PARLIER – In a year marked by budget difficulties, an appeals court has saved the city of Parlier over $1.2 million.
The California 5th District Court of Appeal handed down a ruling Sept. 2 overturning the 2024 verdict in former Parlier Police Chief Jose Garza’s wrongful termination lawsuit against the city of Parlier. This means Parlier will not have to pay out any damages to Garza or pay his attorney fees. Further, the ruling ordered that Parlier be paid costs the city incurred in bringing about the appeal.
“I’m grateful to the judges that reviewed the case that said that we were right and we were not given our fair chance to represent and defend the city and because of that, that’s how it got reversed,” Mayor Alma Beltran said at the Sept. 3 Parlier City Council meeting.
The ruling, issued by Justices Mark Snauffer, Donald Franson and Bert Levy, agreed with the city’s position that Garza failed to justify how he was protected under a whistleblower statute of the state labor code.
Parlier submitted three claims of error in its appeal of the trial verdict. The court said, however, that because it was reversing the decision on the city’s first ground of error, it did not need to address the other two claims.
Lawsuit history
Two years ago, a civil jury in the Fresno County Superior Court found in favor of Garza’s claim of retaliation and ordered the city to award him $1 million in damages. The trial court also ordered the city to pay Garza’s attorney fees totaling approximately $246,000.
The question considered by that case was whether or not the city had unlawfully terminated Garza — who has no relation to the city’s new chief — as a means of retaliation for Garza’s actions related to an internal investigation of financial misconduct.
Garza worked for Parlier from September 2017 to April 2021. According to facts provided in the appellate court decision, Garza’s initial employment contract with the city was for three years. The council had approved a short extension through December 2020, and Garza was then working without a contract during renegotiations up until April 2021.
In March 2021, the Parlier City Council voted against renewing Garza’s employment contract and then voted in April 2021 to remove Garza as chief of police. Then-City Manager Sonia Hall — who currently has her own wrongful termination lawsuit against the city — cited “incompatibility of management styles” as the reason for Garza’s termination.
In his lawsuit, Garza claimed that he was terminated because he refused to stop an investigation related to possible embezzlement within the police department’s records division.
In September 2020, Garza identified an initial suspect and retained an independent law firm to conduct an administrative investigation into the issue. By January 2021, the independent investigator had returned preliminary findings and identified a second suspect, prompting Garza to open a criminal investigation and report the findings to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office.
At that time, Garza briefed the city manager, mayor and others, according to the court ruling, and Hall then directed the independent investigator — not Garza — to stop the investigation and terminate contact with the DA’s office.
Garza disagreed with this decision and warned Hall that halting the investigation could expose the city to civil liability. Hall responded and said the independent investigation was inadequate and the city wanted the investigator to turn over the evidence so the city could make its own determination.
This disagreement transpired in early February 2021, and Garza was then terminated at the beginning of April. According to Garza’s lawsuit, he was never informed of “incompatible management styles” before his termination. Instead, he believed he was terminated because of his refusal to stop the investigation.
The trial jury agreed with Garza that he should have been protected from termination under Section 1102.5 of the California Labor Code, which has multiple subdivisions that list the different circumstances in which an employer cannot retaliate against an employee when the employee believes there could be a violation of a law.
Appellate court view
The appellate court’s decision focused on specific Labor Code statutes referenced in Garza’s lawsuit and which subdivision of the statute the jury was instructed to base its verdict on.
The ruling determined that the jury needed to specifically find in favor of Garza under subdivision (c) of Labor Code Section 1102.5. That section prevents retaliation from an employer if an employee refuses to participate in an activity that would “result in a violation of state or federal statute, or a violation of or noncompliance with a local, state, or federal rule or regulation.”
According to the appellate court, that subdivision requires the employee to provide proof of an actual law violation that would have occurred from the activity requested by the employer. This is different from another subdivision of the law which protects an employee if they believe there may have been a violation but does not require proof of an actual violation.
The ruling said Garza cited three government and municipal code provisions at trial to support his claim, “none of which establishes that his ‘participation in terminating the investigation’ would have violated the law.”
Further, the ruling said Garza argued that the appellate court should “look past the specific act at issue and instead characterize his refusal more broadly as a refusal to participate in a cover-up of an illegal act.” The court refuted this claim and said the “cover-up characterization of Hall’s directive” does not fill the gap in Garza’s law violations argument.
Additional lawsuits
Although Parlier won its appeal, the city still faces multiple other lawsuits, which have become a point of contention at city council meetings.
Part of Parlier’s budget issues have stemmed from increased costs related to attorney fees. The police department alone spent $445,000 on attorney services in fiscal year 2024-25, and the city as a whole budgeted more than $757,000 for attorney fees in fiscal year 2026-27 — that’s nearly 11% of all general fund expenses for the year.
City council members and residents have criticized various council actions — and Beltran in association — for exposing the city to liability. Still, Beltran said that she supports the city defending itself in court.
“I am not a person that’s just going to settle with every person and not defend our city, because what happens with that is that you get more people to start suing because they already know that the city of Parlier will settle, and you don’t want to do that,” Beltran said. “You don’t want to send that message.”
