Opinion ID: 670636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Walters' claim against Conley

Text: 19 The only claim pursued against Richard Conley, the Merit System Director, is a claim that Conley violated Terry M. Walters' liberty right to seek a voluntary demotion (Appellees' Brief at 12) by impermissibly conditioning Walters' acceptance of a demotion on Walters' waiver of any right to sue the defendants in connection with his termination. Walters contends that, pursuant to Ordinances 20-123 and 20-127 of the DeKalb County Code, 4 he sent a letter saying he would accept a demotion (R-2-13, Walters affidavit), although the letter is not in the record, but he wanted to retain all rights of appeal of any kind; either in the Department, the County, and the Georgia and Federal Courts. (Appellees' Brief at 13). Conley responded to Walters' letter by advising him that [u]sing the statement 'will accept' is not acceptable nomenclature to have a voluntary demotion personnel action effected as such implies that the employees in some way have been required to accept demotion. (Appellees' Brief at 13). 20 The county ordinances relied upon by Walters require an employee to request a demotion and permit, rather than mandate, the head of a department to grant such a request. Walters acceptance of a demotion while essentially threatening to sue defendants in connection with the very circumstances which led to such demotion does not constitute by any stretch of the imagination a request for a demotion. Consequently, Conley has violated no clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known with respect to Walters and is thus entitled to qualified immunity. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Post, 7 F.3d at 1556. The district court erred in failing to grant summary judgment in favor of Conley.