Opinion ID: 2402642
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Garcetti to Plaintiff's Speech to the Queens DA

Text: At the outset, Anemone claims that his and Casale's contacts with the Queens DA constitute First Amendment-protected speech on the ground that he and Casale went outside the chain of command to make statements to a neutral third party about their suspicions about LIRR graft and MTA corruption. Appellant's Br. at 55 The district court held that these contacts were made pursuant to [Anemone's] official duties and were thus not insulated from employer discipline under Garcetti. See Anemone, 2008 WL 1956284, at  (citing Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 426, 126 S.Ct. 1951). We agree with the district court. Garcetti reinforced the premise that while the First Amendment invests public employees with certain rights, it does not empower them to `constitutionalize the employee grievance.' Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 420, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (quoting Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 154, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983)). Thus, the Supreme Court held that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline. Id. at 421, 126 S.Ct. 1951. This is true even when such speech regards a matter of public concern. Huth v. Haslun, 598 F.3d 70, 74 (2d Cir.2010). In Weintraub v. Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, 593 F.3d 196 (2d Cir.2010), a public teacher filed a grievance with his union representative in response to the allegedly inadequate discipline imposed on a student who had thrown a book at him during class on two occasions. Id. at 198-99. This Court noted that, under Garcetti, [t]he objective inquiry into whether a public employee spoke `pursuant to' his or her official duties is `a practical one.' Id. at 202. We held that under the First Amendment, speech can be `pursuant to' a public employee's official job duties even though it is not required by, or included in, the employee's job description, or in response to a request by the employer. Id. at 203. The grievance in that case was `pursuant to' [the plaintiff's] official duties because it was `part-and-parcel of his concerns' about his ability to `properly execute his duties' as a public school teachernamely, to maintain classroom discipline. Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Williams v. Dallas Independent Sch. Dist., 480 F.3d 689, 694 (5th Cir.2007)). Applying this framework to Anemone's and Casale's contacts with the Queens DA, we easily conclude that even assuming their speech to the Queens DA's office was on a matter of public concern, it was clearly pursuant to their official duties so as to fall squarely within Garcetti. Anemone testified that as Director of Security at the MTA, he regularly interacted with District Attorneys' offices and viewed cooperating with these offices as among his duties. There is no question that Casale's and Anemone's initial contacts with the Queens DA concerning the Bauer/Plasser investigation were of this characterthat Anemone sought to involve the DA's office in an official investigation being conducted by the JITF. Indeed, Anemone does not contend otherwise but instead argues that once he went outside the chain of command and persisted in these contacts after Lapp told him the investigation would be handled by the OIG, his subsequent discussions with the Queens DA were protected. For the following reasons, we disagree. When a government employee concededly engages in speech pursuant to his official duties, the fact that he persists in such speech after a supervisor has told him to stop does not, without more, transform his speech into protected speech made as a private citizen. Cf. Thompson v. District of Columbia, 530 F.3d 914, 918 (D.C.Cir.2008) ([I]t would be incongruous to interpret Garcetti, a case concerned with allowing the government to control its employees within their jobs, as giving broader protections to disobedient employees who decide they know better than their bosses how to perform their duties.). Lapp, as Anemone's supervisor, was entrusted with ensuring that his official communications with investigating agencies like the Queens DA's office were accurate, demonstrate[d] sound judgment, and promote[d] the employer's mission. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 423, 126 S.Ct. 1951. She thus had the authority to take corrective action with regard to such speechan authority that did not evaporate simply because Anemone defied her instructions to turn the Bauer/Plasser investigation over to the OIG. Tellingly, there is no evidence in the record that Anemone ever told the Queens DA's office that the JITF was off the case, and that he was acting solely as a private person. Indeed, by his own testimony, Anemone contemplated the possibility that even after Lapp's instruction, his deputies might work on the Bauer/Plasser matter in conjunction with the Queens DA. In such circumstances, Anemone's contacts with the DA were clearly official, part and parcel of his duties as MTA's Director of Security. Accordingly, we conclude that Anemone's and Casale's communications with the Queens DA's office did not constitute protected speech. [11]