Opinion ID: 799829
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Retaliation Claims of Dailey, Clemente, and Taylor

Text: Plaintiffs Dailey and Clemente asserted their Fourth Amendment rights by requiring Bartok and White to get a warrant. Plaintiff Taylor did not answer the door, but the district court found that in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, Taylor could be seen as exercising his Fourth Amendment right by purposely avoiding Bartok and White. Clemente, 2010 WL 4636250, at . The question regarding these Plaintiffs is whether they have raised a genuine issue of material fact sufficient to survive summary judgement on their claim that they were terminated in retaliation for exercising their constitutional rights. [R]etaliation for the exercise of constitutional rights is itself a violation of the Constitution. Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 394 (6th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (citing Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 588 n. 10, 118 S.Ct. 1584, 140 L.Ed.2d 759 (1998)). This Circuit has outlined the basic elements of a retaliation claim: (1) the plaintiff engaged in protected conduct; (2) an adverse action was taken against the plaintiff that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct; and (3) there is a causal connection between elements one and twothat is, the adverse action was motivated at least in part by the plaintiff's protected conduct. Id.; see also Bloch v. Ribar, 156 F.3d 673, 678 (6th Cir. 1998). Once the plaintiff meets her burden of establishing that her protected conduct was a motivating factor of the adverse action, the burden of production shifts to the defendant to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she would have taken the same action regardless of plaintiff's protected activity. Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). [6] Steps 1 and 2 are not disputed. The district court determined that Plaintiffs did not establish a genuine issue of material fact on whether their exercise of Fourth Amendment rights caused the termination, thus failing to meet their burden under Step 3. Plaintiffs offer the following as evidence of a causal connection between their termination and their assertion of their Fourth Amendment rights: (1) the water usage study was incomplete and unreliable; (2) not all DPS employees with water use under 71 units were investigated; and (3) Martin Ladd's opinion was inconclusive as to whether Plaintiffs' meters had been tampered with. In Plaintiffs' reply brief, they add the fact that (4) the notices of Plaintiffs' disciplinary hearings listed disobeying a direct order as one incident of misconduct. Reasons (1) and (2) have no bearing on the retaliation claim because the water usage study and decision to investigate certain but not all DPS employees with less than 71 units of water usage occurred before Dailey, Clemente, and Taylor ever asserted their Fourth Amendment rights. Pointing to the deficiencies in the process leading up to the investigation is simply an attempt to contest the merits of the adverse employment decisions cloaked in the guise of a Fourth Amendment claim. Neither do (3) and (4) establish a causal link. Ladd's testimony applies to Brian DePalma as well, who did not assert his Fourth Amendment rights, and the virtually identical notices of hearing apply to all Plaintiffs; thus, it is unclear how these two pieces of evidence show specifically that Clemente, Dailey, and Taylor were terminated in retaliation. Again, Plaintiffs seem to be contesting the correctness of their terminations rather than connecting their terminations specifically to their assertion of Fourth Amendment rights. Further, even assuming Plaintiffs could show a causal connection, Defendants have met their burden to show that they would have reached the same decision ... even in the absence of the protected conduct. Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287, 97 S.Ct. 568. While this burden involves a determination of fact and ordinarily is reserved for a jury or the court in its fact-finding role, Rodgers v. Banks, 344 F.3d 587, 603 (6th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted), here, a remand is unnecessary to determine whether Defendants would have terminated Plaintiffs even had they acquiesced to White and Bartok's orders. The terminations of Plaintiffs who did not assert their Fourth Amendment rights Stol, Ray, Werksma, and DePalmaanswer in the affirmative. We find it abundantly clear that, rightly or wrongly, Plaintiffs were terminated for reasons related to the water usage study and meter inspection, not for asserting their Fourth Amendment rights. Though Plaintiffs claim that Duchane attributed Clemente, Dailey, and Taylor's assertion of rights to all of them, we find this the sort of mere speculation, conjecture, or fantasy insufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment. Lewis v. Philip Morris Inc., 355 F.3d 515, 533 (6th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). And, in any event, such claim is contradicted by Plaintiffs' termination letters, which were individualized. We agree with the district court that [e]ven in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the record evidence indicates that they were terminated for causenot in retaliation. Clemente, 2010 WL 4636250, at .