Opinion ID: 4560855
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Amendment Retaliation: An Overview

Text: Fledderjohann has alleged only one claim: a First Amendment retaliation claim. “[T]he First Amendment protects a public employee’s right, in certain circumstances, to speak as a citizen addressing matters of public concern,” Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 417 (2006), and “a state cannot condition public employment on a basis that infringes the employee’s constitutionally protected interest in freedom of expression,” Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 142 (1983). To establish a First Amendment-retaliation claim, the plaintiff must demonstrate: -6- Case No. 20-3021, Fledderjohann v. Celina City Sch. Bd. of Educ. (1) he engaged in constitutionally protected speech or conduct; (2) an adverse action was taken against him that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct; [and] (3) there is a causal connection between elements one and two—that is, the adverse action was motivated at least in part by his protected conduct. Gillis v. Miller, 845 F.3d 677, 683 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Dye v. Off. of the Racing Comm’n, 702 F.3d 286, 294 (6th Cir. 2012)). The question of whether the plaintiff engaged in constitutionally protected speech itself requires an analysis of three factors: First, the employee must speak on “matters of public concern.” Second, the employee must speak as a private citizen and not as an employee pursuant to his official duties. Third, the employee must show that his speech interest outweighs “the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Mayhew v. Town of Smyrna, 856 F.3d 456, 462 (6th Cir. 2017) (citations omitted) (quoting EvansMarshall v. Bd. of Educ., 624 F.3d 332, 337–38 (6th Cir. 2010)). The determination of whether an employee has engaged in protected speech is one of law. Id. at 464. The parties primarily dispute whether Fledderjohann’s correspondences with ODE were protected speech and, more specifically, whether he spoke as a public employee or a private citizen. “[W]hen 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.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421. In Garcetti, the plaintiff (Ceballos) was employed as a calendar deputy for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. A defense attorney had asked Ceballos, as part of his duties, to review possible inconsistencies in an affidavit that had been used as the basis for a search warrant. Ceballos investigated, and wrote a memo to his supervisor detailing his view that the affidavit contained inaccurate information and that it was exculpatory for the defense. Id. at 414. Despite Ceballos’s objections, the District Attorney’s office continued to prosecute the case. Ibid. Ceballos claimed -7- Case No. 20-3021, Fledderjohann v. Celina City Sch. Bd. of Educ. that in the aftermath of this incident, he was reassigned to a different position, transferred to a different courthouse, and denied a promotion. Id. at 415. Ceballos advanced a First Amendment retaliation claim—alleging that he was retaliated against for writing a memo that expressed dissenting views—but the Supreme Court held that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment because Ceballos did not speak as a private citizen. Id. at 422. The “controlling factor” was that Ceballos’s memo was written “pursuant to his duties as a calendar deputy,” and “[r]estricting 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 reflects the exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created.” Id. at 421–22. The Supreme Court refined its holding from Garcetti in Lane v. Franks, ruling 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.” 573 U.S. 228, 240 (2014) (emphasis added). “Garcetti said nothing about speech that simply relates to public employment or concerns information learned in the course of public employment.” Id. at 239. The employeeplaintiff in Lane was subpoenaed to testify at a public-corruption trial on information he had learned as a state employee, and he was fired a few months after the trial concluded. Id. at 235. Because the employee did not testify “pursuant to [his] ‘official responsibilities’” and the testimony merely “concern[ed] information learned during [his] employment,” the Court held that he spoke as a private citizen. Id. at 238–39. Thus, determining whether Fledderjohann’s statements to ODE were made as an employee or as a citizen requires us to evaluate whether they were made pursuant to his job duties or whether they merely relayed information he learned while on the job in a way that did not affect his duties. -8- Case No. 20-3021, Fledderjohann v. Celina City Sch. Bd. of Educ. Relevant factors include: “the impetus for [the] speech, the setting of [the] speech, the speech’s audience, and its general subject matter.” Weisbarth v. Geauga Park Dist., 499 F.3d 538, 546 (6th Cir. 2007). Other factors include: whether the speech was an explicit or implied part of an employee’s job description, see id. at 544 (noting how “ad hoc or de facto duties can fall within the scope of an employee’s official responsibilities despite not appearing in any written job description”); and the motivations behind the speech, compare Holbrook v. Dumas, 658 F. App’x 280, 288 (6th Cir. 2016) (holding that the plaintiff spoke as an employee because he was motivated by “employees’ right to know about [a] threat to their continued employment” rather than “a citizen’s concern about mismanagement in Village government”) with Stinebaugh v. City of Wapakoneta, 630 F. App’x 522, 527–28 (6th Cir. 2015) (holding that plaintiff spoke as a citizen because “the impetus for Stinebaugh’s speech was to voice his opinion about how the City allocated its resources,” that he “was off duty, out of uniform and out of the office” when he spoke, and that he “never identified himself as a public employee”).