Lane County Commissioner David Loveall has sued the county over an investigation that concluded he retaliated against three employees who filed Human Resources complaints against him.
In the complaint filed March 19, Loveall argues the HR complaints and investigation that followed violated his rights to free speech, freedom of religion and due process. He is seeking corrective action from the county and financial compensation from the county administrator and the three county commissioners who voted to censure him based on the investigation’s findings.
Loveall doesn’t dispute the investigation’s core finding — that he threatened to fire three employees for filing HR complaints. Rather, Loveall argues because he only said he wanted the employees fired, and didn’t take any action to do so, the investigations and the subsequent actions he was told to take to limit his interactions with the people he insulted, are an unconstitutional restriction on his free speech rights.
Why was David Loveall investigated?
According to an outside investigation, “employee 1” filed an HR complaint after Loveall described a local nonprofit director as “a stripper on a stripper’s pole,” and “employee 2” filed an HR complaint over Loveall’s repeated religious references in the workplace, including signing their birthday card with a message of “Kingdom Work.”…