Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07080/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07080-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
District of Columbia
Appellee
Matthew August LeFande
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 11, 2010 Decided July 23, 2010

No. 09-7080

MATTHEW AUGUST LEFANDE,

APPELLANT

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:09-cv-00217-HHK)

Matthew A. LeFande argued the cause pro se.

Carl J. Schifferle, Assistant Attorney General, argued the

cause for the appellee. Peter J. Nickles, Attorney General, Todd

S. Kim, Solicitor General, Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor

General, and Holly M. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General,

were on brief.

Before: GINSBURG, HENDERSON and GARLAND, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.

KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Matthew

LeFande appeals the district court’s dismissal of his complaint

alleging the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police

USCA Case #09-7080 Document #1256964 Filed: 07/23/2010 Page 1 of 12
2

Department (MPD) violated the First Amendment to the United

States Constitution by terminating his position with the MPD

Reserve Corps in retaliation for his making protected speech.

LeFande argues the district court erred in holding his speech did

not relate to a matter of public concern and was therefore not

protected by the First Amendment. We agree and reverse.

I.

Taking as true the factual allegations in LeFande’s

complaint, see City of Harper Woods Employees’ Ret. Sys. v.

Olver, 589 F.3d 1292, 1298 (D.C. Cir. 2009), the relevant facts

are as follows. The MPD Reserve Corps is a body of “unpaid

volunteers who assist full-time officers of the [MPD] in the

provision of law enforcement services.” Griffith v. Lanier, 521

F.3d 398, 399 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see D.C. Code § 5-129.51(a)-

(b). LeFande joined in 1993. On October 29, 2003, the

Washington City Paper published a front-page article that

described his work as a Reserve Corps member1

 and revealed

“numerous shortcomings” of the MPD administration. Compl.

¶ 14, LeFande v. District of Columbia, C.A. No. 09-217 (D.D.C.

Feb. 4, 2009). The MPD suspended him that same day and later

issued him an official reprimand, ostensibly for “conduct alleged

to have occurred on October 25, 2003,” the nature of which

conduct does not appear in the record. Id. ¶ 17. After the

suspension expired, however, the MPD did not reinstate him. In

1

Assuming the article’s accuracy, LeFande’s service in the

Reserve Corps has at times been nothing short of heroic. Having

pursued EMT training to build his public-service skill set, he once

saved an injured FBI agent’s life. The episode earned him a

commendation from the Director of the FBI. Moreover, “[s]everal

police officers, reserve and otherwise, say that LeFande has made

more arrests than a lot of paid cops, that he’s ‘brilliant,’ the ‘poster

boy’ for the reserves.” Jason Cherkis, Almost Blue, Washington City

Paper, Oct. 31, 2003, reprinted at Joint Appendix 39-40.

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response, on January 27, 2005, LeFande sued the District,

alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments as

well as common-law defamation. The suit settled when the

District agreed to reinstate him as a Reserve Corps member.

Approximately one year later, the Reserve Corps changed.

Specifically, on March 28, 2006, the MPD issued General Order

101.03, which prescribes the organization, authority, and rules

of the MPD Reserve Corps. The General Order provides,

among other things, that Reserve Corps members generally lack

“the right to organize for collective bargaining purposes” and

that they may “have their services . . . discontinued by the Chief,

for any reason, at any time, without any right or process of

appeal.” MPD General Order 101.03 § IV.C.5, .7. The earlier

version of the General Order did not prohibit collective

bargaining and did not give the Chief such unchecked power to

terminate a reserve officer. Then, on June 9, 2003, the Chief of

the MPD published in the D.C. Register a “Notice of Emergency

and Proposed Rulemaking,” which announced his

implementation, “on an emergency basis,” of rules substantially

similar to those contained in the General Order. 53 D.C. Reg.

4581. The Chief also gave “notice of intent to take final

rulemaking action to adopt these rules” by amending the D.C.

Municipal Regulations. Id. The rules provided, among other

things, that “all Reserve Corps members shall serve at the

pleasure of the Chief, who shall, without limitation, have the

authority to . . . remove a Reserve Corps member from the

Reserve Corps” without “administrative review.” Id. § 1212.1.

Less than one month later, on July 6, 2006, LeFande filed

a class action against the Chief on behalf of two named and the

roughly two hundred unnamed Reserve Corps members,

challenging the legality of the General Order and the Notice of

Emergency and Proposed Rulemaking. He alleged the General

Order violated the D.C. Administrative Procedure Act because

the Chief issued it without allowing for public notice and

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comment. See D.C. Code § 2-505(a) (“The Mayor and each

independent agency shall, prior to the adoption of any rule . . . ,

publish in the District of Columbia Register . . . notice of the

intended action . . . not less than 30 days prior to the effective

date . . . .”). He alleged the Notice of Emergency and Proposed

Rulemaking violated the same act because no predicate

emergency existed. See id. § 2-505(c) (“[I]f, in an emergency,

as determined by the Mayor or an independent agency, the

adoption of a rule is necessary for the immediate preservation of

the public peace, health, safety, welfare, or morals, the Mayor or

such independent agency may adopt such rules as may be

necessary in the circumstances, and such rule may become

effective immediately.”). And he alleged both the General

Order and the Notice of Emergency and Proposed Rulemaking

were illegal because they (1) denied Reserve Corps members

“the right to organize for collective bargaining,” in violation of

the First Amendment and the National Labor Relations Act;

(2) denied members the right to due process, in violation of the

Fourteenth Amendment; (3) conflicted with District laws

regarding MPD officers’ training, authority and obligations; and

(4) were enacted after the deadline set by their authorizing

statute. Compl. ¶¶ 32-55, MPD Reserve Officers v. Ramsey,

C.A. No. 06-1223 (D.D.C. July 6, 2006). 

The district court dismissed LeFande’s federal claims

pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and

declined to reach the District law claims. He appealed in this

court2 and, one week before oral argument, the Chief of Police

fired him. LeFande then filed the instant lawsuit, under 42

2

We affirmed the dismissal, holding that the challenged actions

left intact the plaintiffs’ “First Amendment freedoms to speak and

associate on matters related to collective bargaining” and that the

plaintiffs “lack[ed] the statutorily-protected property interest to ground

a due process challenge.” Griffith v. Lanier, 521 F.3d 398, 400, 404

(D.C. Cir. 2008). We did not review LeFande’s District-law claims.

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U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the District violated the First

Amendment by firing him “in retaliation for filing and

prosecuting” the class action. Compl. ¶ 26, LeFande v. District

of Columbia, C.A. No. 09-217 (D.D.C. Feb. 4, 2009). The

district court dismissed his complaint, deciding that he had

failed to state a First Amendment retaliation claim upon which

relief could be granted because the action “did not relate to a

matter of public concern.” Mem. Op. at 6, LeFande v. District

of Columbia, C.A. No. 09-217 (D.D.C. June 25, 2009).3

 Having

found no matter of public concern, the district court did not

address any of the other elements necessary to ground a First

Amendment retaliation claim. This appeal timely followed.

II.

A public employer “may not discharge an employee on a

basis that infringes that employee’s constitutionally protected

interest in freedom of speech.” Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S.

378, 383 (1987). A public employee’s right to speak, however,

has limits. Mindful of the government’s dual roles as sovereign

and employer, see Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 675

(1994), we seek to balance “the interests of the [employee], as

a citizen, in commenting upon 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.”

Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 142 (1983) (quoting Pickering

v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968)) (alteration in

Connick). In order to achieve that balance, we use a four-part

test to determine if a public employee’s termination violated his

First Amendment rights:

3

LeFande also alleged common law defamation and breach of

contract but the district court declined to exercise supplemental

jurisdiction over the claims after dismissing their federal companions.

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First, the public employee must have spoken as a

citizen on a matter of public concern. Second, the

court must consider whether the governmental interest

in promoting the efficiency of the public services it

performs through its employees outweighs the

employee’s interest, as a citizen, in commenting upon

matters of public concern. Third, the employee must

show that her speech was a substantial or motivating

factor in prompting the retaliatory or punitive act.

Finally, the employee must refute the government

employer’s showing, if made, that it would have

reached the same decision in the absence of the

protected speech.

Wilburn v. Robinson, 480 F.3d 1140, 1149 (D.C. Cir. 2007)

(internal quotations, citations and alterations omitted). The first

question—and the only question we reach—is whether the

employee’s speech “may be fairly characterized as constituting

speech on a matter of public concern.” Rankin, 483 U.S. at 384

(internal quotation omitted). If the speech is not on a matter of

public concern, “the employee has no First Amendment cause

of action based on his or her employer’s reaction.” Garcetti v.

Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 418 (2006). 

Whether speech involves a matter of public concern is a

question of law, which we review de novo. Connick, 461 U.S.

at 148 n.7; Hall v. Ford, 856 F.2d 255, 258 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

Our analysis must take into account “the content, form, and

context” of the employee’s speech, “as revealed by the whole

record.” Connick, 461 U.S. at 147–48. Summarily put, 

Speech by public employees may be characterized as

not of “public concern” when it is clear that such

speech deals with individual personnel disputes and

grievances and that the information would be of no

relevance to the public’s evaluation of the performance

of governmental agencies. On the other hand, speech

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that concerns “issues about which information is

needed or appropriate to enable members of society” to

make informed decisions about the operation of their

government merits the highest degree of first

amendment protection.

Hall, 856 F.2d at 259 (quoting McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705

F.2d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir. 1983) (internal citations omitted)); see

also Tao v. Freeh, 27 F.3d 635, 640 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (quoting

McKinley); Murray v. Gardner, 741 F.2d 434, 438 (D.C. Cir.

1984) (same). In other words, “speech relates to a matter of

public concern” if it is “‘of political, social, or other concern to

the community.’” Hall, 856 F.2d at 259 (quoting Connick, 461

U.S. at 146).

Because determining whether speech addresses a matter of

public concern is such a fact-bound inquiry, we find it helpful to

review existing precedent, which provides examples of speech

that is—and speech that is not—a matter of public concern. On

the one hand, the United States Supreme Court has identified

several matters that are not of public concern, as have we. For

instance, in Connick, the “confidence and trust” the district

attorney’s staff members had in their supervisors was not of

public concern, nor was “the level of office morale,” nor “the

need for a grievance committee.” 461 U.S. at 148. In Murray,

the FBI practice of furloughing agents by lottery was not of

public concern; the employee’s speech merely amounted to “the

quintessential employee beef: management has acted

incompetently.” 741 F.2d at 438. And, in Barnes v. Small,

alleged assaults and false statements within the Army’s Military

Traffic Management Command were not matters of public

concern; the employee’s allegations “addressed only the

misbehavior of other employees in his office, and not matters

relating to any broader public interest.” 840 F.2d 972, 982 (D.C.

Cir. 1988).

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On the other hand, both the Supreme Court and this court

have identified several matters that are of public concern. In the

seminal Pickering case, the Supreme Court held that a

“difference of opinion” regarding “the preferable manner of

operating the school system” is of public concern—particularly

as it related to the school board’s allocation of funds between

educational and athletic programs and the “methods of

informing, or preventing the informing of, the district’s

taxpayers” about the reasons additional funds were needed. 391

U.S. at 569, 571. Later, the Court enumerated several other

previously established issues of public concern, including “[a]

school district’s allegedly racially discriminatory policies,”

“whether [a] college should be elevated to four-year status,” and

whether a public school should adopt a dress code for its

teachers. Connick, 461 U.S. at 145-46 (citing Perry v.

Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972); Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Educ.

v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977); Givhan v. W. Line Consol. Sch.

Dist., 439 U.S. 410 (1979)). Then, in Connick, the Court held

that whether assistant district attorneys “feel pressured to work

in political campaigns on behalf of office supported candidates”

is also a matter of public concern. Id. at 149.

For our part, we held in Hall that whether a public

university’s “administration [wa]s mismanaging the athletic

program” is a matter of public concern, as is the “structure of

academic and athletic programs” generally. 856 F.2d at 259.

Also, in O’Donnell v. Barry, we recognized as matters of public

concern “important issues of Police Department policy,”

including “how to rank the Department’s law-enforcement

priorities,” “how to reform the operations of the Property

Division,” “what priority to give an investigation of over a

hundred unsolved murders,” the impairment of “the

effectiveness of the Homicide Branch” as well as the police

chief’s “fitness for office.” 148 F.3d 1126, 1133-34 (D.C. Cir.

1998).

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LeFande’s speech4

 involves a General Order and an

emergency rulemaking issued by the Chief of the MPD, which

regulations, among other things, empowered the Chief to fire

Reserve Corps members without process. According to

LeFande, at the time of the Chief’s actions, District law

prohibited their dismissal without cause or process. See Griffith,

521 F.3d at 401; D.C. Code § 5-127.01 (“[N]o person shall be

removed from said police force except upon written charges

preferred against him . . . and after an opportunity shall have

been afforded him of being heard in his defense . . . .”). Thus,

LeFande maintained that, by asserting the power to fire Reserve

Corps members without cause, and by restricting other aspects

of the Corps’ authority and access to training, the Chief

substantially altered the rights and the role of the entire Reserve

Corps, whose stated mission—according to the General Order

itself—is to “play an integral part in the [MPD’s] endeavor to

provide high quality police service.” MPD General Order

101.03 § II (emphasis added). Moreover, according to LeFande,

the Chief made this change without providing the statutorilymandated public notice and comment, in the absence of any

enabling emergency.

We believe LeFande’s allegations of procedural

irregularities that unquestionably affect an integral component

of police service are “relevan[t] to the public’s evaluation” of

the MPD and its Chief. Hall, 856 F.3d at 259 (quoting

4

LeFande’s speech is in the form of a civil complaint in federal

court. Both parties correctly observe that we have not adopted the

Third Circuit’s position that a non-frivolous lawsuit by a public

employee against his employer warrants First Amendment protection

whether or not the suit relates to a matter of public concern. See San

Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 30 F.3d 424, 443 (3d Cir. 1994). And neither

party asks that we adopt that position. Thus, for simplicity’s sake, we

refer herein to LeFande’s “speech,” as opposed to his “petition,”

without opining on whether the distinction makes a difference.

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McKinley, 705 F.2d at 1114). We think them more relevant than

intra-office squabbles in Connick, 461 U.S. at 148, and Barnes,

840 F.2d at 982, and more public than the speech in Murray, 741

F.2d at 438. Presumably the public is, and should be, at least as

concerned about these alleged defects as it was about, for

instance, rule violations by a university athletic department, see

Hall, 856 F.2d at 259, or teachers’ dress and its purported

relationship to the market for government debt, see Connick,

461 U.S. at 146 (citing Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. 274 (1977)). 

Still, the District says LeFande’s suit does not address a

matter of public concern because its allegations relate to a mere

“personnel matter.” But we reject the proposition that a

personnel matter per se cannot be a matter of public concern,

even if it may seriously affect the public welfare. For instance,

were the Chief of Police to assert the power to fire, without

process, all MPD officers, paid and unpaid, that action would

“be fairly considered as relating to [a] matter of political, social,

or other concern to the community,” Connick, 461 U.S. at 146,

although it relates to a “personnel matter.” And, while this case

may present a closer question, we conclude that LeFande’s

speech—alleging the Chief of Police violated District law and

the Constitution by significantly altering the framework by

which the Reserve Corps was governed, relying in part on an

emergency procedure when there was no emergency—also

implicates a “matter of political, social, or other concern to the

community.” Id.; see Hall, 856 F.2d at 259. It exceeds

“individual personnel disputes and grievances” and involves

“issues about which information is needed or appropriate to

enable the members of society to make informed decisions about

the operation of their government.” Hall, 856 F.2d at 259

(quoting McKinley, 705 F.2d at 1114) (internal quotations and

citations omitted). In short, it relates to a matter of public

concern. See id.; see also Jason Cherkis, Anger in Reserve,

Washington City Paper, Jul. 19, 2006, available at

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/

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2006/07/19/anger-in-reserve (elimination of Reserve Corps

members’ job security led them to “cut back on volunteering,”

which “hit hard on July 4, when the department fielded only a

fraction of its reserve phalanx”).5

In so holding, we get support from our sister circuits. See

Lindsey v. City of Orrick, Mo., 491 F.3d 892, 896, 899 (8th Cir.

2007) (whether city council “pass[ed] city ordinances without

public discussion” in violation of local law was “clearly” matter

of public concern); Dishnow v. Sch. Dist. of Rib Lake, 77 F.3d

194, 197 (7th Cir. 1996) (school board’s violation of a state law

requiring meetings be open to the public was matter of public

concern); Zamboni v. Stamler, 847 F.2d 73, 74, 77-78 (3d Cir.

1988) (county prosecutor’s “reorganization plan” entailing

“changes in certain personnel policies and procedures” was

matter of public concern). And, while LeFande’s allegations

probably did not lead any editor to shout “Stop the presses!” (or

even “Update the website!”), when the Supreme Court held

speech on matters of public concern to be protected, “they did

5

The District “assumes” the First Amendment protects LeFande’s

speech even though he is an unpaid volunteer. Appellee’s Br. 7 n.1.

We do too. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 144 (First Amendment rights

may not “be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon

a benefit or privilege”); Hyland v. Wonder, 972 F.2d 1129, 1136 (9th

Cir. 1992) (“[V]olunteer status . . . is a valuable governmental benefit

or privilege that may not be denied on the basis of constitutionally

protected speech.”) (citing Janusaitis v. Middlebury Volunteer Fire

Dep’t, 607 F.2d 17 (2d Cir. 1979)). The District argues, however, that

“[i]t is doubtful whether Mr. LeFande was even exercising his First

Amendment rights in representing a client in a lawsuit.” Appellee’s

Br. 8. This argument ignores that fact that LeFande’s “proposed

Plaintiff Class consist[ed] of all MPD Reserve Officers,” of which he

was one. Compl. ¶ 11, MPD Reserve Officers v. Ramsey, C.A. No.

06-1223 (D.D.C. July 6, 2006). He was not, therefore, simply

“representing a client;” he was speaking for himself as well and he

“had a personal First Amendment right at stake.” Appellee’s Br. 8.

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not mean matters of transcendent importance, such as the origins

of the universe or the merits of constitutional monarchy; they

meant matters in which the public might be interested, as

distinct from wholly personal grievances . . . and casual

chit-chat.” Dishnow, 77 F.3d at 197. LeFande’s speech was

more than a personal grievance; it was a challenge to the

implementation, without notice, of the framework by which the

Reserve Corps was to be governed.

To be sure, as LeFande admits, the context of his speech

affects him privately. See Appellant’s Br. 10-11, 27. In seeking

to preserve procedural and collective bargaining rights, he was

also working to secure his own position. As we explained in

O’Donnell, however, “the presence of a personal motivation for

an employee’s speech, although certainly a factor in the

public-concern analysis, need not destroy the character of a

communication as one of public concern. . . . Indeed, it may be

that those employees who are dissatisfied with their workplaces

are precisely those who are likeliest to notice malfeasance, and

be willing to speak up about it.” 148 F.3d at 1134 (internal

citation omitted). Here, as in O’Donnell, notwithstanding the

employee’s private motive, his speech nonetheless implicated a

matter of public concern and thus warranted protection under the

First Amendment.6

***

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s

dismissal of LeFande’s complaint and remand for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered.

6

We express no opinion regarding LeFande’s ability to satisfy the

remaining three elements of his retaliation claim, see Wilburn, 480

F.3d at 1149, as the district court has yet to reach them.

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