Ex-Colorado fire chief asks 10th Circuit to reignite election whistleblower suit

DENVER (CN) — A former Colorado fire chief asked a 10th Circuit panel Tuesday to revive his lawsuit against the Florissant Fire Protection District, which he says fired him for aiding an investigation into fraud during the 2023 board of directors’ election.

“This is only the second time he spoke to law enforcement in his multidecade career — this was not something he normally did,” argued attorney Grady Block, who represented former fire chief Erik Holt on appeal.

While serving as the fire chief for the Florissant Fire Protection District, Holt says he reported evidence of election fraud involving members of the district’s board of directors to law enforcement in May 2023.

Holt provided the local district attorney’s office with video footage of the firehouse during the election, claiming he did so off duty, as a private citizen.

Citing a lapsed liability insurance policy that left the district unprotected for six days, the board of directors fired Holt the next month.

Holt sued the district in July 2023. U.S. District Judge Nina Wang, a Joe Biden appointee, granted the government summary judgment in March 2025. Holt appealed, initially representing himself, but later joined by Block who practices with Mountain States Legal Foundation in Lakewood, Colorado.

U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Bacharach questioned where Holt’s duties as a fire chief stopped and his actions as a private citizen began.

“I work in a government building with video surveillance,” the Barack Obama appointee postulated. “Let’s say there was a comparable election in my courthouse. If a law enforcement officer asked me to get that footage, would that be part of my job duties?”

Block pointed the three-judge panel to the Sixth Circuit’s 2018 decision in Aqualina v. Wrigglesworth, which found a judge actually acted in their individual capacity in providing court footage to the media.

“It was private speech, even though that footage happened in the court,” Block said.

Likewise in his client’s case, Block said Holt was speaking out on a matter of public concern separate from his duties at the fire station.

On behalf of the government, attorney Sara Cook poked holes in Holt’s assertion that he used his own money to provide the district attorney’s office with video footage, because there was no evidence of it in the record.

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Murphy, appointed by Bill Clinton, pressed Cook on whether paying the insurance was Holt’s responsibility or the board’s.

Cook explained it was Holt’s job to present the check to the board to sign, and that he failed to inform the board of the lapse, allowing the board president to assume the insurance had already been paid.

“Is it a fact that it was a ‘reasonable assumption’ to make?” Murphy asked.

Cook, who practices with Vaughan & DeMuro in Colorado Springs, said the notion was enough for the board to unanimously vote to fire Holt.

U.S. Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich, appointed by George W. Bush, rounded out the panel. The court did not indicate when or how it would decide the case.

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