Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01623/USCOURTS-ca8-14-01623-0/pdf.json

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

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-1623

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Henry E. Lyons

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

F. Wayne Vaught; Reginald Bassa

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellants

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

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 Submitted: January 14, 2015

 Filed: March 24, 2015

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Before LOKEN, MURPHY, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

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LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Henry Lyons taught a self-developed course for seven semesters as a part-time

lecturer at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC). He was not offered

a position for the Spring 2012 semester and his course was dropped from UMKC’s

course catalog. Lyons brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 damage action in state court

against three UMKC administrators, alleging unlawful retaliation in violation of his

First Amendment free speech rights as a public employee. Defendants removed and

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moved to dismiss, arguing the Petition for Damages failed to allege that they were

personally involved in the retaliatory conduct. Lyons filed an Amended Complaint

and voluntarily dismissed his claim against UMKC Chancellor Leo Morton. The

remaining defendants -- F. Wayne Vaught, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences,

and Reginald Bassa, Director of the Program for Adult College Education -- again

moved to dismiss, arguing the Amended Complaint failed to state a claim and they

are entitled to qualified immunity. Defendants appeal the denial of this motion. 

We have jurisdiction over the denial of a motion to dismiss based on qualified

immunity, including “whether a particular complaint sufficiently alleges a clearly

established violation of law.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 673 (2009). We

accept as true the facts alleged in Lyons’s Amended Complaint and review de novo

whether the complaint “state[d] a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Hager

v. Ark. Dep’t of Health, 735 F.3d 1009, 1013 (8th Cir. 2013) (quotation omitted). 

Applying these standards, we reverse.

I.

The Amended Complaint alleged that Lyons gave a student athlete a grade of

“F” in the Fall 2010 semester. The student invoked UMKC’s grade-appeal process

in January 2011. Lyons met with Bassa and defended his grading. Bassa determined

the student should be allowed to submit a second midterm paper before resolving the

appeal. “Concerned about the legitimacy of the appeals process, as well as the

preferential treatment afforded to this Student Athlete and others,” the Amended

Complaint alleged, Lyons complained to Dean Vaught, who referred the student’s

appeal to the Academic Standards Committee for the College of Letters and Science. 

The Committee determined the student should be allowed to write a second paper. 

Lyons “challenged the determination” to Dean Vaught, who upheld the Committee’s

ruling. In November 2011, the student submitted a second midterm paper, “a

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committee” appointed to grade the paper gave it a 75% grade, and Vaught instructed

the registrar to change the student’s course grade to D+, a passing grade.

In late November 2011, the Amended Complaint alleged, Lyons --

accompanied by two “community leaders” and by the former Deputy Chancellor for

Diversity -- met with Chancellor Leo Morton “to express [Lyons’s] concerns about

the preferential academic treatment afforded to student athletes on the UMKC

campus.” Lyons told Morton that preferential grading for athletes was unfair to other

students and was “a growing problem on the UMKC campus” that “could lead to

adverse publicity and sanctions.” Lyons requested that Morton “undertake a

comprehensive investigation into the preferential treatment afforded to student

athletes.” Morton said he was not prepared to take action. After this meeting, “Lyons

also spoke with Bassa and Vaught, and voiced the same concerns he communicated

to Chancellor Morton.” “Both Bassa and Vaught said they would contact Chancellor

Morton to discuss the situation moving forward.” Lyons heard nothing further from

Morton, Bassa, or Vaught regarding his concerns. He received no advance notice that

his course would be eliminated for the Spring 2012 semester.

II.

Lyons sued Bassa and Vaught for First Amendment retaliation, alleging they

did not recommend Lyons for reappointment as a part-time lecturer in retaliation for

his protected speech concerning preferential treatment for student-athletes. To plead

a prima facie case of First Amendment retaliation, Lyons must allege that (1) he

engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment; (2) the defendants took an

adverse employment action against him; and (3) the protected conduct was a

substantial or motivating factor in the defendants’ decision to take the adverse

employment action. Davison v. City of Minneapolis, 490 F.3d 648, 654-55 (8th Cir.

2007). 

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In Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 421 (2006), the Supreme Court held “that

when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the

employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the

Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” In

Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369, 2379 (2014), the Court in ruling that a college

president was entitled to qualified immunity clarified that “[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.” Thus, to decide

whether a public employee’s speech is protected by the First Amendment, a court

must first determine whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public

concern. This is a question of law for the court. See McGee v. Pub. Water Supply,

Dist. 2, 471 F.3d 918, 920 (8th Cir. 2006).

1

Lyons’s initial complaint failed to state a claim because he did not allege that

Morton, Vaught, or Bassa took the adverse action of not reappointing Lyons for the

Spring 2012 semester. The Amended Complaint cured this defect by alleging that his

prior appointments were with “the recommendation and approval” of Vaught and

Bassa, and by dismissing the claim against Chancellor Morton. But the Amended

Complaint, like its predecessor, failed to allege what speech was protected by the

First Amendment (an inexcusable but not fatal pleading error).

If the court determines the public employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of 1

public concern, it must then determine “whether the relevant government entity had

an adequate justification for treating the employee differently fromany other member

of the general public.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418. This question can rarely, if ever, 

be determined on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the public employee’s complaint. 

But at the summary judgment stage, if the defendant has presented evidence that the

employee’s speech “adversely affected the efficiency ofthe department,” the required

“fact-intensive balancing test . . . can rarely be considered ‘clearly established’ for

purposes of the . . . qualified immunity standard.” Bartlett v. Fisher, 972 F.2d 911,

916-17 (8th Cir. 1992). 

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Vaught and Bassa moved to dismiss Lyons’s First Amended Complaint as

failing to state a claim under Garcetti, arguing that “Lyons’s speech was uttered in

response to a student’s appeal of the grade Lyons had assigned,” and therefore

“Lyons cannot ‘plausibly’ establish that his complaints about preferential treatment

of student athletes was not . . . due to his role as a UMKC lecturer.” Alternatively,

defendants argued they are entitled to qualified immunity because “it was not ‘clearly

established’ that Lyons’s speech in response to a student’s grade appeal would be

protected by the Constitution.” In response, Lyons argued that the “only alleged

protected speech at issue in this dispute is Lyons’ speech directed to Chancellor

Morton, two community leaders, and [the] former Deputy Chancellor for Diversity

. . . in late November 2011.” His statements at that meeting regarding preferential

treatment ofstudent athletes dealt with a matter of public concern and were “not made

pursuant to an official job function or duty,” even if related to his employment as a

part-time lecturer.

In denying the motion to dismiss, the district court carefully reviewed the First

Amended Complaint and the Garcetti standard that precludes First Amendment

protection when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties. 

“Lyons’s statements during the Student Athlete’s grade appeal process were likely

part of his official duties,” the court noted, but his First Amendment retaliation claim

is based “only on his statements to Chancellor Morton.” The Amended Complaint

does not contain enough factual detail to determine if Lyons’s statements to

Chancellor Morton at the meeting attended by community leaders were part of the

student appeal process, “or if the meeting focused solely on the broader public

concern that UMKC’s processes undermined its educational mission for the benefit

of athletes.” Therefore, the court denied the motion to dismiss because it was “unable

at thisstage in the litigation to conclude whether Lyons’s claimis barred by Garcetti.” 

The court denied qualified immunity because the allegations “plausibly suggest a

meeting among Lyons, Chancellor Morton, and community leaders, which focused

on generalized concerns . . . and was unrelated to Lyons’s duties.”

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On appeal, defendants argue the district court erred by segregating, for

purposes of its Garcetti analysis, Lyons’s alleged statements to Chancellor Morton

at the November 2011 meeting from his earlier alleged complaints to defendants

about the “preferential academic treatment” afforded the student athlete in the appeals

process. But this misinterprets Lyons’s admittedly ambiguous Amended Complaint. 

In paragraphs 18-64, Lyons alleged that preferential treatment was one of his

concerns in the student appeal process, but did not allege that he voiced that concern

to Bassa and Vaught. Thus, Lyons correctly argued to the district court that the only

alleged protected speech came in paragraphs 65-77, which described the meeting with

Chancellor Morton. The district court reviewed those distinct allegations and

concluded (i) the meeting concerned speech about a matter of public concern, and (ii)

the court should not dismiss the Amended Complaint under Garcetti because it could

not determine from this pleading whether Lyons wasspeaking as a citizen outside the

student appeal process. We agree with this Rule 12(b)(6) analysis.

However, this conclusion does not resolve the qualified immunity appeal. 

Defendants argue they are entitled to qualified immunity because (i) the only claimed

protected speech was made to Chancellor Morton, a former defendant who Lyons

voluntarily dismissed, at a meeting Bassa and Vaught did not attend; and (ii) the

Amended Complaint failed to allege that Bassa and Vaught were aware of the alleged

protected speech or even knew of Lyons’s meeting with Chancellor Morton and the

community leaders. Instead, the Amended Complaint merely alleged, “After the

meeting with Morton, Lyons also spoke with Bassa and Vaught, and voiced the same

concerns.” Thus, Lyons failed to allege plausibly that his only constitutionally

protected speech could have been a substantial or motivating factor in defendants’

alleged adverse employment action. 

After careful review ofthe Amended Complaint, we agree with this contention. 

The third element of a public employee’s First Amendment retaliation claim is proof

of a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment

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action. “It is only intuitive thatfor protected conduct to be a substantial or motivating

factor in a decision, the decisionmakers must be aware of the protected conduct.” 

Ambrose v. Twp. of Robinson, 303 F.3d 488, 493 (3d Cir. 2002). Thus, while the

issue of causal connection is usually fact-intensive, many cases have dismissed

retaliation complaints that failed to allege that the defendant taking adverse action

knew of the protected activity. See Gagliardi v. Sullivan, 513 F.3d 301, 308 (1st Cir.

2008); Gorman v. Bail, 947 F. Supp. 2d 509, 525 (E.D. Pa. 2013); Gadling-Cole v.

West Chester Univ., 868 F. Supp. 2d 390, 401 (E.D. Pa. 2012); Amos v. D.C., 589 F.

Supp. 2d 48, 56 (D.D.C. 2008); accord Rohrbough v. Univ. of Colo. Hosp. Auth., 596

F.3d 741, 750 (10th Cir. 2010) (affirming summary judgment on this ground); Gorum

v. Sessoms, 561 F.3d 179, 188 (3d Cir. 2009) (same); Wilson v. Northcutt, 441 F.3d

586, 592 (8th Cir. 2006) (granting qualified immunity to a defendant who had no

knowledge of the plaintiff’s protected activity). Lyons does not allege that Vaught

or Bassa knew of Lyons’s speech to Morton when they declined to recommend him

for reappointment, only that he had “voiced the same concerns” to Vaught and Bassa

after the meeting with Morton, an allegation plausibly related to the student appeal

process, not to any unrelated speech as a citizen. 

In these circumstances, we must assume at the Rule 12 stage that Vaught and

Bassa failed to recommend or approve Lyons’s reappointment because of his speech

during the student appeal process. But this was unprotected speech, and therefore it

was not clearly established that failure to reappoint for this reason was wrongful

retaliation because Lyons also made allegedly unrelated, protected speech at a

meeting Vaught and Bassa did not attend, when it is not alleged that they were

apprised of that speech and its nature and purpose. Accordingly, Vaught and Bassa

are entitled to qualified immunity from Lyons’s First Amendment retaliation claim.

The Order of the district court dated March 3, 2014, is reversed and the case

is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

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