The Texas Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a former assistant fire chief in Frisco. Cameron Kraemer claimed claimed the city violated its own personnel policies and unlawfully discriminated against him by terminating his employment while he remained out on leave for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Chief Kraemer had served as an assistant chief since 2017 and became Assistant Chief of Emergency Services the following year. In August 2022, he began leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act for PTSD. After his FMLA leave expired in November, he remained out under the city’s leave policy, later submitting a workers’ compensation claim that was denied after the city’s third-party administrator concluded the condition was not job-related.
In early 2023, Kraemer requested unpaid leave through March 31 as an accommodation, telling the city he expected to return April 3. The city approved that request. On March 31, he asked for another month of unpaid leave through April 30, stating that at the end of that period he would “be re-evaluated.” The city’s human resources director, Lauren Safranek, viewed that request as indefinite leave and initially advised that it could not be granted in that form. During a telephone conversation, Chief Kraemer proposed a modified-duty return allowing him to ease back into full-time work. According to Chief Kraemer’s deposition testimony, Safranek told him any return, partial or otherwise, required a third-party psychological evaluation and that anything short of a full return would not work…