Rebecca Taylor and Cathy Wooten v. City of El Dorado

── Rebecca Taylor and Cathy Wooten v. City of El Dorado ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: April 22, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 250 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION III No. CV-25-58 REBECCA TAYLOR AND Opinion Delivered April 22, 2026 CATHY WOOTEN APPEAL FROM THE UNION APPELLANTS COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 70CV-18-66] V. HONORABLE RYAN PHILLIPS, CITY OF EL DORADO JUDGE APPELLEE AFFIRMED STEPHANIE POTTER BARRETT, Judge Appellants Rebecca Taylor (“Taylor”) and Cathy Wooten (“Wooten”) sued appellee the City of El Dorado, Arkansas (“the City”), in the Union County Circuit Court for violations of the Arkansas Whistle-Blower Act (“AWBA”). The City petitioned the circuit court for summary judgment, and the circuit court granted the motion, dismissing the case in its entirety. Appellants bring this appeal challenging the circuit court’s order granting the City summary judgment. Specifically, the appellants argue the circuit court erred (1) in addressing only one of the three different kinds of activities protected under the AWBA its order; (2) by weighing the evidence in favor of the City instead of the nonmoving party; (3) by weighing the evidence, ignoring factual disputes, ignoring facts, and drawing inferences against the appellants and for the City after appellants made a prima facie case as to the causal connection between their protected activities and their termination; (4) in finding the City had met its burden of proving a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason as to why it fired either Taylor or Wooten; and (5) in failing to find that the appellants established pretext. We affirm the circuit court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the City. I. Relevant Background On February 25, 2014, Taylor began her employment with El Dorado Water Utilities. By August of that year, Taylor was promoted to customer-service manager. Her responsibilities included overseeing customer-service operations, including billing. On June 12, 2015, Taylor received a written warning from Mark Smith, the general manager at the time, related to performance deficiencies, including billing issues stemming from delayed meter reading that resulted in the issuance of several credits being issued to customers. Taylor’s supervisory authority over billing and meter reading was temporarily removed. However, one month later, Taylor was back in her position over the billing department due to the extended personal leave taken by another employee. On December 28, 2015, Wooten began working for El Dorado Water Utilities as a billing assistant. She trained in various functions, including use of a system known as “Eye On Water” to monitor customer usage. While using this system, Wooten noticed discrepancies in billing and the amount of water actually used by customers. Wooten brought this to the attention of Mark Smith. It was discovered that in 2015, El Dorado Water Utilities failed to complete a billing cycle for one of its districts, resulting in approximately $87,000 in uncollected solid-waste fees. 2  In July 2017, the El Dorado City Council abolished the El Dorado Water and Sewer Commission and placed the utility under the supervision of the Department of Public Works. Robert Edmonds served as Director of Public Works, and Buddy Kinney was appointed interim general manager. After assuming oversight, Edmonds asked Taylor about the $87,000 in uncollected funds and directed her to address the issue. Later that month, on July