A lawsuit against the Ruston Police Department and the City of Ruston is continuing although a federal judge quashed several of the claims alleged in the case.
Ruston Police Sergeant Kayla Loyd filed the suit against the Ruston Police Department in December 2022, alleging the department discriminated against female employees, including herself.
U. S. District Judge Terry Doughty considered the city’s motion for summary judgment and issued his ruling last week. The motion was granted in part and denied in part. Doughty ruled the suit could move forward on Loyd’s accusation that the department denied her transfer to the position of criminal investigator on several occasions because she is female.
Doughty quashed three of the four claims alleged by Loyd, including retaliation, a hostile work environment and disparate treatment from other employees. The retaliation claims were dismissed mostly on technical grounds. He also ruled Chief Steve Rogers and Deputy Chief Henry Wood could not be sued in their individual or official capacities.
Doughty determined Loyd’s alleged hostile work environment “was not frequent, severe, or humiliating enough to interfere with her work performance as a supervisor.”
The judge wrote in his ruling that Loyd met “her burden in proving a prima facie case of discrimination,” noting that during Chief Steve Rogers’s 15-year tenure he had never assigned a female officer to the criminal investigation unit although a number of males had been so assigned.
Last week two other female former officers told the news media of discrimination and workplace retaliation they allegedly endured while working at the Ruston Police Department.
A date for the trial was not immediately available.
