A judge has dismissed a lawsuit from former WHEC-TV meteorologist Jeremy Kappell who sued the station after he was fired for uttering a racial slur on air.

State Supreme Court Justice William Taylor on Monday also dismissed Kappell's lawsuit against the city of Rochester and Mayor Lovely Warren, who Kappell alleged helped push WHEC to fire him.

Taylor ruled that evidence showed Kappell did make the statement — Kappell claimed that he did not intentionally use the slur and it was a verbal slip — and that WHEC-TV (Channel 10) could rightly fire him. Kappell sued, alleging a breach of contract, emotional distress, and defamation.

On a January 2019 broadcast, Kappell said of a video at a city skating rink, "This is the way it looked out at Martin Luther Coon King Jr. park at the ice rink." Kappell said he verbally slipped between "Luther" and "King" and twisted the words into the racial slur, "coon."

With the lawsuits, Taylor ruled that:

• Kappell's contract with WHEC clearly gave the station the right to fire him with cause.

• Regardless of how it happened, Kappell's "utterance of the word 'coon' while stating the name of Martin Luther King Jr. during a broadcast" was both detrimental to WHEC and "contrary to public conventions" as a matter of law.

• That statements by Mayor Warren and City Council President Loretta Scott that Kappell should not be employed at Channel 10 were allowed opinion under the law.

• That Kappell could not prove defamation because he was a public figure and he did not show, as legally required, that the statements from city officials were made "with actual malice."

Contact Gary Craig at gcraig@gannett.com or at 585-258-2479. Follow him on Twitter at gcraig1. This coverage is only possible with support from readers.Sign up today for a digital subscription.