By Todd Harrison, J.D.
Refusing to submit to a polygraph violated department policies which, though perhaps ill-advised, applied to both the dispatcher and her alleged officer partner, thus raising no inference of gender discrimination.
Granting the Carlsbad Police Department’s (CPD) motion for summary judgment against the Title VII and Equal Protection claims asserted by a former police dispatcher who was fired after a sexual misconduct investigation, a federal district court in New Mexico determined that failing or refusing to cooperate with an investigation, including refusing to submit to a polygraph test, subjects a CPD employee to disciplinary action. In this instance, the employee was fired after refusing to take a polygraph test, while her alleged sexual partner, a CPD officer, resigned after also refusing the test. The court found no evidence that gender was a determinative factor in the termination decision, and any proffered comparator evidence failed either because it was too old or was not of comparable seriousness (Styring v. City of Carlsbad, No. 25-400 GJF/DLM (D.N.M. May 8, 2026)).
Beginning in June 2022, the plaintiff in this case, a woman, was employed as a dispatcher by the CPD. In early December 2024, the employee attended, by telephone, a union meeting at which she voiced complaints about the performance of her dispatch commander.
Informal investigation. The next month, rumors began to circulate alleging misconduct both on and off duty between the employee and a male CPD officer. When the rumors reached the dispatch commander, she undertook an informal investigation.
During the investigation, the dispatch commander learned that the employee and the CPD officer may have had sex in a bathroom at CPD. Based on this information, the dispatch commander recommended that an internal affairs (IA) investigation be opened into the alleged misconduct.
Formal investigation. Subsequently, IA undertook an investigation of its own. The investigation was spearheaded by a lieutenant at the behest of the police chief. After interviewing several CPD employees and being given conflicting statements, the lieutenant recommended to the chief that the employee and the CPD officer submit to a polygraph examination. The chief agreed and signed off on the request.
Test refusal. On February 20, 2025, the lieutenant notified the employee that as part of the investigation, she was being directed to participate in a polygraph examination. She refused.
Around the same time, the CPD officer was also ordered to submit to a polygraph test. He too refused, though he changed his mind a week later. The lieutenant then closed his investigation into the employee, determining that the allegations against her should be sustained based on her refusal to submit to the polygraph and statements made by other CPD employees, and left open the investigation as to the CPD officer pending the results of his polygraph test.
Termination, resignation. After reviewing the investigative report, the police chief recommended the employee’s termination, citing her refusal to cooperate in the investigation by refusing the polygraph and multiple policy violations. The CPD officer subsequently met with the police chief, reversed his position on taking the polygraph, and resigned from his position.
Appeal. The employee appealed the police chief’s recommendation to the city administrator. She also attended a pre-determination hearing before the city administrator at which she confirmed her refusal to submit to a polygraph. For the first time, she also disclosed that she had met the CPD officer in person at a local gym, though she denied that any sexual conduct had occurred during this encounter.
Because the employee had not previously mentioned this encounter, the city administrator determined that she was “disingenuous,” and together with her refusal to submit to a polygraph called into question her credibility. Ultimately, the city administrator affirmed the police chief’s termination recommendation.
Subsequently, the employee filed this lawsuit asserting gender discrimination claims under Title VII and Section 1983, as well as state-law claims arising under the New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMHRA) and the New Mexico Whistleblower Protection Act (NMWPA).
Retaliatory motive. First, the court addressed the employee’s Title VII claim. The CPD did not dispute that she had established a prima facie case of sex discrimination and proffered a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its termination decision—violations of department policies.
Shifting the burden back to the employee to show pretext, she argued that the initial, informal investigation launched by the dispatch commander was initiated for pretextual reasons. The employee contended that the impetus for this investigation was the critical comments she had made about the dispatch commander during the December 2024 union meeting. Thus, the court observed, the employee was asserting that this investigation was undertaken for retaliatory, not gender-based reasons. Accordingly, the employee could not satisfy her burden to show pretext, without more, on this basis.
Polygraph pretext? Next, the employee challenged the formal investigation. Here, she proffered many critiques of the investigation, including an assertion that the directive to undergo the polygraph was pretext for gender discrimination, submitting that, because she knew she was innocent, it was rational for her to refuse the test because the chances of her failing with a false positive were high.
It followed, argued the employee, that her refusal was “perfectly rational,” and the CPD’s “stated reason for terminating [her]—her refusal to take the polygraph—is akin to punishing the would-be witch for refusing the swimming test.” The court was not persuaded.
Here, the court agreed with the CPD’s assessment: whether the employee rationally declined a mandatory polygraph was not a material issue that would preclude summary judgment. As a CPD employee, she knew that she risked disciplinary action for failing to follow department policies, including refusing a polygraph, regardless of whether such a refusal was rational, observed the court.
Further, even if mandating a polygraph was ill-advised for the reasons asserted by the employee, no inference of gender discrimination could arise where both the employee and the CPD officer received the same mandate, explained the court. Thus, she failed to show the termination decision was motivated by pretext.
Old comparators. Turning to the employee’s comparator evidence, she identified seven others who she argued were similarly situated for purposes of her discrimination claim. The court began by looking at five of the proffered comparators, including the present-day police chief. For its part, the CPD correctly emphasized that these five comparators were subject to IA investigations or disciplinary actions under a different police chief and city administrator than the ones in charge at the time of the employee’s termination.
This fact alone diminished the evidentiary value of the comparator evidence, explained the court, which ultimately concluded that none of the comparators were similarly situated, either because their purported conduct differed from the alleged conduct of the employee, or because the disciplinary actions taken against the comparators was not the same, as some had submitted to a polygraph while others admitted to the allegations in lieu of agreeing to a polygraph.
Police chief comparators. To the extent that the employee identified a former police chief and the current police chief as comparators, both of whom had faced misconduct allegations on their own, the court noted that police chiefs are placed much higher in the departmental hierarchy and do not report to the same supervisors as dispatchers. Moreover, when a police chief is involved in alleged misconduct, it is the city administrator who is responsible for launching an investigation, whereas the police chief initiates investigations concerning CPD employees.
Based on this, the employee could not rely on the alleged misconduct by individuals serving as police chiefs to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to pretext, said the court.
Current comparators. Two of the employee’s proffered comparators, however, were subject to the disciplinary decision-making of the current police chief and city administrator. One was reprimanded for leaving his jurisdiction while on duty to engage in “courting behavior” with a woman. He received a 40-hour suspension. The court noted that without additional details as to the alleged misconduct, there was no indication that this off-premises behavior was of comparable seriousness to the alleged on-premises sexual conduct as alleged in this case. Nor was there any evidence that the comparator had refused to submit to a mandatory polygraph.
The same conclusion was reached with regard to the final comparator, who was required to submit to counseling after “poking and tickling” a female community service officer. The court found this was not of comparable seriousness to the alleged behavior of the employee and again noted there was no evidence that this comparator had refused a mandatory polygraph.
An obvious comparator. This comparator analysis, continued the court, was “noticeably dismissive” of the similarly situated male CPD employee alleged to have engaged in the same conduct and who was subject to the same IA investigation: the employee’s alleged sexual partner. In response, the employee argued that the CPD officer received “extra attention” that she did not, including efforts by the lieutenant to persuade him to take the polygraph and having a “private audience” with the police chief.
Even viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the employee, the court found that how the disciplinary responses played out were a product of the differences between her response and the response of the CPD officer to the investigation, noting the officer had wavered in his decision as to whether to submit to a polygraph and that he had requested to meet to with the police chief, whereas the employee did not.
Perhaps most significantly, the parties agreed that there was no evidence in the record of any CPD employee other than the employee and the CPD officer who, when faced with allegations of sexual misconduct, refused a mandatory polygraph but who did not resign or face termination. Ultimately, the court found the employee failed to shoulder her burden to show pretext and granted summary judgment against her Title VII claim.
Equal Protection. Because the employee’s Title VII claim failed, so too did her Equal Protection claim.
State-law claims. Finally, the court opted not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the employee’s state-law claims.
The case is No. 25-400 GJF/DLM.
Judge: Fouratt, G.
Attorneys: Benjamin Gubernick (Gubernick Waldo Law Advocates) for Gina Styring. Gwyneth Powers (Hinkle Shanor) for City of Carlsbad.
Companies: City of Carlsbad
https://www.vitallaw.com/news/discrimination-sex-d-n-m-police-dispatcher-fired-for-refusing-polygraph-in-sexual-misconduct-investigation-cannot-advance-claims/eld01ede06299574e42fba869c5d1ae11bdad?refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F#.
