Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-14-02308/USCOURTS-ca6-14-02308-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION 

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) 

File Name: 15a0170p.06 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

_________________ 

JOSEPH BOULTON, Sergeant, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CHRISTOPHER SWANSON; GENESEE COUNTY 

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT; GENESEE COUNTY, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

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No. 14-2308 

Appeal from the United States District Court . 

for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit 

No. 2:13-cv-13543—Nancy G. Edmunds, District Judge. 

Argued: June 10, 2015 

Decided and Filed: July 29, 2015 

Before: KEITH, CLAY, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________ 

COUNSEL 

ARGUED: Nanette L. Cortese, Bingham Farms, Michigan, for Appellant. Mary Massaron, 

PLUNKETT COONEY, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Nanette L. 

Cortese, Bingham Farms, Michigan, for Appellant. Mary Massaron, PLUNKETT COONEY, 

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for Appellees. 

_________________ 

OPINION

_________________ 

JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. Joseph Boulton provided testimony—as a union 

member at a contract arbitration proceeding—that contradicted the testimony of his superior 

officer in the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office. He was subsequently demoted from his position 

>

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as sergeant and suspended for several days without pay. Boulton brought claims against 

Genesee County, arguing that the County violated the First Amendment by disciplining him 

pursuant to the County’s policy barring criticism of the Sheriff’s Office. We hold that Boulton’s 

speech at the arbitration was protected by the First Amendment. However, because he cannot 

show that the demotion and suspension resulted from the County’s policy against criticism, 

rather than his other extensive misconduct, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment to the County. We likewise affirm the denial of leave for Boulton to file an extremely 

late Third Amended Complaint. 

I. Background

A. Facts 

Joseph Boulton was a sergeant in the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, working in the 

county jail. He was also a leader in his union. In April 2012, the union initiated mandatory 

contract arbitration with the Sheriff’s Office, pursuant to Michigan’s Public Act 312. See Mich. 

Comp. Laws 423.231, et seq. At the arbitration, Undersheriff Swanson testified regarding Taser, 

firearm, and CPR training for employees of the Sheriff’s Office. Boulton testified later in the 

arbitration that Swanson had misrepresented the degree of training that employees of the Office 

had received. Boulton did not put the transcript of his testimony on this issue in the record, but 

both the Sheriff and Swanson acknowledged that Boulton had contradicted Swanson. Boulton 

also shared his concerns about inadequate training on firearms, tasers, and CPR to “co-workers, 

colleagues, family, friends and members of Genesee County both during [his] time on duty and 

time off duty as a private citizen.” He presents no evidence, however, that Sheriff’s Office 

decision-makers were aware of his comments outside the arbitration. 

The day after Swanson testified about firearm training, Boulton was instructed to wear 

his uniform or business attire to subsequent arbitrations. When he wore a blazer and golf shirt 

the following days, he was investigated for failing to follow a direct order. Soon after, there was 

a short power outage at the county jail, and Boulton was told that there would be an internal 

investigation of his actions during the outage; the record includes no documentation of that 

investigation. In July 2012, the investigation regarding proper attire was closed. At the same 

time, however, Boulton was notified that several of his subordinates had brought complaints 

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against him and that the department was starting a new investigation into those complaints. 

Boulton was also notified that he was “forbidden to inquire with any witnesses or investigators 

as to the nature of the investigation” and that any such inquiries would be interpreted as 

insubordination and witness intimidation. Boulton admitted in an interview at the end of the 

investigation that he asked his subordinates for details about the investigation and their 

interviews with management, despite the explicit instruction not to do so. Immediately before 

this admission, Boulton lied about his behavior, denying that he had spoken to subordinates.

Following the investigation, Boulton was suspended without pay for several days and 

demoted from his position as sergeant. According to the Notice of Disciplinary Action, he was 

demoted for creating a “hostile” and “unprofessional” environment for his subordinates and also 

for making derogatory and sexist comments to female pretrial detainees in the jail. 

Boulton contends that Swanson initiated the investigation as retaliation for his statements 

about training, pointing to a text message from one of his subordinates to another stating that 

Swanson was seeking complaints about him. Two other members of the department also told 

him that Swanson was “out to get him.” Boulton notes that several other members of the 

department engaged in some form of inappropriate behavior—and particularly sexually 

inappropriate behavior—but were not disciplined. 

The Notice of Disciplinary Action lists several sections of the department work rules and 

regulations that Boulton was found to have violated, including “Section 4.10 Criticism.” In 

interrogatory responses, the County also included “criticism of the Office of the Genesee County 

Sheriff” among the reasons Boulton was disciplined, also citing Section 4.10 (the Rule against 

Criticism). Section 4.10 provides: 

Office of the Sheriff Genesee County employees shall not make public statements 

through verbal, written or any other form of expression, criticizing or ridiculing 

the Sheriff’s Office, its policies or other employees, when such statement brings 

the Sheriff’s Office into disrepute. Statements which are defamatory, obscene, 

unlawful or which may impair the operation or efficiency of the Sheriff’s Office, 

interfere with discipline, or which show a reckless disregard for the truth, are 

likewise prohibited. 

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B. Procedural History 

Boulton initially filed this lawsuit in Michigan state court pursuing relief under only state 

law. In a Second Amended Complaint, Boulton added a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for 

retaliation against speech protected by the First Amendment. The defendants removed the case 

to federal court, and the court retained jurisdiction over only the federal constitutional claim. 

After discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The defendants’ motion 

pointed out that on the constitutional claim, Boulton sought liability against only the county. 

Three days later, Boulton filed a motion seeking leave to file a Third Amended Complaint, 

representing that he had not learned the extent of the Sheriff’s involvement in his termination 

until a late deposition. The court granted leave to amend, but the defendants filed a motion to 

reconsider, notifying the court that all of the supposedly new information regarding the Sheriff’s 

role had previously been available to Boulton. The court reconsidered, struck the Third 

Amended Complaint, and denied the plaintiff’s motion to reconsider/renewed motion to amend. 

The court then granted summary judgment to the County and dismissed Swanson. 

Boulton timely appealed from both the grant of summary judgment and the orders 

denying him leave to amend his complaint.1

II. Summary Judgment

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Griffin v. Finkbeiner, 

689 F.3d 584, 592 (6th Cir. 2012). In considering a motion for summary judgment, we must 

view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Id. 

“Summary judgment is appropriate if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and 

admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there is no genuine issue as to any 

material fact such that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Villegas v. 

Metro. Gov’t of Nashville, 709 F.3d 563, 568 (6th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted); 

see Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a), (c). 

 1

Before the district court, Boulton conceded that he had pled his federal claim only against the county. He 

does not seek to rescind that concession on appeal, so we do not review the dismissal of defendant Christopher 

Swanson. 

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For a public employee such as Boulton to establish a prima facie case of retaliation in 

violation of the First Amendment, he must demonstrate 

(1) that [he] was engaged in a constitutionally protected activity; (2) that the 

defendant’s adverse action caused [him] to suffer an injury that would likely chill 

a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that activity; and 

(3) that the adverse action was motivated at least in part as a response to the 

exercise of [his] constitutional rights. 

Leary v. Daeschner, 228 F.3d 729, 737 (6th Cir. 2000). “If the employee establishes a prima 

facie case, the burden then shifts to the employer to demonstrate by a preponderance of the 

evidence that the employment decision would have been the same absent the protected conduct. 

Once this shift has occurred, summary judgment is warranted if, in light of the evidence viewed 

in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, no reasonable juror could fail to return a verdict for 

the defendant.” Benison v. Ross, 765 F.3d 649, 658 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing Thaddeus-X v. 

Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 394 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc)). 

 Because Boulton seeks relief from the county, he must further prove that his injury was 

caused by an unconstitutional policy or custom. See Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 

658, 694 (1978). “The ‘official policy’ requirement was intended to distinguish acts of the 

municipality from acts of employees of the municipality, and thereby make clear that municipal 

liability is limited to action for which the municipality is actually responsible.” Pembaur v. City 

of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 478 (1986) (emphasis in original). A plaintiff may show that the 

municipality was responsible in four ways: “(1) the existence of an illegal official policy or 

legislative enactment; (2) that an official with final decision making authority ratified illegal 

actions; (3) the existence of a policy of inadequate training or supervision; or (4) the existence of 

a custom of tolerance or acquiescence of federal rights violations.” Burgess v. Fischer, 735 F.3d 

462, 478 (6th Cir. 2013). Boulton attempts the first approach—proving an illegal official policy. 

 The County challenges three aspects of Boulton’s case. It argues that Boulton’s speech 

was not protected by the First Amendment; that it would have disciplined Boulton to the same 

extent if he had not spoken regarding the training policies; and that Boulton fails to establish that 

the County, rather than individual officials, was responsible. The district court concluded that 

Boulton’s speech is not entitled to protection because he made the statements during a union 

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arbitration and that Boulton failed to show that the Rule against Criticism is an unconstitutional 

policy. 

A. First Amendment Protection 

The district court erred in determining that Boulton’s speech was deprived of First 

Amendment protection because he made it as a union member in the course of an arbitration 

proceeding. In Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), the Supreme Court 

rejected the proposition that public employees “may constitutionally be compelled to relinquish 

the First Amendment rights they would otherwise enjoy as citizens to comment on matters of 

public interest in connection with [their work].” Id. at 568. The Court nonetheless noted that 

there must be “a balance between the interests of the [public employee], as a citizen, in 

commenting on matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in 

promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Id. Two 

questions arise in addressing a public employee’s free speech claim. First, we must answer the 

threshold inquiry—did the employee speak as a “citizen on a matter of public concern.” Garcetti 

v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 418 (2006). If so, we then balance the justifications for a speech 

restriction against the employee’s free speech interest. Id.

The threshold inquiry, in turn, has two components: whether the employee was speaking 

as a citizen and whether the topic was a matter of public concern. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 

138 (1983), clarifies what makes a topic a matter of public concern. Myers, an assistant district 

attorney who was displeased with a proposed transfer, was fired for insubordination after she 

circulated a survey to her coworkers asking about their experiences with transfers, supervisors, 

and the office culture. Id. at 140–41. Refusing to “presume that all matters which transpire 

within a government office are of a public concern,” the Court noted that it would determine 

whether an employee’s speech addresses a matter of public concern by examining “the content, 

form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Id. at 147–49. The 

Court reviewed the survey and found that the focus of the questions (which addressed trust in 

various supervisors, level of office morale, and need for a grievance committee) was merely an 

extension of “Myers’ dispute over her transfer” as opposed to being of “public import in 

evaluating the performance of the District Attorney as an elected official.” Id. at 148. The fact 

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that the communication was largely focused on matters of private concern, however, did not 

eliminate the protection of those aspects that were of public concern. Because the survey 

included a question addressing a public concern (pressure on assistant district attorneys to work 

on political campaigns), the Court examined the competing interests, balancing the limited extent 

to which the survey touched on a matter of public concern with the employer’s interest in 

maintaining discipline; it found the employer’s interest to be stronger. Id. at 149–53. 

Our court has elucidated the distinction between matters of public concern and personnel 

matters. Although government effectiveness and efficiency could generally be considered a 

matter of public concern, we have found mere assertions of incompetence and poor management 

decision-making to be run-of-the-mill employment disputes—particularly when the 

recommended course of action would benefit the employee. See Rahn v. Drake Center, Inc., 

31 F.3d 407, 413 (6th Cir. 1994); Barnes v. McDowell, 848 F.2d 725, 734–35 (6th Cir. 1988). In 

contrast, speech addresses a matter of public concern when it alleges corruption and misuse of 

public funds, Chappel v. Montgomery Cnty. Fire Protection Dist. No. 1, 131 F.3d 564, 576–77 

(6th Cir. 1997); failure to follow state law, Banks v. Wolfe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 330 F.3d 888, 

896–97 (6th Cir. 2003); major state policy decisions, Jackson v. Leighton, 168 F.3d 903, 910 

(6th Cir. 1999); or discrimination of some form, Hughes v. Region VII Area Agency on Aging, 

542 F.3d 169, 181–82 (6th Cir. 2008). 

The second component of the threshold inquiry, whether an employee is speaking as a 

citizen, was initially explained in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 421 (2006), which held that 

a public employee is not speaking as a citizen when he “make[s] statements pursuant to [his] 

official duties.” The plaintiff in Garcetti, a deputy district attorney, was fired for writing an 

internal memorandum recommending dismissal of a case on the basis of purported government 

misconduct. Noting that there can be First Amendment protection for expressions made at work 

and on the subject of Ceballos’ employment, the Court found the “controlling factor” to be “that 

his expressions were made pursuant to his duties as a calendar deputy.” Id. at 420–21. 

“Restricting speech that owes its existence to a public employee’s professional responsibilities 

does not infringe any liberties the employee might have enjoyed as a private citizen. It simply 

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reflects the exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or 

created.” Id. at 421–22. 

After Garcetti, we held that most jobs carry with them an inherent duty of internal 

communication. In Weisbarth v. Geauga Park Dept., 499 F.3d 538 (6th Cir. 2007), a park ranger 

was terminated as a result of her conversations with a personnel consultant hired by the 

department. Id. at 540. We held that her conversations with the consultant were “ad hoc or de 

facto duties” of the job, and she therefore made statements as an employee and not as a citizen. 

Id. at 544. We have also categorized as part of the general duty of internal communication a 

memorandum from a police officer to his chief about the wisdom of a pending staff reduction, 

Haynes v. City of Circleville, Ohio, 474 F.3d 357, 364 (6th Cir. 2007), and a teacher’s 

complaints to her supervisors that her class sizes were too large, Fox v. Traverse City Area Pub. 

Sch. Bd. of Educ., 605 F.3d 345, 348–49 (6th Cir. 2010). 

Determining whether speech is unprotected due to the Garcetti exception or because it is 

not on a matter of public concern has proven challenging. For example, in Haynes, we 

determined that speech owed its existence to professional responsibilities when an employee 

engaged in “controlled venting” by wrapping his equipment in Christmas paper and attaching a 

“Do Not Open Until Christmas” tag—in March. 474 F.3d at 360–61, 364. Similarly, in Fox, we 

cited to Barnes v. McDowell—a case on whether a dispute was a matter of public concern—as 

support for the proposition that a teacher was speaking as an employee. 605 F.3d at 349; see 

also Handy-Clay v. City of Memphis, Tenn., 695 F.3d 531, 541–42 (6th Cir. 2012) (applying 

Haynes and Fox to characterize speech that constituted merely a personnel dispute—and would 

therefore not be a matter of public concern—as being made pursuant to official duties). 

In this case, the district court offered an even broader reading of Garcetti, categorizing 

Boulton’s speech as “speech that owes its existence to a public employee’s professional 

responsibilities,” on the basis that Boulton could not have participated in the union or the 

arbitration if he were not an employee of the Sheriff’s Office. R. 40, PageID 1279; see Garcetti, 

547 U.S. at 421. This expansive reading was the subject of dispute in Weintraub v. Bd. of Educ. 

of City Sch. Dist. Of the City of New York, 593 F.3d 196 (2d Cir. 2010). There the Second 

Circuit held that a teacher’s union grievance was unprotected speech because “[t]he lodging of a 

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union grievance is not a form or channel of discourse available to non-employee citizens.” Id. at 

204. Judge Calabresi, in dissent, argued that such an approach read Garcetti too broadly and 

“would allow retaliation against much speech that seems to me to require protection and to 

remain protected after Garcetti.” Id. at 206 (Calabresi, J., dissenting). In fact, the Pickering

Court explicitly noted the value of public employees using knowledge acquired by virtue of their 

employment to engage in public debate. Id. at 206–07 (quoting Pickering, 391 U.S. at 572). The 

dissent suggested that the wiser course is to limit the Garcetti exception to its situation: where 

the employee is speaking as the instrument of the state, that speech is not protected. 

The Supreme Court put this issue to rest in Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369 (2014), by 

expressly rejecting an expansive reading of the Garcetti exception. Noting that “Garcetti said 

nothing about speech that simply relates to public employment or concerns information learned 

in the course of public employment,” the Court clarified, “[t]he critical question under Garcetti is 

whether the speech at issue is itself ordinarily within the scope of an employee’s duties, not 

whether it merely concerns those duties.” Id. at 2379. Reiterating that “public employees do not 

renounce their citizenship when they accept employment,” the Court again proclaimed the 

importance of public-employee speech that relates to the public employment itself: 

There is considerable value, moreover, in encouraging, rather than inhibiting, 

speech by public employees. For government employees are often in the best 

position to know what ails the agencies for which they work. The interest at stake 

is as much the public’s interest in receiving informed opinion as it is the 

employee’s own right to disseminate it. 

Id. at 2377 (citation, internal quotation marks, and alteration omitted). The concurring justices 

likewise considered a “straightforward application of Garcetti” to be limited to asking whether 

the employee was speaking “pursuant to his ordinary job duties.” Id. at 2383 (Thomas, J., 

concurring). Lane thus highlights the importance of properly categorizing speech when 

undertaking the two part inquiry into whether speech is protected. The question of whether 

speech concerns a personnel matter is a question about whether it addresses a matter of public 

concern, not whether the employee is speaking as a citizen. This is true, our sister circuits have 

noted, because “a public employee may speak as a citizen even if his speech involves the subject 

matter of his employment.” Dougherty v. Sch. Dist. Of Phila., 772 F.3d 979, 990 (3d Cir. 2014); 

see also Mpoy v. Rhee, 758 F.3d 285, 294–95 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Dougherty finds support for this 

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determination in Lane’s narrowing of the Garcetti exception “by including ‘ordinary’ as a 

modifier to the scope of an employer’s job duties,” and by Lane’s admonishment that speech is 

not transformed into “employee—rather than citizen—speech” simply because it “concerns 

information acquired by virtue of [the speaker’s] public employment.” Id.

 After Lane, the Garcetti exception to First Amendment protection for speech residing in 

the phrase “owes its existence to a public employee’s professional responsibilities” must be read 

narrowly as speech that an employee made in furtherance of the ordinary responsibilities of his 

employment. It is axiomatic that an employee’s job responsibilities do not include acting in the 

capacity of a union member, leader, or official. In fact, Michigan law makes it illegal for a 

public employer to “dominate . . . or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor 

organization.” Mich. Comp. Laws § 423.210(b). We therefore hold that speech in connection 

with union activities is speech “as a citizen” for the purposes of the First Amendment. 

 The next question is whether Boulton’s statements at the arbitration concerning firearm, 

Taser, and CPR training addressed a matter of public concern. “Whether an employee’s speech 

addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a 

given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Connick, 461 U.S. at 147–48. In this circuit, 

there is not a per se rule regarding union-related speech by a public employee. It may or may not 

address a matter of public concern. Boals v. Gray, 775 F.2d 686, 693 (6th Cir. 1985). Instead, 

the court must determine “the point of the speech in question.” Dambrot v. Cent. Mich. Univ., 

55 F.3d 1177, 1187 (6th Cir. 1995) (emphasis in original); see also Rodgers v. Banks, 344 F.3d 

587, 600 (6th Cir. 2003) (“Although Plaintiff’s underlying motive in writing the memo might 

have been to complain about incompetent management, our duty is not to discern her underlying 

motive, but rather to evaluate her point as it is presented in the speech.”). 

Boulton’s speech occurred during a contract arbitration between the sergeant’s union and 

the County, which dealt with a number of economic issues. The transcript of that part of the 

arbitration was not submitted to the court, but the record does contain Swanson’s testimony to 

which Boulton was responding. Swanson’s testimony came during a broader discussion of 

sergeant-level positions that had recently been eliminated, including a training coordinator 

position. The union had raised this issue as part of an argument that because the union had made 

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other concessions, the Sheriff’s Office could afford additional salary increases. In this context, 

Boulton’s statement worked against his own personal interests and those of his fellow union 

members. If the Sheriff’s Office was not providing adequate training without a training 

coordinator, then the Office would have to pay to fill the position again, reducing funds available 

for salary and benefits to the union member employees. This context weighs in favor of finding 

that Boulton’s statements addressed a matter of public concern. 

The content of Boulton’s statement also indicates that it addressed a matter of public 

concern. Proper training in use of force, including by firearm and Taser, is an important concern 

of the Constitution and required by Michigan state law. Concerns regarding law enforcement’s 

use of excessive force are matters of public concern. Taylor v. Keith, 338 F.3d 639, 645–46 (6th 

Cir. 2003); see also Marohnic v. Walker, 800 F.2d 613, 616 (6th Cir. 1986) (“Public interest is 

near its zenith when ensuring that public organizations are being operated in accordance with the 

law . . . .”). Similarly, Boulton’s statements regarding CPR training reflect the significant public 

interest in protecting the health of pretrial detainees in the Genesee County Jail. See Catletti ex 

rel. Estate of Catletti v. Rampe, 334 F.3d 225, 230 (2d Cir. 2003) (“The quality of mental health 

services provided in the County prison is plainly a matter of public concern.”). The public has a 

strong interest in knowing whether jail officials are ill-equipped to provide emergency care to 

prisoners. 

Boulton has established that his remarks during the arbitration hearing were made as a 

citizen and addressed matters of public concern. This satisfies the threshold inquiry for First 

Amendment protection and that protection is not lost because Boulton spoke as a union member 

at a contract arbitration proceeding. The County has presented no countervailing interest in 

repressing his speech, either at the district court or before this court. Boulton’s exercise of his 

First Amendment right to speak on issues of public importance is therefore protected from 

retaliation. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 574–75. 

B. Municipal Liability 

Even assuming that Boulton’s protected speech was a but-for cause of his suspension and 

demotion, however, he fails to adequately tie any constitutional violation to the County policy. 

Because Boulton pled his claim only against Genesee County, he must prove that the County 

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itself was to blame, rather than its individual officials. Monell, 436 U.S. at 694–95. Boulton 

argues that his burden is satisfied because he was fired pursuant to § 4.10 of General Order 1, the 

County’s official policy barring criticism of the Sheriff’s Office. “[I]t is when execution of a 

government’s policy or custom . . . inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is 

responsible under § 1983.” Id. at 694. 

 The County suggests that our precedent bars any claim arising from the criticism policy. 

In Brown v. City of Trenton, 867 F.2d 318 (6th Cir. 1989), we reviewed for overbreadth a city 

ordinance that allowed discipline for “publicly criticizing orders given by a superior officer and 

communicating or giving information to any person concerning the business of the police 

department, which is detrimental to the police department.” Id. at 323 (internal quotation marks 

and alterations omitted). Relying on the principle that “a law should not be invalidated for 

overbreadth unless it reaches a substantial number of impermissible applications,” id. (quoting 

New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 771 (1982)), we declined to find the policy unconstitutionally 

overbroad absent evidence that it had actually been misapplied. Because we found, in that case, 

that the officers had not engaged in protected speech, there was “no showing of any likelihood of 

substantial misuse of the code, and no showing that the code’s mere existence is calculated to 

discourage the exercise of any constitutional right.” Id. at 324. The code was upheld. See also 

Graham v. City of Mentor, 118 F. App’x 27, 31 (6th Cir. 2004) (upholding the constitutionality 

of a similar police code against facial and as-applied challenges), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 815 

(2005)). 

 In particular, the County directs our attention to Cherry v. Pickell, 188 F. App’x 465, 

471–72 (6th Cir. 2006), which applied Brown to uphold the Genesee Sheriff’s Office’s criticism 

rule. The plaintiffs in that case, sheriff’s deputies, alleged that they were disciplined for 

protected speech and also challenged the rule as facially unconstitutional. Because the 

disciplinary actions would have occurred regardless of the protected speech and there was no 

showing that the policy was “calculated to discourage constitutionally protected speech,” id. at 

471, we declined to uphold a freestanding facial challenge to the policy, id. at 470–71. 

 As the County acknowledged at argument, our precedent does not foreclose a properly 

supported as-applied challenge to the Genesee County policy, or policies like it. Cherry, Brown, 

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and Graham held that, in light of the heavy government interest in promoting order within a law 

enforcement agency, criticism policies are not facially unconstitutional. But we were explicitly 

agnostic in Brown about whether such a policy could be unconstitutional as applied to particular 

speech: 

As far as the provisions of the city code at issue here are concerned, anyone with 

an active imagination can readily dream up hypothetical situations in which 

corrupt or unscrupulous or unbalanced officials might apply the code in an 

unconstitutional manner. 

. . . . 

To devise a detailed code of police conduct incapable of misapplication would be 

utterly impossible, or so we should find it, but that does not mean that the 

Constitution bars codes of police conduct generally. Most chiefs of police are 

neither corrupt nor mad, and while any police chief can make a mistake, just as 

any of the rest of us can, courts are fully capable of correcting such mistakes. If 

Chief Lilienthal had disciplined Officer Brown for publicly exposing corruption 

in the City of Trenton police force, for example, or for publicly criticizing 

unconstitutional orders, we have no doubt that Judge Suhrheinrich, upon request, 

would have taken appropriate action—and if he had not, we would have. 

Brown, 867 F.2d at 324. Nothing in Brown or its progeny limits the as-applied analysis of police 

codes of conduct. 

 Although Boulton could potentially bring an as-applied challenge to the policy, he fails to 

establish that his demotion and suspension were actually a result of the policy. He has two 

theories why he would not have been disciplined absent his protected speech: (1) that the 

undisciplined misbehavior of others in the department reveals that his other charges were not 

sufficiently serious to merit the discipline he received and (2) that those other disciplinary 

charges resulted from a “witch hunt.” The first theory could have potentially supported an asapplied challenge and Monell liability. If Boulton’s violations were insufficient to merit the 

discipline he received absent his violation of the criticism policy, then that policy would have 

been an actual motivating force of his demotion and suspension. But Boulton’s comparator 

analysis fails because the other employees’ misconduct is substantially less egregious than his 

own. None of the other officers harassed prisoners, interfered with an internal investigation, or 

lied to his superior officers during an internal investigation. 

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No. 14-2308 Boulton v. Swanson, et al. Page 14

Boulton’s other theory, that Swanson and others in the department were spurred by his 

protected speech to go on a witch hunt and identify misconduct, cannot support Monell liability 

because there is no causal link between the policy and the purported unconstitutional action. The 

criticism policy authorizes Sheriff’s Office supervisors to investigate criticism of the office, not 

other, unrelated misconduct. And Swanson could pursue such a witch hunt regardless of whether 

the criticism policy existed. The policy would therefore not be a motivating force for a witch 

hunt. Because neither of Boulton’s theories is sufficient here to support a Monell claim, 

Boulton’s claim fails. 

III. Denial of Leave to Amend

Boulton also seeks review of the district court’s denial of leave to file his Third Amended 

Complaint. In that complaint, he sought to plead facts relating to the Sheriff’s involvement in his 

suspension and demotion, as well as further facts regarding his statements about the department’s 

training policies made outside the arbitration proceeding. This court reviews a denial of leave to 

amend a pleading for abuse of discretion, unless the district court denied leave based “on the 

legal conclusion that an amended complaint could not withstand a motion to dismiss.” Morse v. 

McWhorter, 290 F.3d 795, 799 (6th Cir. 2002). 

The district court initially granted leave to amend the complaint based on Boulton’s 

representation that he was not aware of the degree of the Sheriff’s involvement in disciplinary 

proceedings prior to the Sheriff’s deposition in the present case. The defendants then put 

forward evidence that Boulton was, in fact, aware that the Sheriff was involved in disciplinary 

proceedings, and the court granted a motion for reconsideration, striking the Third Amended 

Complaint. Before this court and in his own motion for reconsideration before the district court, 

Boulton argues that he was aware that the Sheriff was involved in disciplinary proceedings to 

some extent—but not to the full extent that he discovered during the deposition. The district 

court rejected this argument, concluding that Boulton knew enough about the Sheriff’s 

involvement to include him as a defendant from the beginning—relying, in part, on the fact that 

Boulton had met with the sheriff to address the alleged retaliation. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend. By the time 

Boulton filed his Second Amended Complaint, he had sufficient knowledge of the Sheriff’s 

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No. 14-2308 Boulton v. Swanson, et al. Page 15

involvement in disciplinary proceedings to include him as a defendant. It was not an abuse of 

discretion for the court to refuse to allow an amended pleading that would introduce an entirely 

new defendant—as well as a new theory of liability against the County. 

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the judgment and orders of the district 

court. 

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