BENTON – Madison County challenges a jury verdict finding that sheriff John Lakin discriminated against former jailer Gustavo Navarrete.
County counsel Heidi Eckert moved for judgment as a matter of law on July 26, renewing a motion that District Judge Staci Yandle denied at trial.
According to Eckert, Navarrete didn’t produce sufficient evidence to satisfy the essential elements of discrimination.
Eckert claims he failed to produce sufficient evidence to show that Lakin’s explanation for his termination was pretextual.
Jurors awarded Navarrete $250,000 for pain and suffering on June 30.
Yandle set a second trial Aug. 6, without a jury, to determine how much the county owes Navarette in lost wages and benefits.
Navarette claims the total exceeds $1.2 million.
Madison County hired Navarrete in 2008, and Lakin terminated him in 2016.
Paul Slocomb of St. Louis sued the county for Navarrete in 2017, alleging discrimination on the basis of Hispanic origin.
At trial, Navarrete testified for about two and a half hours and Lakin testified for almost an hour.
Yandle told jurors that to decide in Navarrete’s favor, they must decide he wouldn’t have been terminated if he had not been Hispanic or Latino but everything else had been the same.
She told them no evidence of the dollar value of mental and emotional pain and suffering was or needed to be introduced.
She told them not to consider lost wages and benefits, which she would calculate.
Jurors retired and after about an hour, they asked Yandle for a state police report on an inmate’s complaint against Navarrete.
It showed three inmates provided details that contradicted the complaint.
Yandle produced it, and a verdict followed in three hours.
Eckert stated in her motion challenging the verdict that Navarrete didn’t prove Lakin treated employees outside of his class more favorably.
She claims no jury could reasonably conclude that each of Lakin’s reasons were pretext for discrimination.
She claims Navarrete repeatedly violated office policies and threatened physical violence to an employee and a detainee.