Missouri State Judge Gets Clerk’s Retaliation Suit Dismissed

A state court clerk in Missouri failed to allege an adverse employment action stemming from a state judge’s push to hold her in contempt for not properly responding to a records request, a federal judge ruled.

Betty Grooms alleged that the reason Judge Steven Privette, of Missouri’s 37th Judicial Circuit, asked a prosecutor to pursue a contempt charge that Missouri’s top court would later say "‘“exceeded his authority’” was to retaliate against her as a political opponent of his wife, Alice Bell. But Judge M. Douglas Harpool, of the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri, said ...