The Sheriff's Department reported that Clark was not fired because of his age but because of a phone conversation between his supervisor and Clark. In which Clark had stated he had been involved with providing drug smugglers with aircraft and in return he received paper grocery bags full of money.

Senior federal court judge, James Lawrence King of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed Clark's lawsuit, as the judge felt the case should have been herd in state court. Monroe County Sheriff's Office attorney Patrick McCullah said "Basically, he's (the judge) saying this is a jurisdictional issue and the federal courts have no jurisdiction because state remedies are available."

It is not know if Clark's attorney, Ware Cornell of Weston who is a personal injury and labor attorney will refiled the case in state court. Cornell said "That's one of the subjects my client and I will be talking about. The other option is to file an appeal (in federal court) and depending on how that goes, maybe we will file in state court. I'm not 100 percent sure what we will do, but we will do something."