KANSAS CITY (LN) — A federal judge on Wednesday handed Jennifer Cross, a Topeka police captain, a mixed pre-trial ruling in her Title VII retaliation suit against the City of Topeka, barring the jury from learning that two of her former co-plaintiffs won a verdict in an earlier discrimination case while allowing a former officer to testify that the same city investigator ran tainted probes against him after he, too, engaged in protected activity.
Cross alleges that after her attorney took depositions of Police Chief Bryan Wheeles and Deputy Chief Haltom in her first lawsuit, an investigator with the city's legal department launched an investigation based on a complaint by Lt. Connell that Cross had bullied her — and that the retaliation continued through a hostile work environment from November 9, 2023 through March 6, 2024.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil ruled that Cross can introduce limited evidence about the prior lawsuit to establish she engaged in protected opposition to discrimination — the first element of her retaliation claim — but cannot use it to resurrect sex discrimination claims the court ruled would be unfairly prejudicial and likely to confuse the jury.
The city had sought to exclude the prior jury verdict in Stuart v. City of Topeka, in which two other plaintiffs prevailed, arguing it would bias the jury. Vratil agreed, ruling that admitting it would strongly bias the jury to agree with the previous jury findings. But she rejected the city's broader effort to wall off the substance of the earlier lawsuit entirely, ruling that because retaliation under Title VII requires proof of a protected action, some facts from the prior case must come in.
On the question of the promotion ceremony Cross received in March 2023 — which the city argued was adjudicated in the prior case — Vratil ruled that no issue preclusion attached. Judge John W. Broomes had granted summary judgment in the earlier case solely because Cross's lawyers failed to make a pretext argument, and he made no finding on whether the ceremony itself evidenced discrimination.
The more contested fight centered on Robby Mendez, a former Topeka Police Department employee whom Cross listed as a witness to testify that investigator Alicia Guerrero-Chavez led tainted investigations against him in June 2024 and March 2025 after he engaged in protected activity. The city sought to exclude Mendez entirely and, in the alternative, to introduce his prior forgery conviction. Vratil rejected both requests, ruling that Mendez's claims were closely related in time and theory to Cross's — approximately a five-month gap separated the 2024 investigations — and that his prior convictions, which ended more than ten years ago, did not have probative value that substantially outweighed their prejudicial effect, and so must be excluded.
Vratil also blocked the city from suggesting to the jury that a large verdict would force Topeka to raise taxes, sustaining that portion of Cross's motion as unopposed and independently prejudicial.
Cross is bound by November 9, 2023 as the start date for damages, having identified that date in both her EEOC charge and her deposition — but Vratil made clear that earlier alleged acts of retaliation, including what Cross described as a lackluster promotion and an assignment as dispatch liaison she found undesirable, remain fair game as background evidence of motive and intent.
The case is set for trial, with Guerrero-Chavez's consultations with the City Attorney — including her decision to deny Cross's request to record their meeting — expected to feature as a central thread in Cross's theory that the city used its own legal department to retaliate against her.