Opinion ID: 522904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendants Must Show Why They Did What They Did.

Text: 39 Accepting that Price's communications with the Justice Department and any other outside authorities were protected speech, the question now becomes whether the defendants can prove that these communications were not the predicate for their decision to terminate Price. Our review of the record indicates that they were not. 40 Brittain contends that he did not hear of Price's communications with outside authorities until his meeting with Price on the day he suspended him. Moreover, Brittain maintains that during his investigation of Price's allegations he was unable to confirm the existence of these communications. The record partially supports that testimony in that it contains a letter from the Justice Department disavowing any communications with a Pat Price in connection with the litigation against the facility. 8 41 Price could provide no proof that Brittain and Henderson were made aware of his outside communications. His only argument at trial was that Brittain and Henderson should have known by virtue of the fact that Price had informed Abad and Goodman about his outside communications. However, as Price's attorney astutely observed in oral argument before this court, Brittain had every reason to believe that Price's claims were not fictitious, since earlier Price in fact had contacted state authorities concerning the Talarsky incident. The issue thus becomes one of assessing the credibility of Brittain with respect to his knowledge of Price's outside communications and the weight he gave to those communications at the time he determined that Price should be terminated. 42 Although Rankin instructs us to engage in our own review of the record, we recognize that this review cannot be completely de novo when, as here, the record alone does not fully answer the question whether the plaintiff would have been terminated despite his protected-speech activities. As we have often emphasized in other contexts, an appellate tribunal's scrutiny of the record cannot replace the district court's personal experience with the witnesses. 9 Here, we cannot escape the fact that in this case, the district court's credibility determinations were crucial. 10 The district court chose to credit Brittain's testimony that he had not been aware of Price's outside reports to the Justice Department and the F.B.I. when it found that Brittain terminated Price primarily for the internal disruptions he had caused. 11 43 The district court's credibility determination becomes persuasive in light of the fact that at the time Brittain terminated Price, Brittain had been assured by the Justice Department that they had had no communications with Pat Price. Hence, we hold with the district court that even if Price's outside reporting of the Talarsky incident was the substantial or motivating factor in his termination, he nevertheless would have been terminated because of his disruptive influences within the facility. 44