response on June 9 to counter the pair of motions.
Their client does not need to show that Wright treated her differently from an individual or group in a similar situation because his statements “show a clear discriminatory animus toward women when coupled with him not following mandatory procedures, followed by his actions in directing the Plaintiff and her mother to conduct their own investigation, and his inactions in not conducting an investigation himself that did adversely affect Plaintiff. … For Plaintiff, comparators are not needed to show discrimination.”
Wright not believing the girl based on an animus toward women, the response asserts, is the crux of the lawsuit. Wright also investigated cases with male victims of violent crimes and “believed the story of male victims enough to send the cases to the prosecutor for review.”
The response also asserts Wright’s animus toward young women and its effect on their constitutional rights in effect became the policy he, Kennedy and Huxel adopted. The defendants also are liable for the emotional damage and physical harm stemming from the danger in which Wright placed her.
“Telling a thirteen-year-old rape victim to find more evidence about her abuser when there is video evidence and testimony of his abuse in the hands of the officer directing the investigation is the type of behavior that shocks the conscience,” the response asserts.
Further, according to the response, “The relationship between Plaintiff, as a minor crime victim, and Det. Sgt. Wright is the very definition of a special relationship.”
Defendants reply
The plaintiffs on June 2 filed a pair of replies to the response — 17 pages for Wright, 26 pages for the city and company — offering more counterarguments for dismissing the case.
The bottom line in Wright’s reply is “There is no case putting police officers on notice that failure to adequately investigate a report of child abuse, even the failure to comply with Oregon law on such matters, equates a constitutional violation,” and thus Wright is entitled to qualified immunity from the lawsuit.
For city and the other defendants, the reply restates much of the arguments in the motions to dismiss and contends Jane Doe still needs to show a comparison of Wright treating others differently from how he treated her.
“There is simply no avoiding the clear requirement that equal protection cases involving claims of discriminatory policing require allegations of a comparator class,” the reply states. Nor can the plaintiff show Kennedy and Huxel acted with sufficient culpability necessary to obtain punitive damages.
The attorneys for the defendants asked the court to dismiss the plaintiff’s punitive damages claims with prejudice.
Both sides get to argue their sides Friday, June 14, starting at 9:30 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Pendleton with Magistrate Judge Andrew D. Hallman presiding.
