Sep. 25—A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court's decision and reinstated a lawsuit filed by a former employee of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. who claimed he was fired after he agreed to cooperate with state and federal investigators who were examining the inner-workings of the organization.
In a ruling issued Monday, U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals determined that U.S. District Court Judge William Skretny erred in his October decision to dismiss as untimely the lawsuit filed by former WROTB Chief Operating Officer Michael Nolan.
In his earlier ruling, Skretny determined that Nolan's claims of First Amendment retaliation were "time barred" as they were filed last August despite the alleged retaliation occurring before April 30, 2019. According to the judge's ruling, the lawsuit fell outside a statute of limitations requiring such claims to be filed within one year and 30 days from the date of the first alleged incident.
In vacating and reversing the lower court's dismissal, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that the district court applied the incorrect statute of limitations and determined that Nolan's August 2021 complaint was timely because he alleged retaliatory conduct beginning in 2019.
"Accordingly, the district court erroneously dismissed Nolan's 1983 claims on statute-of-limitations grounds," the decision from the appeals court reads.
Nolan was employed at OTB for nearly three decades before he was dismissed in December...
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