Benton Harbor Acting Public Safety Director Dan McGinnis has been removed as a defendant from a lawsuit filed against the city by former Public Safety Director Roger Lange. Lange is suing the city alleging he was put on leave in 2013 in retaliation for complaints he made about remarks by the city’s former emergency manager. He also alleged that Dan McGinnis violated his Fourth Amendment rights by deleting all the files on a personal hard drive Lange had attached to his work computer after Lange had been placed on leave for failing a firefighting exam. The judges on the Sixth US Court of Appeals in Cincinnati this week reversed a lower court’s previous decision finding McGinnis was not entitled to qualified immunity in the case. The court this week ruled McGinnis is “entitled to qualified immunity unless a reasonable jury could find that he violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time of his actions.” Lange’s other claims in the suit are still being pursued.
