PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
JAMES J. LIGHTNER,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF WILMINGTON, NORTH
CAROLINA; TANDY CARTER, Acting
Chief of Police for the
Wilmington Police Department; No. 07-1442
BRUCE HICKMAN, Interim Chief of
Police for the Wilmington Police
Department; STERLING CHEATHAM,
City Manager for the City of
Wilmington,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at New Bern.
Louise W. Flanagan, Chief District Judge.
(7:05-cv-00101-FL)
Argued: September 24, 2008
Decided: November 3, 2008
Before WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, HAMILTON,
Senior Circuit Judge, and James C. CACHERIS,
Senior United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of Virginia,
sitting by designation.
2 LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the
opinion, in which Senior Judge Hamilton and Senior Judge
Cacheris joined.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Stephen Edward Culbreth, CULBRETH LAW
FIRM, Wilmington, North Carolina, for Appellant. Bruce
Danforth Morton, HEDRICK & MORTON, L.L.P., Wilming-
ton, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Ashley C.
Council, CULBRETH LAW FIRM, Wilmington, North Caro-
lina, for Appellant.
OPINION
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
The plaintiff in this case claims he faced discrimination on
account of race and gender, and he appeals the district court’s
grant of summary judgment in favor of his employer. At the
same time, he charges that his employer’s action was actually
an attempt to cover up the employer’s own wrongdoing. In so
doing, plaintiff has pleaded himself right out of court. Title
VII was enacted to prohibit discrimination on the basis of
race, gender, and other legislatively enumerated grounds. It is
not a statute intended to police standards of general fairness
in the workplace, or even to protect against the firing of an
employee in order to cover up wrongdoing by an employer.
If it were interpreted in such an omnibus fashion, it would
dilute the noble purposes for which Congress enacted it. We
thus affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment.
I.
James J. Lightner claims that he was suspended from the
Wilmington Police Department in violation of Title VII of the
LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON 3
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and 42
U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983. He is a white male who, at the time
of the incident, was 53 years old and serving as a lieutenant
in the Wilmington Police Department ("WPD"), where he had
worked for over 25 years.
In 2003, he was promoted to Acting Division Commander
of the Professional Standards Division where he was responsi-
ble for department ethics including the investigation of mis-
conduct by WPD officers. As Acting Division Commander of
the Professional Standards Division, he began an internal
investigation into whether WPD officers were failing to report
automobile accidents in an effort to make the city look better.
Shortly after Lightner started the ethics investigation, three of
the officers who were being investigated claimed that Light-
ner himself had committed an ethics violation—specifically,
that he had pressured them into dismissing individuals’ traffic
tickets. Lightner concedes that on occasion he asked ticketing
officers to help certain people whom they had ticketed, but
maintains that he did not inappropriately pressure them.
On February 5, 2004, Acting Police Chief Tandy Carter
and Acting Deputy Policy Chief Bruce Hickman informed
Lightner of the ticket fixing allegations against him and
placed him on paid administrative leave for three weeks so
that the Human Resources Department could investigate his
conduct. After the investigation, Hickman informed Lightner
by letters on February 17 and 19, 2004 that he had violated
various Department Rules by asking subordinate officers to
fix tickets. The February 19th letter also recognized that ticket
fixing was widespread in the WPD, but noted that Lightner
had approached the ticketing officers as both a superior offi-
cer and as the Acting Division Commander of the Profes-
sional Standards Division. The letter went on to say that given
his role in the Professional Standards Division, Lightner’s
conduct "should be beyond reproach for professional and ethi-
cal behavior." Accordingly, he was suspended without pay for
one week until his previously announced retirement date on
4 LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON
March 1, 2004. Lightner appealed the suspension to City
Manager Sterling Cheatham who upheld it.
Lightner then filed suit in North Carolina state court against
the City of Wilmington, Acting Police Chief Carter, Acting
Deputy Police Chief Hickman, and City Manager Cheatham
alleging that they had discriminated against him in violation
of Title VII, § 1981, and § 1983. Specifically, he alleged that
by disciplining him for ticket fixing more harshly than a
younger, female African American officer, they had discrimi-
nated against him on the basis of race, gender, and age.
Defendants removed the case to United States District Court
in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
After discovery, the defendants moved for summary judg-
ment. The district court granted the defendants’ motion over
a contrary recommendation from the magistrate judge. The
court concluded that plaintiff had not presented evidence from
which a jury could find that any disparate treatment was the
result of race or gender discrimination. Plaintiff had estab-
lished only a weak prima facie case of discrimination and,
moreover, had admitted that the real reason for his suspension
was to halt his internal investigation into WPD officers’ fail-
ure to report automobile accidents. See Lightner v. City of
Wilmington, 498 F.Supp.2d 802 (E.D.N.C. 2007). Lightner
now appeals.
II.
Lightner claims that the district court erred in granting
summary judgment for the defendants because he presented
evidence under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S.
792 (1973), from which a jury could find that his suspension
for ticket fixing violated Title VII.* Plaintiff argues that he
*Lightner does not appear to appeal the district court’s grant of sum-
mary judgment on his age discrimination claim, and in any event that
claim lacks merit. Lightner also does not specifically address his § 1981
LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON 5
presented evidence sufficient to satisfy his burdens by show-
ing (1) that his conduct was similar to that of a female African
American officer who was also disciplined for ticket fixing,
and (2) that he was disciplined more severely for his conduct
because he received an unpaid one-week suspension while she
received only a paid one-day suspension—a "Decision Mak-
ing Day."
As further evidence that there was a disparity in treatment,
he claims that the female officer’s offense was a more egre-
gious violation of Department policy and that her record of
service, filled with discipline problems, was much worse than
his exemplary 25-year record of service in the WPD. In addi-
tion, he argues that his suspension was a disproportionate
punishment because, as Acting Deputy Police Chief Hickman
noted in his letter, ticket fixing was widespread throughout
the WPD. The plaintiff also contends that he offered sufficient
evidence that the defendants’ proffered nondiscriminatory
reasons were pretextual. See St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks,
509 U.S. 502 (1993).
A.
Plaintiff’s claim founders on its terms. By the plaintiff’s
own repeated admission, the real reason for his suspension
was to cover up department wrongdoing. This is not race or
gender discrimination and therefore is not actionable under
Title VII.
The plaintiff admitted on multiple occasions throughout
this litigation that the reason for his suspension was to quash
his internal investigation into WPD officers’ failure to report
and § 1983 claims, but the McDonnell Douglas framework applies to dis-
crimination claims under Title VII, § 1981, and § 1983. See Love-Lane v.
Martin, 355 F.3d 766, 786 (4th Cir. 2004). Therefore, the following analy-
sis also governs his § 1981 and § 1983 claims.
6 LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON
automobile accidents. His admissions during litigation are
binding. See In re McNallen, 62 F.3d 619, 625 (4th Cir. 1995)
(collecting cases). In his brief before this court and in his
memorandum in opposition to the defendants’ motion for
summary judgment, plaintiff stated his "adamant belief" that
his suspension was "in direct retaliation for [his] Internal
Affairs investigation into the failure of certain traffic officers
to appropriately report automobile accidents." See Brief of
Appellant at 8-9; Memorandum in Opposition of Defendants’
Motion for Summary Judgment at 4, JA 202. In his deposi-
tion, the plaintiff stated his belief that his suspension was "a
big conspiracy to hush me up, to get me out of the way, to
make the investigation stop" and that he "was not allowed to
come back to be in internal affairs in any way, shape, or form
so this traffic investigation would not continue." See JA 103,
111.
In offering this explanation as to the real reason for the
employer’s action, the plaintiff has undone his case. He has
tried to take a statute aimed at discrete forms of discrimina-
tion and turn it into a general whistleblower statute, which of
course Title VII is not. Title VII prohibits discrimination on
the basis of specifically enumerated grounds: "race, color,
religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)
(2000). Its purpose to eliminate these invidious forms of dis-
crimination is clear. It would vitiate Congress’s decision to
single out these grounds as particularly deserving of protec-
tion if Title VII were interpreted as a general employment
statute that protects employees from any wrongful discharge.
There is no other federal cause of action pled to support the
plaintiff’s claim. His claim is in the nature of a state wrongful
discharge claim, which is a matter of state employment and
tort law. See, e.g., Newberne v. Department of Crime Control
and Public Safety, 359 N.C. 782 (2005) (applying North Car-
olina Whistleblower Act, N.C.G.S. § 126-84 to -88); Amos v.
Oakdale Knitting Co., 331 N.C. 348 (1992) (discussing
exceptions to at-will employment doctrine).
LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON 7
This case is analogous to Rothmeier v. Investment Advisers,
Inc., 85 F.3d 1328 (8th Cir. 1996), where the Eighth Circuit
upheld a grant of summary judgment for the defendant on an
ADEA claim where the plaintiff conceded that he was fired
for investigating SEC violations by his employer. He admitted
that he "was discharged because [his employer] wanted to
cover up its SEC problems and keep the millions of dollars it
illegally collected." Id. at 1337. The court held that "[t]his
acknowledgment standing alone would completely refute [the
plaintiff’s] claim of age discrimination." Id. Similarly, in this
case, Lightner’s acknowledgement that he was fired to stop
his internal investigation negates his claims of race and gen-
der discrimination. Consequently, his suspension, however
wrongful, is not actionable under Title VII and the defendants
are entitled to summary judgment.
B.
The application of the McDonnell Douglas framework to
plaintiff’s case reinforces the point that he was not discrimi-
nated against on the basis of race or gender. To establish a
prima facie case a plaintiff must show "(1) that plaintiff
engaged in prohibited conduct similar to that of a person of
another race, color, sex, religion, or national origin, and (2)
that disciplinary measures enforced against the plaintiff were
more severe than those enforced against the other person."
Moore v. City of Charlotte, 754 F.2d 1100, 1105-06 (4th Cir.
1985) (adapting the McDonnell Douglas framework for the
employee discipline context). Lightner seeks to establish a
prima facie case of race and gender discrimination by point-
ing to an African American female comparator whom he
alleges was disciplined less harshly for more egregious viola-
tions of Department Rules. This comparison does not save
plaintiff’s claims.
First, the comparison is not sufficient because the two offi-
cers are not comparable. The plaintiff was the Acting Division
Commander of the Professional Standards Division. He was
8 LIGHTNER v. CITY OF WILMINGTON
responsible for Department compliance with ethics rules and
therefore was naturally expected to set an example by follow-
ing the rules himself. In contrast, the female officer was not
a member of the Professional Standards Division or even an
Acting Division Commander at the time of her offenses. The
similarity between comparators and the seriousness of their
respective offenses must be clearly established in order to be
meaningful. See Moore, 754 F.2d at 1106-10 (holding that
fact-finding was deficient when premised on "an unprincipled
conception of ‘similarity’ and ‘comparability,’ a structural
flaw"). The difference in their positions within the WPD
makes the purported comparison in this case too loose.
Second, the McDonnell Douglas framework does not trans-
form all instances of disparate treatment into unlawful dis-
crimination. The framework is a means by which plaintiffs
can use circumstantial evidence to create an inference of dis-
crimination. In this case, any inferences as to race or gender
that could potentially be drawn from the disparate treatment
are completely undermined by the plaintiff’s admission that
he was suspended to stop his internal investigation. As the
Supreme Court stated in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prod-
ucts, Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000), "an employer would be enti-
tled to judgment as a matter of law if the record conclusively
revealed some other, nondiscriminatory reason for the
employer’s decision." Id. at 148. Given his admission, no rea-
sonable jury could infer that the Department disciplined the
plaintiff more harshly because of his race or sex. For the fore-
going reasons, the judgment is
AFFIRMED.