Opinion ID: 522904
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Free Speech in the Workplace.

Text: 23 A state may not discharge an employee for exercising his right to free speech on matters of public concern. Page v. DeLaune, 837 F.2d 233, 237 (5th Cir.1988). Supreme Court jurisprudence, as well as our own, has recognized our society's strong interest in protecting public employees who have the courage to blow the whistle on wrongdoings in public institutions. 4 As the Court has emphasized, [v]igilance is necessary to ensure that public employers do not use authority over employees to silence discourse, not because it hampers public functions, but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employees' speech. Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 2896, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987). Thus, the managerial authority of supervisors and administrators must be tempered by concerns for the public's need to be informed of the actions and inactions of those whom it has hired to implement policy. 24 However, we have also recognized a competing concern in the form of disruption of the workplace. See Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1734. When the interests of employee and employer clash, courts must balance the concerns of each in determining, as a first inquiry, whether the employee's speech deserves first amendment protection. Rankin, 107 S.Ct. at 2896; Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 284, 97 S.Ct. 568, 574, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). Courts therefore weigh the interests of [the employee] as a citizen in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interests of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1734. 25 In cases such as the one before us, the employee bears the initial burden of demonstrating that his speech was constitutionally protected and that it was a substantial or motivating factor in the termination decision. Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287, 97 S.Ct. at 576. However, if the employee meets that burden, it then becomes the employer's burden to prove that the employee would have been terminated even in the absence of protected conduct. Id. 26
27 Thus, the threshold question we face here is whether the employee's speech activities deserve first amendment protection because they may be fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern. Rankin, 107 S.Ct. at 2897 (quoting Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1689-70, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983)). The question is answered by examining the content, form, and context of a given statement as revealed by the whole record. Id. 28 The district court found that at least some of Price's statements and activities were directed to matters of public concern and therefore protected. The court drew a distinction between Price's statements within the facility and those made outside the facility, finding that the statements made within the facility consisted almost exclusively of unsubstantiated rumors, with little or no actual evidence. The court concluded that, given the volatility of the patients at the facility, the need for security, and hence, the need for prompt and accurate reporting of unlawful activity, the disruption and danger which Price's internal statements presented for the facility far outweighed any of Price's free-speech interests in making those statements. 29 Though in other circumstances we would defer to the factfinding of the district court with respect to the content, form, and context of the speech, cases involving the exercise of first amendment rights in the workplace require a different standard of review. Our review is limited in this context by our constitutional obligation to assure that the record supports [the court's] conclusion: '[W]e are compelled to examine for ourselves the statements in issue and the circumstances under which they [were] made to see whether or not they ... are of a character which the principles of the First Amendment ... protect.'  Rankin, id. (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 150 n. 10, 103 S.Ct. at 1691-92 n. 10). 30 After our own review of the record, we do not find the distinction between Price's internal and external statements as marked, and consequently do not find that, with respect to the constitutional protection to be afforded to the internal statements, the balance tips so obviously in favor of defendants. A public employee who engages in whistleblowing does not 'forfeit[ ] his protection against governmental abridgement of freedom of speech if he decides to express his views privately rather than publicly.'  Brown, 804 F.2d at 337 (quoting Givhan, 439 U.S. at 414, 99 S.Ct. at 696). 31 Hence, many of Price's internal statements could be considered protected speech along with his reports to outside authorities. First among these would be Price's informing patients that they had the right to obtain outside legal counsel and prosecute civil actions against officials within the facility who were mistreating them. Further, Price stated that he informed many of the patients that they could contact the Justice Department with information regarding the civil suit pending against the facility. In fact, he claims to have assisted some patients in doing so. 32 The defendants do not deny that Price gave this advice, nor are they able to controvert the truth of these statements. Thus, we cannot dismiss, as did the district court, all of Price's internal statements as unsubstantiated rumor, even if Price was engaged in some self-aggrandizement in the process. 5 As we turn to the task of balancing Price's free-speech interests against the facility's concern for orderly administration, we therefore find Price's interests weightier than did the district court. 33 Following the Supreme Court's lead, in assessing the weight to be accorded to the plaintiff's free-speech interests we also consider the extent to which that speech implicates matters of public concern. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 152, 103 S.Ct. at 1692-93. 6 Without doubt, the welfare of the patients at such a facility and the protection of their civil rights are matters of serious public concern. For this reason, we find Price's first amendment interests to be still greater. 34 Nonetheless, at the end of this sophisticated balancing test we reach the same result as did the district court. We base our decision chiefly upon the context in which Price made his statements: The facility houses individuals who are disturbed and dangerous, many of whom are doubtless paranoid or prone to hostile reaction. Statements to patients and staff about drug-pushing, beatings, and even murders, which might otherwise be speech deserving the highest degree of protection, become, in these circumstances, dangerously disruptive. Brittain observed in his testimony that 35 the facility itself was old, dilapidated, did not have the layout that allowed for adequate movement of the patients, did not have the layout that [made] for easy observation [by] correctional officers, did not have the proper staffing, [and] did not have a lot of things that it needed.... Now, in the midst of that kind of shortage of manpower, dealing with very volatile patients, some of whom were committed to [the facility] for very heinous crimes, where they had both a judgment of being a criminal and also criminally insane, ... we had to manage that facility.... It was in that kind of environment that Mr. Price was creating the disruption that we had mentioned earlier. 36 Hence, we conclude that here the employer's need to prevent disruption and violence was paramount. Price's communications to the staff and patients of the facility therefore were not protected expression. 7 37 However, the balancing test does not produce the same results when applied to Price's direct communications with the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies. We agree with the district court that these statements must be considered protected speech, since they can be considered disruptive only in the sense that they assisted the government in a self-policing action already underway. There are no competing concerns regarding fomenting mistrust among patients and staff. See Brown, 804 F.2d at 337. 38
39 Accepting that Price's communications with the Justice Department and any other outside authorities were protected speech, the question now becomes whether the defendants can prove that these communications were not the predicate for their decision to terminate Price. Our review of the record indicates that they were not. 40 Brittain contends that he did not hear of Price's communications with outside authorities until his meeting with Price on the day he suspended him. Moreover, Brittain maintains that during his investigation of Price's allegations he was unable to confirm the existence of these communications. The record partially supports that testimony in that it contains a letter from the Justice Department disavowing any communications with a Pat Price in connection with the litigation against the facility. 8 41 Price could provide no proof that Brittain and Henderson were made aware of his outside communications. His only argument at trial was that Brittain and Henderson should have known by virtue of the fact that Price had informed Abad and Goodman about his outside communications. However, as Price's attorney astutely observed in oral argument before this court, Brittain had every reason to believe that Price's claims were not fictitious, since earlier Price in fact had contacted state authorities concerning the Talarsky incident. The issue thus becomes one of assessing the credibility of Brittain with respect to his knowledge of Price's outside communications and the weight he gave to those communications at the time he determined that Price should be terminated. 42 Although Rankin instructs us to engage in our own review of the record, we recognize that this review cannot be completely de novo when, as here, the record alone does not fully answer the question whether the plaintiff would have been terminated despite his protected-speech activities. As we have often emphasized in other contexts, an appellate tribunal's scrutiny of the record cannot replace the district court's personal experience with the witnesses. 9 Here, we cannot escape the fact that in this case, the district court's credibility determinations were crucial. 10 The district court chose to credit Brittain's testimony that he had not been aware of Price's outside reports to the Justice Department and the F.B.I. when it found that Brittain terminated Price primarily for the internal disruptions he had caused. 11 43 The district court's credibility determination becomes persuasive in light of the fact that at the time Brittain terminated Price, Brittain had been assured by the Justice Department that they had had no communications with Pat Price. Hence, we hold with the district court that even if Price's outside reporting of the Talarsky incident was the substantial or motivating factor in his termination, he nevertheless would have been terminated because of his disruptive influences within the facility. 44