Opinion ID: 2797838
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the dispute and the federal litigation

Text: Nixon was a Denver police officer. He was involved in two high-profile incidents in which claims of excessive force generated substantial negative publicity for the Denver Police Department: a traffic stop of Alex Landau in January 2009 and an incident outside the Denver Diner restaurant later that year. Nixon was cleared of wrongdoing in the first incident but on April 11, 2011, Defendant Charles Garcia, the Denver Manager of Safety at the time, ordered Nixon’s suspension for 30 days for use of excessive force at the restaurant and ordered his termination for not telling the truth about the incident. A panel of the Denver Civil Service Commission reversed the termination, and the full Commission affirmed the panel decision, but the Colorado Court of Appeals ultimately remanded the matter to the Commission for further proceedings. See Nixon v. City & Cnty. of Denver, No. 13CA2059, 2014 WL 7201703, at  (Colo. App. Dec. 18, 2014). While the Commission decision was being challenged in court by the City and County of Denver (the City), Nixon filed suit against Garcia, the City, and others under 2 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The court dismissed all the claims. On appeal Nixon challenges the dismissal of only two. One is the claim that Garcia and the City violated his rights under the First Amendment by proceeding against him in retaliation for his protected speech. The other is a dueprocess claim alleging that he was entitled to procedural due process because his reputation as a police officer was a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. II. THE GOVERNING LAW AND THE DISTRICT COURT’S DECISION “The familiar Garcetti/Pickering analysis governs First Amendment retaliation claims.” Trant v. Oklahoma, 754 F.3d 1158, 1165 (10th Cir. 2014) (footnote omitted); see Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006); Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, (1968). This analysis has five elements: (1) whether the speech was made pursuant to an employee’s official duties; (2) whether the speech was on a matter of public concern; (3) whether the government’s interests, as employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public service are sufficient to outweigh the plaintiff’s free speech interests; (4) whether the protected speech was a motivating factor in the adverse employment action; and (5) whether the defendant would have reached the same employment decision in the absence of the protected conduct. Trant, 754 F.3d at 1165 (internal quotation marks omitted). Speech is on a matter of public concern if it involves a matter of interest to the community. See Brammer-Hoelter v. Twin Peaks Charter Acad., 492 F.3d 1192, 1205 (10th Cir. 2007). “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 v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147–48 (1983) (footnote omitted). We consider “the 3 motive of the speaker and whether the speech is calculated to disclose misconduct or merely deals with personal disputes and grievances unrelated to the public’s interest.” Brammer-Hoelter, 492 F.3d at 1205 (internal quotation marks omitted). In particular, speech that exposes official impropriety generally involves matters of public concern, while “speech that simply airs grievances of a purely personal nature typically does not.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “It is not sufficient that the topic of the speech be of general interest to the public; in addition, what is actually said must meet the public concern threshold.” Burns v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 330 F.3d 1275, 1286 (10th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). A claim that the government has violated the Due Process Clause by impugning a plaintiff’s reputation (a “stigma-plus” claim) requires “(1) governmental defamation and (2) an alteration in legal status.” Guttman v. Khalsa, 669 F.3d 1101, 1125 (10th Cir. 2012); Gwinn v. Awmiller, 354 F.3d 1211, 1216 (10th Cir. 2004). “When these two elements are present, the government may have violated a liberty interest that triggers a procedural due process protection.” Guttman, 669 F.3d at 1125 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). An employee’s liberty interest may be infringed if his government employer falsely impugns his good name or integrity in the course of terminating him. See id. at 1125–26. Once infringement of a liberty interest is established, the employee must show that he was not afforded an adequate name-clearing hearing that comports with the Due Process Clause. See McDonald v. Wise, 769 F.3d 1202, 1213 (10th Cir. 2014). 4 The district court dismissed Nixon’s First Amendment and due-process claims for failure to state a claim for relief. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), First, the court ruled that Nixon’s testimony before the Civil Service Commission in 2013 regarding a proposed rule change was on a matter of public concern but that it could not have been a motivating factor in Garcia’s termination decision in 2011. Second, the court determined that the other statements of Nixon (and his supporters in his defense) concerning his termination and related administrative proceedings were not on a matter of public concern. Finally, regarding the due-process claim, the court held that there was no support for any contention that the process Nixon received in the termination proceedings was constitutionally inadequate. “We review a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de novo.” Thomas v. Kaven, 765 F.3d 1183, 1190 (10th Cir. 2014). We “accept all the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint as true and . . . construe them in the light most favorable to [Nixon].” Id. “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).