Opinion ID: 171452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did The City's Interest Outweigh Mr. Thomas's?

Text: Mr. Edwards, Mr. Ketchum, and the City urge us to affirm on the ground that the city's interest as employer in promoting the efficiency of the services it performs outweighs the employee's interest in his speech. [2] This is also a question of law. See Brammer-Hoelter, 492 F.3d at 1203. In our balancing of these two interests, we will give a greater weight to speech that has been deemed to be a matter of public concern. Deschenie v. Bd. of Educ. of Cent. Consol. Sch. Dist., 473 F.3d 1271, 1279 (10th Cir.2007). Mr. Edwards et al. point generally to Mr. Thomas's disruptive behavior, and suggest that this was the reason for his firing and justified it. But if this is their argument, it confuses this prong of the Garcetti/Pickering test with the next prong: whether the plaintiff's speech was a motivating factor in his dismissal. We deal with that argument below. For purposes of the third prong, the question is not whether the plaintiff's speech was accompanied by disruptive behavior or made in a disruptive manner, but whether the government's legitimate interests provide a sufficient justification for controlling the plaintiff's message. As we explained in Cragg v. Osawatomie, 143 F.3d 1343, 1346 (10th Cir.1998), the Pickering analysis requires us to ask whether [the employer] has an efficiency interest which would justify it in restricting the particular speech at issue.  (emphasis added). The defendants make no argument relevant to that inquiry.