Source: https://openjurist.org/28/f3d/646
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:48:42+00:00

Document:
Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 15, 1994.
Richard J. Brzeczek, Brzeczek & Associates, Chicago, IL (argued), for plaintiff-appellee.
Lawrence Rosenthal, Deputy Corp. Counsel (argued), Frederick S. Rhine, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Terence J. Moran, Benna R. Solomon, Susan S. Sher, Office of Corp. Counsel, Chicago, IL, for defendants-appellants.
Before CUMMINGS, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge.
John S. Smith, a Chicago police detective, brought suit against his superiors in the police department contending that they had given him a sham surveillance assignment as a punishment for voicing his concerns about smoking in his workplace. The appellants moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion, reasoning that it should have been clear to the appellants that Detective Smith's complaints constituted protected speech on a matter of public concern, for which he could not be penalized. Because we conclude based on the undisputed facts that Detective Smith's complaints were in the nature of personal grievances rather than speech on a matter of public concern, we reverse.
At all times relevant to this action, Detective Smith was assigned to the Violent Crimes Section of the Chicago Police Department, Area 5. Commander James Fruin headed the Area 5 Detective Division until his retirement from the police force on July 9, 1991. Robert Biebel and Stephen Kuhn are both sergeants who supervised Detective Smith and other detectives in the Area 5 Violent Crimes Section during the relevant time frame. Sergeant William Murray has supervised case management for detectives assigned to the Violent Crimes Section of Area 5 since 1986.
In 1988, the Chicago City Council enacted the Clean Indoor Air Ordinance, declaring, "It is the purpose of this section and the policy of the city to provide smoke-free areas in enclosed public places and to regulate smoking in places of employment." Chicago Municipal Code Sec. 7-32-030. The ordinance further provided that "[n]o employer shall ... in any manner retaliate against any employee ... because such employee ... exercises any rights afforded by this section." Chicago Municipal Code Sec. 7-32-060(d). The Superintendent of Police subsequently issued Special Order 88-18, which instructed all employees of the police department to honor and enforce the provisions of the ordinance, directed supervisory personnel to establish smoke-free areas for non-smoking employees, and forbade retaliation against any department employee who exercised his or her rights under the ordinance.
Q. When you complained to Fruin about the smoking, did you complain only on your own behalf?
A. I don't speak for anyone else other than myself.
Q. --that the smoke bothered you in particular?
A. I don't implicate anyone else, just me.
On April 24, 1991, Smith contacted the City Health Department. Smith apprised Stuart Sikes, an assistant to a Deputy Health Commissioner, that there was "too much smoke for him" at Area 5 Headquarters. Smith called Sikes once again a month later, reporting that "he was still being disturbed by cigarette smoke." In each instance, Smith described the problem only in terms of what he experienced personally; he did not report any incidents involving other non-smokers nor did he purport to speak on anyone's behalf but his own.
On June 12, 1991, Smith made a similar call to Lieutenant John Klein, Commanding Officer of the police department's Office of Legal Affairs. Again his complaint was framed in personal terms. Klein promptly initiated an inquiry into Smith's concerns, which culminated in the Chief of Detectives contacting Commander Fruin that same day.
Those who follow the news probably have noticed that on any given day in Chicago, especially when the weather is hot, people are shooting, stabbing and bopping each other. They are grabbing purses, wallets, rings, chains, watches, emptying cash registers, crawling through open windows, jumping out of gangways, doorways and bushes.
When you toss in the wife-beaters, the saloon brawlers, the flashers and peeping Toms, the drunken drivers, the teenage vandals and the assorted nuts and zanies, there isn't nearly enough police manpower to handle the mayhem and madness.
And here we have a cop with 20 years' experience, 14 as a detective, spending his workday jotting down the license numbers of black motorists who happen to be driving north on Austin Avenue.
Detective Smith has talked to attorney Richard Brzeczek, formerly police superintendent, and they might go into court next week and slap the department with a lawsuit. If they don't, some bungalow owner should, on the grounds that this is one hell of a way to spend his real-estate taxes.
In the meantime, I suggest that Police Supt. LeRoy Martin ask Detective Smith's commander to explain the purpose of Detective Smith's goofy assignment.
And if he doesn't get a suitable explanation, Supt. Martin should provide that commander with an environment that is not only smoke-free, but authority-free.
Id. Several days after the article appeared, Smith was removed from the surveillance assignment. Smith was subsequently disciplined for publicly criticizing his commanding officer without first pursuing the matter internally and for revealing to the public the details of an ongoing undercover operation; the propriety of this measure is not at issue here. No one was assigned to replace Smith on Austin Avenue, purportedly because the publicity had compromised the surveillance effort.
The district court's denial of qualified immunity to the appellants is, to the extent it turns on a question of law, a final decision over which we have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. Marshall v. Allen, 984 F.2d 787, 789 (7th Cir.1993) (citing Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)).
As we explained in Marshall, "[t]he defense of qualified immunity shields government officials performing discretionary functions 'from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' " 984 F.2d at 791 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). Thus, "[e]ssentially, qualified immunity is a defense 'contingent on the state of the law.' " Id. at 792 (quoting Elliott v. Thomas, 937 F.2d 338, 341 (7th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1242, 117 L.Ed.2d 475 (1992)). When the law is settled on a particular point, public employees are expected to conform their conduct accordingly, and they may be held liable when they do not. On the other hand, they "need not predict [the law's] evolution, need not know that in the fight between broad and narrow readings of a precedent the broad reading will become ascendant." Greenberg v. Kmetko, 922 F.2d 382, 385 (7th Cir.1991). Accordingly, "[i]f it were not clearly established that their conduct violated the law at the time the officials allegedly acted, then they are entitled to qualified immunity." Marshall, 984 F.2d at 792 (citing Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 231-32, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 1793, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991)); Glass v. Dachel, 2 F.3d 733, 740 (7th Cir.1993).
The precise question before us, then, is whether in July 1991 it was sufficiently clear that Detective Smith's complaints about smoking in the workplace fell within the protective scope of the First Amendment. That is a question of law that we examine de novo. Glass, 2 F.3d at 740. Marshall, 984 F.2d at 793. Of course, as this case comes to us at the summary judgment stage, we interpret the record in a light most favorable to Detective Smith, the non-movant. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).
To be protected, the speech must be on a matter of public concern, and the employee's interest in expressing herself on this matter must not be outweighed by any injury the speech could cause to " 'the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.' " Connick, supra, [461 U.S.] at 142 [103 S.Ct. at 1687] (quoting Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist., 391 U.S. 563, 568 [88 S.Ct. 1731, 1735, 20 L.Ed.2d 811] (1968)). It is also agreed that it is the Court's task to apply the Connick test to the facts. 461 U.S., at 148, n. 7, and 150, n. 10 [103 S.Ct. at 1690, n. 7, and 1692, n. 10].
Waters v. Churchill, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 1878, 1884-85, 128 L.Ed.2d 686 (1994).7 Our analysis in this case is focused on the first prong of the Connick- Pickering test, that is, whether Detective Smith's speech addressed "a matter of public concern." See Gray v. Lacke, 885 F.2d 399, 410 (7th Cir.1989); Vukadinovich v. Bartels, 853 F.2d 1387, 1390 & n. 5 (7th Cir.1988). We make that determination based on "the content, form, and context of a given statement as revealed by the whole record." Connick, 461 U.S. at 147-48, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. Content is the most important of these factors. Yoggerst v. Hedges, 739 F.2d 293, 296 (7th Cir.1984). Yet, as we have emphasized time and again, our inquiry must also take into account "the point of the speech in question: was it the employee's point to bring wrongdoing to light? Or to raise other issues of public concern, because they are of public concern? Or was the point to further some purely private interest?" Linhart v. Glatfelter, 771 F.2d 1004, 1010 (7th Cir.1985); see also, e.g., Marshall, 984 F.2d at 795; Colburn v. Trustees of Indiana Univ., 973 F.2d 581, 585-86 (7th Cir.1992); Barkoo v. Melby, 901 F.2d 613, 618 (7th Cir.1990); Gray, 885 F.2d at 411; Vukadinovich, 853 F.2d at 1389-91; Hesse v. Board of Education of Township High School Dist. No. 211, 848 F.2d 748, 752 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1015, 109 S.Ct. 1128, 103 L.Ed.2d 190 (1989); Callaway v. Hafeman, 832 F.2d 414, 417 (7th Cir.1987); but see Belk v. Town of Minocqua, 858 F.2d 1258, 1263-64 (7th Cir.1988) (if content of speech is of public concern, employee's personal motivation to speak does not defeat finding that speech is protected).
In this case, the district court thought it beyond dispute that "the inhalation of second-hand smoke is a matter of public concern." 819 F.Supp. at 734; see also June 29, 1993 Mem.Op. and Order at 2. As the court pointed out, the City's enactment of the Clean Indoor Air Ordinance three years before Smith began to air his concerns established the public's interest in this subject. Id. at 3-4. And because it was clear long before July of 1991 that public employees enjoyed First Amendment protection for speech on matters of public concern, the court reasoned, the defendants could not reasonably have claimed any doubt about the state of the law vis a vis Smith's complaints. Id. at 4-5. The error we detect in the district court's reasoning lies in its premise: that because the subject of Detective Smith's complaints was one of public interest generally, his statements about that subject were necessarily speech on a matter of public concern. As we explain below, we find as a matter of law that Smith's speech did not fall into this category. Consequently, we need not proceed further with the qualified immunity analysis; for only if Smith's remarks were speech on a matter of public concern would we have to inquire whether Smith's superiors reasonably should have understood them to be protected.
We have no doubt that the issue of second-hand smoke was a matter of widespread public interest in July of 1991; it certainly remains the subject of considerable public debate today. But the fact that an employee speaks up on a topic that may be deemed one of public import does not automatically render his remarks on that subject protected. Hartman v. Board of Trustees of Community College District 508, 4 F.3d 465, 471 (7th Cir.1993). The content and form of the employee's remarks, along with the underlying circumstances, including the employee's reasons for speaking, remain essential to this determination. See Colburn, 973 F.2d at 587; Barkoo, 901 F.2d at 618-19; Egger v. Phillips, 710 F.2d 292, 317 (7th Cir.1983) (en banc).
Our review of the record as a whole convinces us that Smith's complaints were entirely personal in nature. We use the word "personal" in two senses: on his own behalf and in his own interest. As the content of Smith's remarks makes clear, each time he raised the smoking issue, he spoke solely in terms of his own sensitivity to smoke and the difficulty he had experienced with smokers at Area 5 headquarters. He did not cite any difficulties experienced by other non-smokers, nor did he purport to speak on behalf of anyone but himself. See Colburn, 973 F.2d at 587. The relief he requested was likewise individual; he simply wanted a work environment in which he would not be exposed to second-hand smoke. Smith himself summed it up succinctly when asked at his deposition why he had raised the matter with his superiors and with the Health Department: "I'm a non-smoker and I'm a runner, and I don't appreciate having to inhale other people's carcinogens."
Because Smith's complaints were both motivated by and framed in terms of his own interests, they did not constitute speech on a matter of public concern. The public, we agree, had a significant interest in workplace smoking, as evidenced by the Chicago City Council's effort to guarantee non-smoking workers protection from second-hand smoke. Yet, we cannot say that Smith's remarks were of intrinsically greater concern to the public than complaints concerning sexual harassment (Gray, 885 F.2d at 411; Callaway, 832 F.2d at 417), public education ( see Vukadinovich, 853 F.2d at 1390-91; Hesse, 848 F.2d at 751-52), the appointment of a new police chief ( Linhart, 771 F.2d at 1010-11), or the alleged requests of a city official for assistance in procuring sexual favors from other city employees ( see Hartman, 4 F.3d at 471-72). We have found remarks on each of those topics not to constitute speech on a matter of public concern where, as here, they were made for purely personal reasons rather than a desire to air the merits of the issue. Thus, although the content of some remarks may lift the speech to the level of public concern even if the employee's reasons for speaking out are entirely self-interested, see Glass, 2 F.3d at 741; Belk, 858 F.2d at 1263-64, we do not think that the speech at issue here, focused as it was on the difficulties the speaker himself had experienced as a non-smoker, can be placed in this category. See Barkoo, 901 F.2d at 620.
At his deposition, when asked if there was any other reason why he had pursued the smoking issue, Smith did add: "It's the law" and "I'm paid to enforce the law. We're not to break it." This testimony could be read to reflect a concern with the integrity of the police department independent of Smith's own interests as a non-smoker. But given the plainly individual focus of Smith's complaints, this single remark offered after-the-fact in the midst of litigation does not, in our view, transform the character of Smith's speech. See Limes-Miller v. City of Chicago, 773 F.Supp. 1130, 1142-43 & n. 17 (N.D.Ill.1991). At the same time, although citizens no doubt have an interest in how their government conducts its business, "[t]o presume that all matters which transpire within a government office are of public concern would mean that virtually every remark--and certainly every criticism directed at a public official--would plant the seed of a constitutional case." Connick, 461 U.S. at 149, 103 S.Ct. at 1691. Thus, remarks that are otherwise personal in nature do not take on a public import due simply to the "supposed popular interest in the way public institutions are run." Ferrara v. Mills, 781 F.2d 1508, 1516 (11th Cir.1986) (quoted with approval in Hesse, 848 F.2d at 752, and Vukadinovich, 853 F.2d at 1391); see also Barkoo, 901 F.2d at 618.
We agree with the suggestion of Detective Smith's counsel at oral argument that a public employee ought not have to "form an organization" before her remarks will be deemed speech on a matter of public concern. Nor should she be required to call a press conference. Barkoo, 901 F.2d at 619. If a public employee speaks as a citizen on a matter of public concern, her speech is entitled to First Amendment protection whether she speaks as a lone individual or as the representative of many others, and whether she does so discreetly with her co-workers or in a more public fashion. See Gray, 885 F.2d at 411 ("the private nature of a statement does not 'vitiate the status of the statement as addressing a matter of public concern' ") (quoting Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 386-87 n. 11, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 2898 n. 11, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987)); Barkoo, 901 F.2d at 619. And we do not mean to suggest that merely because the employee has a personal interest in the subject of her remarks, they do not constitute speech on a matter of public concern. As we observed in Colburn, "[m]any public employees who speak out about conduct within their places of employment have some interest in the institution of change, and this by itself would not prevent their speech from being constitutionally protected." 973 F.2d at 587 (citing Breuer v. Hart, 909 F.2d 1035, 1039 (7th Cir.1990)); see also Glass, 2 F.3d at 741. But where, as here, the speech and the underlying circumstances on the whole indicate that the employee was speaking as an individual employee pursuing personal interests, we are compelled to conclude as a matter of law that his speech was not protected by the First Amendment as speech on a matter of public concern. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147, 103 S.Ct. at 1690.
We must also stress that we do not sit in review of the merits of Smith's complaints or the wisdom of the actions the police department allegedly took in response to those complaints. These are matters beyond our purview, once we have concluded that Smith's remarks did not constitute protected speech. Connick, 461 U.S. at 146-47, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. It may be, as the district court suggested, that Smith's superiors conducted themselves in a deplorable fashion. See June 29, 1993 Mem.Op. and Order at 1; 819 F.Supp. at 734. If so, Smith's remedies, if any, lie in the Chicago Clean Indoor Air Ordinance and the internal grievance procedures available to municipal employees.10 Smith's only claim to federal jurisdiction rests on the First Amendment. Having concluded that Smith's complaints did not constitute speech on a matter of public concern, our intervention is at an end.
Because Smith spoke solely on his own behalf and in his own interest in voicing his concerns about second-hand smoke within the Chicago Police Department, his speech was not protected by the First Amendment as speech on a matter of public concern. The defendants were therefore entitled to judgment in their favor on this ground; the district court need not have reached the question of qualified immunity.
We should also point out that although the nature of the retaliation Smith has alleged may to some seem mild relative to the kinds of retaliation (e.g. demotion or discharge) frequently alleged in other cases, the degree of retaliation is immaterial to the issue we address. As we have recognized, even minor forms of retaliation can support a First Amendment claim, for they may have just as much of a chilling effect on speech as more drastic measures. See Glass v. Dachel, 2 F.3d 733, 741 (7th Cir.1993).
"[T]he purpose of the 'public concern' requirement is to distinguish grievances of an entirely personal character from statements of broader interest concerning one's job, rather than to fix the boundaries of the First Amendment." Swank v. Smart, 898 F.2d 1247, 1251 (7th Cir.1990), paraphrasing Flanagan v. Munger, 890 F.2d 1557, 1563-65 (10th Cir.1989). The greater the potential social, as distinct from purely private, significance of the employee's speech, the less likely is the employer to be justified in seeking to punish or suppress it.
Eberhardt v. O'Malley, 17 F.3d 1023, 1026 (7th Cir.1994).

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