Nurse fired for comment to Springs cop
When Colorado Springs policeman Duaine Peters stopped and ticketed cardiac nurse Miriam Leverington for speeding, she let him know she wasn’t happy.
“I hope you are not ever my patient,” Leverington said.
The statement cost Leverington her job because the officer contacted her bosses at Memorial Health System and told them she had threatened him during a traffic stop.
After she was fired, Leverington sued the city of Colorado Springs, which runs Memorial hospital, and Peters, claiming they violated her right to free speech.
On Monday, a three-judge panel on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver was scheduled to hear arguments in her case.
Leverington believes she was exercising her right to criticize the government, but the city argues she made a threat to the police officer, and threats are not considered protected speech.
She lost her case in November when U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch dismissed the suit.
“There is no authority to support a claim that such a single statement in that context can be considered protected speech,” Matsch wrote.
In February, Leverington filed an appeal at the 10th Circuit.
The traffic stop occurred Dec. 17, 2008, on Interstate 25. Peters issued Leverington a ticket for going 14 mph over the speed limit. It was her first ticket in 20 years.
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Rev. Donald Armstrong Photo by CAROL LAWRENCE, THE GAZETTE FILE