Manitsas shifting the burden to a jury. (via YouTube/Governor’s Council)

Hampden Superior Court Judge James Manitsas largely rejected a motion the City of Springfield and Mayor Domenic Sarno had filed to dismiss the discrimination suit former mayoral aide Darryl Moss had brought against them. While the courts have whittled it down, the meat of Moss’s suit could now advance to a jury.

Sarno canned Moss in 2020 for a Facebook post that blasted Donald Trump during the George Floyd protests. Ostensibly part of a longer post referencing the TV show Lovecraft Country, Moss wrote “Grab the Rifles.” The city investigated whether this violated the city’s social media policy. Moss supporters rallied, but Sarno fired him. In 2022, Moss filed suit. The case went through the literal motions until Manitsas heard the defendants’ summary judgment motion last month.

“My client is pleased with the decision,” Moss’s attorney, Robert Johnson, said in an email. “We look forward to taking the matter to a jury so that Mr. Moss can achieve justice and the City of Springfield will finally learn that it cannot treat black men in this manner and not have to pay the consequences.”

The attorney for the city and Sarno, Patricia Rapinchuk, declined to comment, citing a policy not to discuss pending litigation.

In a summary judgment motion, which usually follows depositions and document requests, the moving party asserts there is no genuine issue of fact for a jury to consider. However, as Manitsas noted, courts disfavor them in discrimination cases due to the subjective nature of the claims.

“Because employees rarely can produce direct evidence of discriminatory animus and causation, they may survive a motion for summary judgment by producing indirect or circumstantial evidence of these elements using the familiar three-stage burden-shifting paradigm,” Judge Manitsas wrote.

That three-stage process begins with the plaintiff presenting a legally sufficient case. The defendant must then establish it had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for taking the action it did. The plaintiff can then establish that the “legitimate” reason was a pretext.

Moss may no longer be in City Hall, but with Manitsas’ ruling, City Hall (and Mayor Sarno) remain in court with Moss. (via Springfield City Hall)

In Moss’s case, the parties essentially agreed that the first two burdens had been met. The case would turn on the pretext. As Manitsas noted, a plaintiff does not need to provide direct evidence that the reason was a pretext. The claims can survive summary judgment on indirect evidence alone.

While the pretext burden is Moss’s at trial, the summary judgment motion came from Sarno and the city. They had the burden of mustering enough undisputed facts to dispel Moss’s pretext claim. That, as Manitsas noted, is a very high bar to clear.

“While the defendants’ assertion that Moss was terminated for violating the City’s social media policy is no doubt plausible, there is at least some evidence that the decision was in fact motivated by other considerations,” the judge wrote.

Manitsas cited several potential disputes on the facts. Among them was whether similarly situated employees faced the same discipline, whether Moss was offered a chance to resign and whether he, in fact, violated the social media policy at all. A jury, he ruled, was who must weigh these issues and determine what happened.

The court had some good news for Sarno and the city. Manitsas dismissed the negligence claim Moss had raised. The former aide had asserted that the city had been negligent in its investigation of him. On this, the court found that Moss had failed to establish the city had any duty of care to him in the conduct of its probe into his Facebook post.

The parties had briefed summary judgment on a claim under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. However, Manitsas noted that he had already dismissed it in 2023.

Moss originally brought claims for breach of contract, defamation and violations of First Amendment rights. The courts dismissed those more than two years ago. The nature of these claims suggests Moss had aimed to elevate the case beyond a relatively routine employment discrimination case.

That is what the case is now, after the court knocked out the negligence claim. That does not make the case any less potent or costly for the city and for Sarno. The parties meet next month to discuss the next steps before trial.