Full Notification

To the people of Stanislaus County:

You've recently read about a deputy sheriff, Dennis Wallace, filing a lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office and Stanislaus County. There were two trials related to this lawsuit. During both, the local paper and media failed to accurately report the evidence that was presented.

After the first trial, the Court dismissed the 1st Cause of Action - Discrimination and the Fourth Cause of Action - Failure to Prevent Discrimination, because the jury unanimously found in favor of the County. They dead-locked on the two remaining Causes of Action, Failure to Accommodate and Failure to Engage in the Interactive Process, thus the reason for the second trial. At the end of the second trial, after about two hours of deliberation, a unanimous jury verdict in favor of the County of Stanislaus was handed down on the Failure to Accommodate and Failure to Engage in the Interactive Process claims. The local paper did not accurately characterize the outcome of the first trial while reporting on the second trial, and was sure to include the words "discrimination" and " bias" even though no discrimination claim was before the jury during the second trial.

The Sheriff’s Office is satisfied with the jury’s verdict in the second trial, and we thank the jurors for their time and service to our community. The jury’s verdict reaffirms once again, that the Sheriff’s Office’s remains commitmented to treating all of its employees fairly and doing what is in its power to get injured employees back to work as quickly as possible but safely. This was the goal with Dennis Wallace, and we were pleased when we were able to return him to work from his leave of absence at the beginning of this year. The Sheriff’s Office is pleased to be able to move forward and direct its attention and resources to protecting and serving our community.

Sheriff Adam Christianson
Stanislaus County