Charlotte spent over $1M fighting — then settling — Black firefighter lawsuits
The city of Charlotte spent more than $1 million — largely taxpayer dollars — in its fight against the new police chief’s husband and other high-ranking Black fire department officials, newly released records show.
Five Charlotte Fire Department employees filed federal lawsuits around 2018 claiming they had been denied promotions because of their race. The city of Charlotte spent seven years fighting their claims using a fund made mostly of taxpayer dollars.
Eventually, it settled with at least three of them using that same fund.
Lance Patterson became the last plaintiff to settle with the city in October — days before his wife, Estella Patterson, started working for his former employer as its police chief. That settlement prompted a probe from North Carolina’s state auditor, who has not yet released his findings.
Invoices obtained by The Charlotte Observer through a public records request show that the city paid outside lawyers $490,587.48 before Lance Patterson ended the yearslong legal battle. The city spent at least another $525,000 settling with him and the other fire department employees, according to court documents and other records.
The more than $1 million came almost entirely from Charlotte’s risk management fund — the pool of money typically used to pay claims against the city. It’s about 60% taxpayer money and 40% enterprise funds from sources like the airport, city spokesperson Jason Schneider said. In 2024, the city used more than $27 million from the fund, the North Carolina state auditor previously said.
Mayor Vi Lyles declined to comment on the city’s spending in the firefighter case.
What the invoices show
The Observer in December made a public records request for invoices the city paid to law firms. Four months later, in March, city officials responded but did not provide the records, instead giving only a tally of the dollar amounts the city paid the firms. State law says government officials must provide public records promptly, something Charlotte has struggled to do.
After the Observer’s attorney, Benjamin Leighton, sent a letter to the city arguing that the invoices are public documents, the city shared more than 80 bills filed from 2019 to 2025. Here’s what they showed:
- The highest single bill was paid to Jackson Lewis P.C. in November 2022. It was nearly $96,000. That invoice included preparations for Lance Patterson’s then-expected trial and billings for 10-hour days during his co-plaintiff Sylivia Smith-Phifer’s trial. It also included about $90 in parking fees through ParkMobile, the parking app used across uptown Charlotte.
- Other invoices showed lawyers representing the city spent 12 hours preparing for Lance Patterson’s eight-and-a-half-hour deposition.
- Attorneys also deposed city leaders such as Lyles and City Manager Marcus Jones, court records show. Transcripts of those depositions remain under seal in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
Records in Charlotte’s federal court also show the city planned to call Estella Patterson for trial in her husband’s discrimination lawsuit in 2022, when she was Raleigh’s police chief.
Attorneys with Parker Poe, Jackson Lewis PC and Lincoln Derr PLLC worked on the case.
Lance Patterson and his attorney, Ed Hinson, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Settlements
The city eventually settled with Lance Patterson for $99,999, which was significantly less than what it originally proposed to the former battalion chief, court documents show.
Court documents show the city offered to pay Lance Patterson $180,000 if he dismissed his case, and he accepted. But there was a disagreement over how his sick leave would be calculated, and the case continued in the appellate courts.
He was expected to start trial in December. But in October, less than a week before Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced Estella Patterson would be its next chief, he settled.
His co-plaintiff, Smith-Phifer, went to trial in 2022. But one week in, she settled for $250,000, according to court documents. That money came from the risk management fund and general fund, which is also made of mostly taxpayer dollars, city spokesperson Schneider said.
Claims by former fire employees Will Summers Jr., Aaron Phifer and Marty Puckett were also filed under the same suit. Phifer and Puckett voluntarily dismissed their cases in June and October 2022. It’s unclear whether they settled outside of court.
The city settled with Summers, another former battalion chief, four years into his case. He took $175,000 from the risk management fund and never went to trial.
The Observer previously reported that, if the case had gone before a jury, U.S. District Judge Bob Conrad would have told the jury that the city had not been following court orders and was trying to “deprive Plaintiffs of the information” they requested.
