Opinion ID: 216354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Aduddell's Conflict of Interest

Text: McDonald-Cuba further alleges that male employee Brett Aduddell owned a security company called Alpha Pro prior to his hiring by SFPS in 2005. She asserts that Maki approved his hiring because she believed that Alpha Pro was inactive, but that Alpha Pro was in fact in good standing with the Colorado Secretary of State during the time she was employed with SFPS. She contends that Aduddell was therefore similarly situated to her, but he was not fired. This showing of pretext suffers from the same deficiency as that concerning Liming. McDonald-Cuba fails to demonstrate that Maki knew about Alpha Pro's status with the Colorado Secretary of State prior to the time Aduddell left SFPS in 2008. He was therefore not similarly situated to her. McDonald-Cuba further argues that both Liming and Aduddell were given the opportunity to ameliorate any violation of the Conflict of Interest Policy when they disclosed their conflicts at the time of hiring, but she was not. This argument ignores the fact that unlike Liming and Aduddell, she did not disclose the conflict (which did not yet exist) at the time of hiring, and in fact did not ever voluntarily disclose the crucial information surrounding her conflict with SFPS. Instead, Maki discovered it through other means. Here again, McDonald-Cuba is not similarly-situated to Liming or Aduddell.