Opinion ID: 6112002
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims Against MAWSS

Text: For Plaintiff to prevail on his First Amendment retaliation claim against Defendant MAWSS, he must show that: (1) he engaged in speech on a matter of public concern, (2) his First Amendment interest in the speech outweighed his employer’s interest in prohibiting the speech to promote the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees, and (3) his speech played a substantial part in an adverse employment action taken against him by MAWSS. See Battle v. Bd. of Regents for Ga., 468 F.3d 755, 759–60 (11th Cir. 2006). Once Plaintiff establishes these factors, the burden shifts to MAWSS to show by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision even in the absence of the protected conduct. See id. at 760. “The first two elements are questions of law designed to determine whether the First Amendment protects the employee’s speech. The third element and affirmative defense are questions of fact designed to determine whether the adverse employment action was in retaliation for the protected speech.” Id. As to the first part of the analysis, Plaintiff’s speech is entitled to constitutional protection only to the extent he “spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern.” See id. (quoting Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006)). Speech made primarily in Plaintiff’s role as an employee is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot give rise to a First Amendment retaliation claim. See id. USCA11 Case: 20-14298 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 29 of 38 20-14298 Opinion of the Court 29 Plaintiff has not shown that he spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern when he complained internally about disability discrimination between July and December 2016, or when he filed EEOC charges alleging discrimination and retaliation. On the contrary, and as described in the complaint, the thrust of Plaintiff’s internal complaints about discrimination and his subsequent EEOC charges concerned a matter of private interest—that is, Plaintiff’s disqualification from a promotion he felt he was entitled to receive—rather than public concern. See Alves v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. Sys. of Ga., 804 F.3d 1149, 1165–68 (11th Cir. 2015) (denying First Amendment protection where the main thrust of the speech at issue concerned a personal employee grievance). As such, this speech is not protected by the First Amendment and cannot support Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim. See id. Plaintiff argues that his testimony at his own disciplinary hearing and at Rollo’s disciplinary hearing in March 2017 qualifies as protected speech under Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228, 238 (2014), in which the Supreme Court held that a public employee’s truthful testimony, compelled by subpoena but given outside of the course of his ordinary job duties, was protected by the First Amendment. Assuming Plaintiff is correct, any First Amendment claim based on Plaintiff’s testimony at the disciplinary hearings fails because there is no evidence Plaintiff’s speech at the hearings played a substantial part in any adverse action MAWSS subsequently took against Plaintiff. Plaintiff’s disqualification from the Mechanic promotion occurred in August 2016, prior to Plaintiff’s testimony at the USCA11 Case: 20-14298 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 30 of 38 30 Opinion of the Court 20-14298 hearings. A disciplinary hearing panel determined that a fifteenday suspension was warranted at the conclusion of Plaintiff’s February 9 disciplinary hearing. This decision was made prior to, and thus could not have been influenced by, Plaintiff’s testimony at Rollo’s hearing in March 2017. The disciplinary decision obviously followed Plaintiff’s testimony at his own hearing, but the decision was well-supported by the evidence presented at the hearing, and it was set in motion by an investigation that occurred in December 2016, again predating Plaintiff’s hearing testimony. Plaintiff received an unsatisfactory service rating and loss of a merit raise in October 2017, but it is undisputed that those adverse actions followed automatically from his disciplinary suspension. The only other consequence Plaintiff claims resulted from his testimony at the disciplinary hearings is the small-engine assignments he received after he testified, but we have already explained that those assignments do not constitute an adverse employment action. In short, most of the speech alleged by Plaintiff in support of his First Amendment retaliation claim concerns a personal, employment-related grievance rather than a matter of public concern. See Alves, 804 F.3d at 1165–68. To the extent some part of his alleged speech arguably is protected by the First Amendment, Plaintiff has not shown that the speech played a substantial role in any adverse employment action Defendants subsequently took against him. See Battle, 468 F.3d at 759–60. For these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s order granting summary judgment on Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim. USCA11 Case: 20-14298 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 31 of 38 20-14298 Opinion of the Court 31