Opinion ID: 1248286
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Eng May Assert a Claim for his Attorney's Speech

Text: Before addressing whether Eng has demonstrated that the Defendants violated his constitutional rights, we must first decide as a threshold matter whether he has a first person interest, or third-party standing to vindicate Geragos's interest, in Geragos's interview with the Los Angeles Times. Both the parties and the district court frame this question as one of third-party standing. The Defendants argue that Eng cannot pursue a vicarious First Amendment retaliation claim for statements made by Geragos because Eng has not demonstrated that Geragos was hindered from protecting his own interests. Eng counters that because Geragos was not himself injured, his ability to protect his own First Amendment interests was indeed hindered because he has no standing to bring his own lawsuit. The district court agreed, concluding that Eng should be granted third-party standing to assert a claim based, in part, upon the violation of his attorney's right to free speech. We lack jurisdiction, however, to consider whether Eng may assert third-party standing to vindicate Geragos's First Amendment interests. Our interlocutory review of the denial of qualified immunity in this case is limited to the narrow question whether the allegations indicate the Defendants violated Eng's clearly established constitutional rights. The question of standing, however, is relevant only to whether Eng may ultimately recover for the alleged violation and is collateral to the inquiry whether the violation has been sufficiently plead. See, e.g., Davis v. Federal Election Comm'n, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2759, 2769, 171 L.Ed.2d 737 (2008) (standing is relevant only to whether the party invoking jurisdiction had the requisite stake in the out-come when the suit was filed, not to the merits of the underlying claim). Qualified immunity, the Supreme Court has explained, focuses on the objective legal reasonableness of an official's acts,  Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (emphasis added), and not on whether the plaintiff may or may not recover for the alleged illegalities. We therefore agree with the Seventh Circuit that the appropriate focus in a qualified immunity analysis is the legality of the conduct of the public official, not ... his liability to the ultimate plaintiff. Triad Associates, Inc. v. Robinson, 10 F.3d 492, 499 (7th Cir.1993). According to the policies underlying qualified immunity, `[w]here an official could be expected to know that certain conduct would violate statutory or constitutional rights, he should be made to hesitate,' regardless whether `the person who suffers injury caused by such conduct may have a cause of action.' Id. at 500 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 821, 102 S.Ct. 2727). Whether Eng has standing to assert Geragos's own First Amendment interests is therefore not before us. [2] In any event, we do not believe Eng need raise a third-party standing claim because we hold that Geragos and Eng each have a first person constitutional interest in Geragos's speech. It is well settled that when a lawyer speaks on behalf of a client, the lawyer's right to speak is almost always grounded in the rights of the client, rather than any independent rights of the attorney. Mezibov v. Allen, 411 F.3d 712, 718, 720 (6th Cir.2005) (citing Zal v. Steppe, 968 F.2d 924, 931 (9th Cir.1992) (Trott, J., concurring)). In Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 533, 121 S.Ct. 1043, 149 L.Ed.2d 63 (2001), for example, the Supreme Court considered whether Congress could impose negative conditions on grants to legal services organizations, such as prevent[ing] an attorney from arguing to a court that [federal welfare laws are] violative of the United States Constitution. Id. at 536, 121 S.Ct. 1043. By its terms, the law at issue in that case prevented attorneys who accepted funding from the Federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) from speaking certain words on behalf of their clients. The Supreme Court framed the question presented, however, as whether the law violates the First Amendment rights of LSC grantees and their clients.  Id. at 536 (emphasis added). In invalidating the restrictions, Velazquez reasoned that an LSC-funded attorney speaks on the behalf of the client and is the client's speaker. Id. at 542, 121 S.Ct. 1043. Just as the government's lawyer must deliver the government's message, the private citizen's lawyer must deliver the private citizen's message. Id. Velazquez therefore suggests that government action seeking to limit an attorney's advocacy on behalf of a client implicates the client's, as well as the attorney's, First Amendment intereststhe attorney is, after all, the client's speaker hired to deliver the client's message. [3] This conclusion is a natural corollary of the long-recognized First Amendment right to hire and consult an attorney. See, e.g., Mothershed v. Justices of the Supreme Court, 410 F.3d 602, 611 (9th Cir. 2005) ([W]e recognize ... the `right to hire and consult an attorney is protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, association and petition.'  (quoting Denius v. Dunlap, 209 F.3d 944, 953 (7th Cir.2000))); DeLoach v. Bevers, 922 F.2d 618, 620 (10th Cir.1990) (The right to retain and consult an attorney... implicates ... clearly established First Amendment rights of association and free speech.). The Tenth Circuit has concluded, for example, that an individual's First Amendment rights of association and free speech are violated when a police officer retaliates against her for retaining an attorney. Malik v. Arapahoe County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 191 F.3d 1306, 1315 (10th Cir.1999). But the First Amendment's prohibition against state retaliation for hiring a lawyer would ring hollow if the state could simply retaliate for the lawyer's advocacy on behalf of the client instead. A client's free speech interest in an attorney's speech on the client's behalf therefore necessarily follows from the client's First Amendment right to retain counsel. The further corollary of that interest, as Velazquez recognized, is that [c]ounsel [must] be free of state control and unfettered in the exercise of independent judgment on behalf of the client. 531 U.S. at 542, 121 S.Ct. 1043 (citing Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 321-22, 102 S.Ct. 445, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981)). In this case, if the state were able to retaliate freely against Eng for statements made by his lawyer on his behalf, lawyers' representation of public-employee-plaintiffs would be chilled, and the state's actions would be insulat[ed] from full and open judicial challenge, thereby distort[ing] the legal system. Id. at 544, 547, 121 S.Ct. 1043. There can be little doubt, then, that `[s]tate action designed to retaliate against and chill [an attorney's advocacy for his or her client] strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.' Soranno's Gasco, Inc. v. Morgan, 874 F.2d 1310, 1314 (9th Cir. 1989) (citation omitted). Here, the district court concluded that when Geragos spoke to the press about Eng's First Amendment retaliation case, Geragos made the statements on Eng's behalf, in his role as counsel. The Defendants do not dispute this characterization. Because Geragos spoke on Eng's behalf in his capacity as Eng's lawyer, his words were Eng's words as far as the First Amendment is concerned. Eng himself therefore had a personal First Amendment interest in Geragos's speech.