HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – A federal appeals court has upheld a $250,000 jury verdict against the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, ruling that the agency unlawfully fired a detention deputy for filing a discrimination complaint with the federal government.
In an opinion issued Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment in favor of former deputy Jeremy Ellis, rejecting the Sheriff’s attempts to overturn the trial outcome or secure a new trial.
Ellis worked for the sheriff’s office starting in 2007 as a civilian community service officer before becoming a detention deputy in 2010. In December 2021, Ellis filed a formal charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Florida Commission on Human Relations, alleging disability and religious discrimination.
Following the filing, the sheriff’s office launched an internal affairs investigation into Ellis in May 2022, suspending him without pay. The agency accused Ellis of falsifying an official document and publicly disparaging the agency, pointing out inaccurate statements within his EEOC complaint—including a typographical error stating he became a deputy in 2007 rather than 2010, and a claim that he had never experienced prior workplace issues.
The agency officially terminated Ellis in August 2022. The formal Notice of Discipline stated that Ellis’s EEOC filing “publicly criticized [the HCSO] in writing, and Deputy Ellis knowingly utilized false information to make the claim.”
Ellis filed a federal retaliation lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Florida Civil Rights Act. In March 2025, a jury found in Ellis’s favor, awarding him $125,000 for lost wages and $125,000 for emotional distress.
On appeal, the Sheriff argued that the trial judge gave improper jury instructions regarding federal protections and asserted that Ellis was fired for legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons, including untruthfulness during the internal investigation and alcohol-related issues.
The three-judge appellate panel rejected those arguments. Citing long-standing circuit precedent from the 1969 case Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., the court noted that federal law strictly protects employees from retaliation for participating in EEOC proceedings, even if an employer claims statements in the filing are inaccurate.
The panel also determined that the jury had sufficient evidence to conclude retaliation was the direct cause of the firing, pointing directly to the agency’s written termination notice that explicitly cited the EEOC filing as the reason for dismissal.
Circuit Judges Kevin Newsom, Andrew Brasher, and Frank Hull affirmed the district court’s final judgment and denied the Sheriff’s post-trial motions.
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