Patrick Vargas began working as a firefighter in 1994 for the Tracy Fire Department in California and rose to the rank of division chief by 2017. In 2018, the Department merged with the Tracy Rural Fire Department to form the South San Joaquin County (SSJC) Fire Authority, a joint powers authority. Randall Bradley, who became fire chief in 2015, advocated for the restructuring plan, which aimed to make the SSJC independent of the City of Tracy. Vargas’s wife, Veronica, a City councilor, expressed concerns about the plan’s feasibility and continued to question its implementation. Vargas and his wife avoided discussing the plan to prevent marital tension, but Bradley allegedly confronted Vargas in 2019, suggesting that Vargas’s position was precarious due to Veronica’s opposition to the plan.
In 2020, Bradley accused Vargas of timecard fraud, but an investigation found the allegations unsupported. Bradley then pushed for a second investigation into harassment allegations against Vargas, which the City’s human resources director found to be biased and improperly influenced by Bradley. Despite an independent investigation concluding that the harassment investigation was flawed and recommending Vargas’s return to work, Bradley terminated Vargas in January 2022, shortly after the SSJC Fire Authority became Vargas’s official employer.
Vargas filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging First Amendment retaliation based on perceived speech and association, as well as violations of California labor laws, including the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Vargas’s termination was justified and not retaliatory.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California denied summary judgment for Bradley and the SSJC Fire Authority on Vargas’s First Amendment claims. The Court found that Vargas had presented sufficient evidence to support his claim that Bradley retaliated against him based on the perception that Vargas had communicated with his wife about the restructuring plan. The Court cited Heffernan v. City of Paterson, which held that a public employee could bring a First Amendment retaliation claim based on perceived speech, even if the employee did not actually engage in the speech. The Court also noted that Bradley’s actions, including his push for a biased investigation and his decision to terminate Vargas despite City officials’ recommendations, raised genuine disputes of material fact about whether the termination was pretextual.
Bradley’s argument for qualified immunity was rejected by the Court. The Court also denied summary judgment on Vargas’s state law claims under the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act and California Labor Code § 98.6, finding that there were genuine disputes of material fact about whether Vargas’s rights were violated.
The Court granted summary judgment for the City of Tracy, finding that Bradley was not a final policymaker for the City and that the City could not be held liable for his actions. The Court noted that Bradley’s employment agreement was with the SSJC Fire Authority, not the City, and that City officials had attempted to ensure Vargas was treated fairly, including the commissioning of an independent investigation and recommending his return to work.
Vargas v. City of Tracy, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31591 (E.D. Cal. 2025).