Opinion ID: 799475
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Speaker Status

Text: Next, we consider whether Karl's deposition testimony was given in her capacity as a private citizen or pursuant to her official job duties, which is a mixed question of law and fact. Posey v. Lake Pend Oreille Sch. Dist. No. 84, 546 F.3d 1121, 1129 (9th Cir.2008). The scope and content of a plaintiff's job responsibilities is a question of fact over which we lack jurisdiction, while the ultimate constitutional significance of the [undisputed] facts is a question of law. Id.; see Eng, 552 F.3d at 1071. Here, Karl testified that her duties did not include reporting police misconduct, nor did they include reporting or testifying about the City's internal investigation processes. We lack jurisdiction to review the district court's finding of a genuine issue of material fact regarding the scope of Karl's duties. Instead, we assume resolution of this dispute in Karl's favor, and confine our review only to the district court's conclusion, as a matter of law, that Karl was speaking as a private citizen during her deposition in the Wender litigation, and not as a government employee. [4] See Robinson, 566 F.3d at 824. A public employee's speech is not protected by the First Amendment when it is made pursuant to the employee's official job responsibilities. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 426, 126 S.Ct. 1951. The Supreme Court has explained that work product which owes its existence to a public employee's professional responsibilities is not protected by the First Amendment because an employer may exercise . . . control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created. Id. at 421-22, 126 S.Ct. 1951; see Eng, 552 F.3d at 1075. [I]f the public employee was paid for the speeche.g., drafting a memorandum, creating a report, advising a supervisorthen that compensation might be indicative of the nature of the speech. Huppert, 574 F.3d at 704. Conversely, a public employee's speech on a matter of public concern is protected if the speaker `had no official duty' to make the questioned statements,. . . or if the speech was not the product of `perform[ing] the tasks [the employee] was paid to perform.' Posey, 546 F.3d at 1127 n. 2 (some internal quotation marks omitted; alterations added in Posey ) (quoting, respectively, Marable v. Nitchman, 511 F.3d 924, 932-33 (9th Cir.2007), and Freitag v. Ayers, 468 F.3d 528, 544 (9th Cir. 2006)). Caw suggests two reasons why he thinks Karl's testimony owes its existence to her job: (1) her relevant knowledge was acquired by virtue of her position as the Confidential Administrative Assistant to the Chief of Police, and (2) she was paid her regular salary during her deposition. Both of these arguments miss the mark. While Karl's knowledge about certain work-related matters may owe its existence to her job as a confidential assistant, her testimony in the Wender litigation does not. That Karl was subpoenaed to testify on matters related to her employment is not dispositive. The Supreme Court has reiterated that [t]he First Amendment protects some expressions related to the speaker's job. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421, 126 S.Ct. 1951; see also Clairmont, 632 F.3d at 1105. Furthermore, though her employer may have paid her regular salary while she was being deposed, Karl's testimony in the Wender litigation was the product of a subpoena and cannot fairly be characterized as commissioned or created by the City. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 422, 126 S.Ct. 1951. The district court did not err in determining that Karl spoke as a private citizen in the Wender litigation and not pursuant to her official job duties. See Clairmont, 632 F.3d at 1105 (holding, on similar facts, that the evidence supported a finding that the plaintiff's subpoenaed testimony was spoken as a private citizen).