Although the city of Westminster argues it terminated a 14-year police officer because he abused his authority in repeated encounters with law enforcement, a federal judge found the officer’s allegations of disability discrimination credible enough to let a jury decide the outcome of the case.

Craig Communal, an officer from 2004 to 2018, claimed the city suspended him eight days after returning to limited duties post-shoulder surgery, and then terminated him following an internal affairs investigation. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Senior Judge R. Brooke Jackson declined to dismiss Communal’s lawsuit, finding it plausible that Westminster took action against Communal because of his shoulder disability.

“This Court, frankly, does not find the plaintiff’s case compelling,” Jackson wrote in a Jan. 18 order, “but that is not the Court’s role. I find that this is a case that will have to be heard and decided by a jury.”

The city did not challenge Communal’s status as a disabled person under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He had sustained a shoulder injury on duty while chasing a suspect in October 2017. Communal received worker’s compensation while recovering from the injury and underwent surgery in June 2018.

Both Westminster and Communal agreed that various law enforcement agencies had made numerous contacts with him and his ex-wife within roughly that window of time. But the severity of those encounters and their role in Communal’s termination is disputed.

In Communal’s telling, he was out of work for six weeks following his shoulder surgery and then cleared to work five-hour desk or light-duty shifts in July 2018. Westminster hired surveillance to see whether Communal was accurately portraying his disability to the city, but found nothing amiss.

Eight days after being cleared for light duty, the city reportedly suspended him pending an internal affairs investigation. The inquiry stemmed from a commander learning that Communal had left his then-wife alone at a grocery store, where she was passed out from intoxication. The commander then found several more contacts Communal or his wife had with authorities over the past two years.

The city determined the incidents to be serious.

“During most encounters, based on interviews with the involved officers, Mr. Communal identified himself as a police officer in a perceived attempt to avoid any negative consequences which might have resulted from those contacts (traffic stops and reports of domestic disturbances),” attorneys for the city wrote to the court.

Communal believed the police encounters were easily explained: five incidents reportedly involved a disturbance by Communal’s ex-wife. Four involved being pulled over and Communal identifying himself as an officer because of a gun in the car. One incident of road rage allegedly featured Communal as the victim, and one encounter involved an accident.

The police chief at the time, Tim Carlson, “terminated Mr. Communal for his repeated efforts to curry favor with law enforcement officers,” the city wrote. The Westminster Personnel Board agreed with Carlson on appeal, finding Communal was not credible and that he “repeatedly attempted to interject medical health issues into the proceedings.”

Carlson himself left the department in late 2021 after a city-initiated review found he “did not effectively manage the department’s culture.”

Westminster asked Jackson to dismiss the lawsuit because Communal had not shown his disability was a determining factor in his firing. Communal countered that even if the department were concerned about his encounters with law enforcement, the city had allegedly investigated only two other officers based on family members’ conduct, neither of whom was terminated. There were also two investigations for traffic violations, again without terminations.

“Westminster was not interested in addressing a potentially legitimate problem, but was only interested in drudging up every contact, no matter how innocent, and lumping them together to make it appear that Communal was a problem officer. That is the essence of pretext,” Communal’s attorneys argued.

In reviewing both sets of arguments, Jackson determined it was possible that Communal’s suspension so soon after accepting a modified set of duties based on disability could be evidence of discrimination.

“I conclude that a reasonable factfinder could find that the temporal proximity between Mr. Communal’s protected action of accepting an accommodation and the adverse employment action of being suspended created an inference of discrimination,” the judge wrote.

Although Westminster was right to be concerned about Communal’s frequent encounters with police and his explanations during the investigation, Jackson added, the disparity in treatment between Communal and officers who committed similar transgressions raised questions about the city’s motivation for terminating him.

A jury trial is set to begin on Aug. 22, 2022.

The case is Communal v. City of Westminster.