Lawsuit Against City of Northfield Goes to Trial

Northfield and its respective employees did not reach a settlement with former Rice County officer Jared Taylor Monday. The parties will head to trial March 6.

Taylor, 38, is suing dozens of Minnesota cities, counties and individuals, including Northfield, for allegedly accessing his personal information through Driver Vehicle Services records without due cause, Northfield News reported. Taylor holds that law enforcement accessed his data for personal reasons that had no legitimate connection to their professional duties.

A United States District Court judge ruled in September that many of the DVS accesses in question could be legitimately ruled, by a jury, as unreasonable. "We think it’s great that the court recognizes there were disputed facts and is allowing a jury to decide if these data inquiries were permissible or not," Jon Strauss, Taylor's attorney, told Northfield News.

"I think you need to look that the court had already dismissed 24 municipalities," Susan Tindal, of Iverson Reuvers Condon law firm, which is representing Northfield, said. "The most recent order dismissed 10 individuals. The accesses that do remain, the court simply found there was a fact dispute regarding those accesses. It did not find any of the accesses were improper."

Read much more at Northfield News.

Image via Shutterstock