Charlotte, NC, Settles Suit with Fire Battalion Chief Days Before Naming Wife to Lead Police Force

The city of Charlotte settled a longstanding racial discrimination suit filed by a former fire department battalion chief last week — just days before announcing his wife would lead the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Lance Patterson and co-plaintiff Sylivia Smith-Phifer, a captain with the department, alleged in a 2018 lawsuit against the city that they were denied promotions and other opportunities because of their race.

They were among several Charlotte Fire Department officials who accused former chief Jon Hannan of discriminating against Black and female employees during promotion decisions. Hannan retired from the department in 2017. Patterson, then a 20-year department veteran, entered settlement talks with the city several years after filing the lawsuit. Negotiations broke down, however, and the dispute continued in the courts, according to documents filed in the Western District Court of North Carolina.

An Oct. 27 settlement notice was filed in federal court less than a week before Charlotte publicly named Patterson’s wife, former Raleigh police chief Estella Patterson, to lead the police department. She previously worked for the department from 1996 to 2021.

The racial discrimination lawsuit

Patterson and Smith-Phifer’s suit alleged that Hannan, the former chief, “showed preferential treatment to white males” when choosing whom to promote.

Despite being decorated, well-educated and respected throughout the department, “career captains” Patterson and Smith-Phifer were each passed over for battalion chief for more than a decade, the suit alleged.

Diversity among fire department leadership declined at the same time that Charlotte’s Black population was growing and its white population was decreasing, a 2020 amended complaint says.

Patterson said he witnessed and experienced “blatant and continuing racism, discrimination, retaliation and harassment against African Americans and female firefighters.”

“Year after year, Plaintiffs and other Black/African Americans and women have seen white males with less qualifications and experience get promoted ahead of them,” the complaint reads.

Settled but not settled

Smith-Phifer’s claim was settled in November 2022 — a week into a jury trial. But Patterson and Charlotte have since been in a back-and-forth over the terms of a separate proposed settlement.

In email exchanges involving a mediator on Nov. 23, 2022, attorneys for Patterson and the city discussed a $180,000 payout and 2,200 hours of sick leave, which would carry Patterson into retirement from the department.

But a Nov. 30 city draft agreement that year included only 1,375 hours of sick leave and would not allow the settlement amounts to be calculated as wages, which would lower his monthly pension payout.

Patterson’s attorneys asked the court to enforce the terms first discussed over email, but that motion was denied in a July 2025 hearing.

Next month, the case might have moved to trial. One was set to begin on Dec. 9. Instead, the court received notice of settlement last week.

The case was one of several discrimination lawsuits brought against the department.

Patterson and Smith-Phifer’s case was merged with three similar racial discrimination lawsuits brought by ranking fire department employees Will Summers Jr., Aaron Phifer and Marty Puckett.

Summers accepted a $175,000 settlement agreement in July 2022. Phifer’s case was voluntarily dismissed in June 2022, as was Puckett’s in October 2022.

It’s unclear whether the dismissed cases resulted in settlement agreements, though settlements are a common reason for plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss lawsuits.

The Charlotte Observer has asked city officials for the specifics of Patterson’s settlement.

Patterson’s 20-year Charlotte fire career

Patterson is now officially retired from the city fire department, battalion chief John Lipcsak confirmed Monday.

Lipcsak did not know an exact retirement date but said Patterson was last active with the department in October.

Before his retirement, Patterson spent 27 years as a Charlotte firefighter.

Hired in 1998, he was promoted to Firefighter II in July 2001, relief captain in June of 2005 and fire captain in September of 2009, according to a Facebook post by the department. In 2020, Patterson was promoted to battalion chief. The department posted a video of the ceremony, which was attended by his wife, then a CMPD deputy chief.

As of January 2025, Patterson made $136,500 per year, according to a city salary database.

During his fire department career, Patterson’s wife Estella also climbed the ranks at the Charlotte‑Mecklenburg Police Department. Hired in 1996, she held a variety of roles over the years including patrol officer, instructor, internal affairs commander and deputy chief of patrol services.

She was appointed chief of the Raleigh Police Department in August 2021, retiring in 2025.

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