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A lawsuit filed by the former second-in-command of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office alleging he was wrongfully fired the day a new sheriff was sworn in could go to trial as early as Spring 2023, according to court records.
Ruben F. Fuentes is suing Santa Cruz County in federal court after being terminated Jan. 8, 2021, the day David Hathaway, the county’s first new sheriff in more than 30 years, was sworn in. Hathaway is also named as a defendant.
At issue is whether Fuentes became an at-will employee back in 2007 when then-Sheriff Tony Estrada promoted Fuentes from lieutenant to captain, the highest ranking sworn position beneath sheriff.
An at-will employee in Arizona can be terminated for any reason, or no reason at all. Fuentes, however, contends Santa Cruz County’s human resource policies list a sheriff’s captain as a classified employee, thus preserving his right to contest any termination action taken by Hathaway.
Fuentes offered to settle the employment dispute without civil litigation, but the attempt was rejected by Santa Cruz County. The lawsuit was filed in May 2021 in U.S. District Court.
Hathaway “should have reasonably known that he did not have the power pursuant to the County policies to terminate Plaintiff and thus acted outside the scope of his official duties” and deprived Fuentes of his constitutional rights to due process as a classified employee, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also points out that after firing Fuentes, the new sheriff wrote a “glowing” letter of recommendation, thus showing there was no cause for termination. And by not rescinding Hathaway’s order, the Board of Supervisors ratified the sheriff’s alleged illegal conduct, the lawsuit alleges.
The County defendants admit in their answer to the lawsuit that Fuentes was involuntarily separated from a position labeled as Captain. However, it is the position of Hathaway and the County that Fuentes was effectively serving as Estrada’s chief deputy and not a captain.
As such, “his employment at the time of his separation was terminable at-will and without entitlement to further process,” the answer states.
The parties met with a magistrate judge in April in an attempt to resolve the case without need for a trial. However, U.S. District Judge David Bury was informed that a settlement conference did not result in a resolution.
Then in June, Bury was notified by Fuentes’ attorney that depositions of several county officials will be taken as the case moves closer to trial. Those listed in the notice are Hathaway, County Manager Jennifer St. John, and HR Director Sonia Jones.
The depositions and other discovery activities need to be completed by Oct. 20, Bury has ordered. Any motions concerning witnesses, evidence, and trial procedural matters must be filed by Nov. 21, with a pretrial report due to Bury by Dec. 20 from the parties.
Bury will then schedule a pretrial conference and set the date for Fuentes’ jury trial to begin. Based on the scheduling deadlines already in place, the trial could happen as soon as April 2023.
The termination lawsuit is not the only legal matter Fuentes has been dealing with the last year.
In January, Fuentes and Estrada settled a civil complaint filed against them in June 2021 by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office concerning an agency policy which paid overtime to some deputies for non-overtime hours. The policy appears to have been in place well before Fuentes was promoted in 2007, according to the AGO.
The AGO’s lawsuit alleged several deputies shared in nearly $197,000 of unearned overtime between 2013 and 2018, which was authorized by Fuentes and Estrada in exchange for time those deputies spent working as de facto sergeants during their shifts.
The lawsuit also alleged the two longtime lawmen engaged in racketeering, but no such admission was included in the settlement reported to the court. Instead, the settlement only required Estrada and Fuentes to pay a combined $10,000 earmarked for Santa Cruz County.
The county’s risk management company also agreed to pay $20,000, with the AGO then turning over both payments to county officials.
Shortly after Fuentes filed his lawsuit, Hathaway and the County defendants filed a counterclaim alleging the same overtime pay conduct which was already being pursued by the AGO. The county defendants later asked Bury to dismiss their counterclaim.
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