Former Spring Hill Municipal Judge Blair Morgan told The Daily Herald on Saturday that she is pursuing an investigation of the City of Spring Hill with the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Morgan, who was fired May 21 from her part-time, $28,000-a-year position, has filed a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint against the Board of Mayor and Board of Aldermen. She wrote that she faced discrimination and retaliation for supporting a claim of mistreatment of women in Spring Hill government.
"The EEOC complaint asks for a federal court hearing," the 62-year-old Morgan said. "But that's really a small part of my story that I think the people of Spring Hill deserve to know about their public officials and about how I was treated with veiled threats on the court.
"I was devastated by my firing for a number of reasons and feel it needs to be investigated because of bigger factors involved and because the independence of the judiciary in municipal courts is at stake," she added.
The Spring Hill resident and attorney also said she faced harassment from Spring Hill officers assigned to protect her in court.
"One told me he nearly got into a fistfight with a previous judge because of the way he ruled," she said.
Morgan, who had filed an EEOC complaint against the Tennessee Secretary of State's office when she worked at a previous job, was in her eighth year as municipal judge when the Mayor and Board of Alderman voted 5-1 to dismiss her. She was told she had a "deteriorating relationship with police" was replaced in July by Deana Hood.
Before Morgan was fired, many Spring Hill municipal cases stopped going before her. They were sent to General Sessions court in Mt. Pleasant or Franklin. In April 2018, 124 cases were on the docket in Spring Hill Municipal Court. In May, it dropped down to 10 cases.
Another turning point in Morgan's relationship with the city and police came in June 2017 when the former judge stopped adjudicating state criminal traffic violations. She was worried about a ruling in a higher court that brought into question her jurisdiction over state criminal matters.
Meanwhile, the state's Department of Safety's online portal requires cities to report criminal traffic violations but didn't include a section to report local civil municipal violations. Morgan mailed in copies of the complaints instead.
"If I'm reporting a (Tennessee code) criminal traffic violation that never occurred in my court, that's an ethical issue, especially it if involves impacting citizens' drivers licenses and points on their record," Morgan said.
When Spring Hill police officers realized the state might not assess points against drivers' records when municipal court was reporting traffic tickets as civil violations instead of criminal state violations, they started sending tickets to General Sessions Court in Franklin or Mount Pleasant. They wanted to ensure points would be assessed against people who lost their court cases.
The cases in Mt. Pleasant and Franklin generated no revenue for Spring Hill. The fines for tickets and code violations generate only $175,000 — at most — for the city, Morgan said.
Morgan said it was absolutely false that she dismissed too many cases brought by Spring Hill police.
Morgan said Municipal Courts have to remain free from influence from police or elected officials hoping to meet a city's budget projection.
Based on her previous case against the Secretary of State's office, she knows the odds of winning would be long. She settled in that case for less than her attorney's fees.