Julie Copeland, a police officer employed by the City of Redmond, Oregon, challenged discipline imposed after her involvement in a high-speed vehicle pursuit, alleging that the City retaliated against her for protected whistleblower activity and engaged in related tortious conduct. The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the City, holding that Copeland failed to establish causation between any protected activity and the discipline imposed, and that her remaining claims were either barred or abandoned.
The underlying events began in November 2019, when Copeland participated in a high-speed pursuit of a suspected stolen vehicle. The pursuit ended without injury, but the City initiated an internal review to determine whether department pursuit policies had been violated. In December 2019, the City issued a notice advising Copeland that she was under investigation and that discipline was being considered. In February 2020, after completing the investigation, the City issued a written decision finding policy violations and imposing a corrective work plan. The original plan required twelve months of monitoring and remediation; after internal review, the City reduced the duration to six months.
Copeland challenged the discipline through available internal processes. During and after the process, she made disclosures to investigators and to human resources raising concerns about how the investigation was conducted and how other officers had been treated in prior pursuits. She later filed suit asserting retaliation under Oregon’s whistleblower statutes, along with claims for negligent supervision and retention and related theories.
The City moved for summary judgment. With respect to retaliation, the City argued that Copeland could not establish a causal connection between any protected activity and the discipline because the disciplinary process began before she engaged in the disclosures on which she relied. The trial court agreed and dismissed all claims.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court focused on the timing and sequence of events. It noted that the City initiated the disciplinary process in December 2019, issued investigative findings in February 2020, and imposed discipline based on conduct that occurred before Copeland made the disclosures she later characterized as protected activity. As a matter of law, disclosures made during or after an ongoing disciplinary process cannot establish retaliation when the employer had already decided to pursue discipline based on independent grounds. Because Copeland could not show that her disclosures caused the City to initiate or escalate discipline, her retaliation claim failed.
The Court also rejected Copeland’s attempt to rely on later steps in the disciplinary process as adverse actions tied to protected activity. The reduction of the work plan from twelve months to six months undermined, rather than supported, any inference of retaliatory motive. The Court emphasized that speculation about how decision-makers might have acted absent protected activity is insufficient to survive summary judgment.
Copeland’s remaining claims fared no better. Her negligent supervision and retention claims were barred by Oregon’s economic-loss rule, which precludes recovery in tort for purely economic damages absent a special relationship or an independent duty beyond the employment relationship. To the extent Copeland raised additional theories in the trial court, she did not meaningfully develop them on appeal, and the Court treated those claims as abandoned.
In sum, the Court held that Copeland failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact that the City disciplined her because of protected whistleblower activity. The undisputed record showed that the City’s disciplinary process was already underway before any alleged protected disclosures occurred, and the discipline imposed was supported by independent policy violations arising from the pursuit itself.
Copeland v. City of Redmond, 345 Or. App. 556, 2025 WL 3541464 (Or. Ct. App. Dec. 10, 2025).