Former Boise Police Captain Tom Fleming didn’t want to retire until March 2024, he said in a lawsuit he filed against the city of Boise in 2022. But Fleming alleged he was forced to retire early after then-Chief Ryan Lee discriminated and retaliated against him, the lawsuit said.
Fleming’s lawsuit said Lee interfered with internal investigations, made “disparaging” comments about Fleming’s limp after he had knee-replacement surgery, and asked him about retirement plans, according to previous Statesman reporting. But U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise dismissed the lawsuit in 2024, writing that Fleming didn’t face “unendurable working conditions,” according to previous Statesman reporting.
Fleming and his lawyers appealed the decision, arguing in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle in September that a jury should have been able to decide if he faced a hostile environment, which they say he did…