Opinion ID: 77882
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Amendment Inquiry

Text: Government regulation of employees' speech differs from its regulation of the speech of its citizenry. Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 140, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1686, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); Pickering v. Board of Educ. of Twp. High Sch. Dist. 205, 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1734, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). Acting as an employer, the government is afforded broad discretion in its employment decisions. Johnson v. Clifton, 74 F.3d 1087, 1092 (11th Cir.1996). It was well settled by the Supreme Court in Connick and Pickering that, for a government employee's speech to have First Amendment protection, the employee must have (1) spoken as a citizen and (2) addressed matters of public concern. Following this directive, we have recognized that we must determine whether the speech at issue was made primarily in the employee's role as citizen, or primarily in the role of employee. Kurtz v. Vickrey, 855 F.2d 723, 727 (11th Cir.1988). The Supreme Court has clarified and simplified this inquiry by holding 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. Garcetti v. Ceballos, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 1960, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006). In Garcetti, a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney wrote two disposition memoranda recommending dismissal of the charges in a case, in which his research revealed that a search warrant affidavit contained misrepresentations. A meeting involving the deputy district attorney, his supervisors, and employees of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which allegedly became heated, was conducted to discuss the search warrant affidavit. Despite the concerns expressed by the deputy district attorney, the decision was made to proceed with the prosecution. He was called by the defense regarding the alleged misrepresentations at a hearing, but the trial judge rejected the challenge to the search warrant. The deputy district attorney subsequently was transferred from his calendar deputy position to a trial deputy position at another courthouse. He sued under § 1983 and alleged that his change in job and location had been retaliation for his speech; the Ninth Circuit agreed, but the Supreme Court reversed. Garcetti instructs that [t]he proper inquiry is a practical one. Id. at 1961. Focusing on the citizen aspect of the First Amendment analysis, the Court determined that the research and memoranda were part of the deputy district attorney's official duties. Since his findings and recommendation were pursuant to his official duties, he was not speaking as a citizen under the First Amendment. Id. at 1960. The Court determined that [r]estricting speech that owes its existence to a public employee's professional responsibilities does not infringe any liberties the employee might have enjoyed as a private citizen. It simply reflects the exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created. Id. Following Garcetti, our circuit has modified the analysis of the first step of the Pickering test for analyzing alleged government employer retaliation to determine if an employee's speech has constitutional protection by deciding at the outset (1) if the government employee spoke as an employee or citizen and (2) if the speech addressed an issue relating to the mission of the government employer or a matter of public concern. D'Angelo v. School Bd. of Polk County, Fla., 497 F.3d 1203, 1209 (11th Cir.2007). [12] To qualify as constitutionally protected speech in the First Amendment, government employment retaliation context that warrants the Pickering analysis, as Garcetti has specified, the speech must be made by a government employee speaking as a citizen and be on a subject of public concern. See Phillips v. City of Dawsonville, 499 F.3d 1239, 1242 (11th Cir.2007) (per curiam) (concluding in a First Amendment, retaliation case following Garcetti that the government employee was speaking in accord with her duty as the City Clerk and not as a private citizen); Vila v. Padrón, 484 F.3d 1334, 1339 (11th Cir.2007) (acknowledging after Garcetti that, to analyze a First Amendment, retaliation claim for speech by a government employee, [t]he threshold question is whether [the government employee] spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern); Mills v. City of Evansville, Ind., 452 F.3d 646, 647-48 (7th Cir.2006) (recognizing that [o]nly when a government employer penalizes speech that a plaintiff utters `as a citizen' must the court consider the Pickering analysis). If the government employee, however, was speaking as an employee, then there can be no First Amendment issue, and the constitutional inquiry ends with no consideration of the Pickering test. See Mills, 452 F.3d at 647 ( Garcetti . . . holds that before asking whether the subject-matter of particular speech is a topic of public concern, the court must decide whether the plaintiff was speaking `as a citizen' or as part of her public job. (emphasis added)). Therefore, [t]he Pickering balance is not triggered unless it is first determined that the employee's speech is constitutionally protected. Ferrara v. Mills, 781 F.2d 1508, 1513-14 (11th Cir.1986). A court must therefore discern the purpose of the employee's speech  that is, whether she spoke on behalf of the public as a citizen, or whether the employee spoke for herself as an employee. Morgan v. Ford, 6 F.3d 750, 754 (11th Cir.1993) (per curiam). Importantly, the interests of the [government employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern must be balanced with the interest 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 1734-35. Therefore, in the First Amendment context, courts review restrictions on employees' speech with greater deference in order to balance the government employer's legitimate interests in its mission. Engquist v. Oregon Dep't of Agric., 478 F.3d 985, 995 (9th Cir.2007) (citing Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1960). Accordingly, we initially must decide whether Boyce and Robinson spoke as government employees or as citizens. Deciding whether a government employee's speech relates to his or her job as opposed to an issue of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147-48, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. As case managers for DeKalb DFCS, Boyce and Robinson's job was to investigate the cases of children allegedly at risk and to make recommendations to their supervisors. Both failed to meet their case quotas. In their respective electronic mails to supervisors and union ADOs, each claimed to be overworked and commented that children could be mistreated or die because Boyce and Robinson were unable to handle all the cases assigned to them. Other than mentioning the six children that had died previously, and who are not at issue in this case, neither specifically identifies a single child who was in danger. The form and context in which the complaints by Boyd and Robinson were made are indicative of the fact that they intended to address only matters connected with their jobs at DeKalb DFCS. Verbal, electronic mail, and ADO complaints by Boyd and Robinson to their supervisors focus on their respective views that their caseloads were too high, which caused each not to meet expected deadlines, and their consequent need for assistance. Robinson's complaints, although more often in a written format as a letter or memorandum to a supervisor, were not sent to an outside entity, like the teacher's letter to a newspaper in Pickering, and did not address any subject not personal to her working conditions at DeKalb DFCS; she reiterated her same personal issues about which she complains in her electronic mail communications with her supervisors. We have determined that a police report generated in the normal course of [the plaintiff's] duties was not speech on a matter of public concern, although it contained information unfavorable to the police department. Morris v. Crow, 142 F.3d 1379, 1382 (11th Cir.1998) (per curiam). The fact that such information may be of general interest to the public, however, does not alone make it of `public concern' for First Amendment purposes. Id. at 1381. To presume that all matters which transpire within a government office are of public concern would mean that virtually every remark  and certainly every criticism directed at a public official  would plant the seed of a constitutional case. Connick, 461 U.S. at 149, 103 S.Ct. at 1691. Boyce additionally relies on statements that she made at the April 7, 2004, staff meeting attended by DeKalb DFCS employees and a state supervisor. Specifically, she asked whether there was any system in place to alert the state office that a case manager had been assigned too many cases; whether the Governor's office was going to require that DFCS case workers be certified; whether there were checks and balances in place regarding assignment of cases before a crisis occurred, such as the death of a child; and generally complained that no one was helping case managers with their cases. These questions asked in an open staff meeting, like her other communications with her immediate supervisors, concern her personal working conditions without reference to any particular family, child, or case. Significantly, this speech by Boyce occurred after she had been reprimanded and placed on a performance plan because of performance issues raised by Andrew, McMillan, and Solomon and after her dismissal had been recommended by Andrew and McMillan and approved by Solomon. Therefore, her remarks at the meeting could not have been an instigating factor in the employment decisions of any of her defendant supervisors. Additionally, the undisputed evidence in the record is that Herren was not involved in Boyce's termination. A public employee may not transform a personal grievance into a matter of public concern by invoking a supposed popular interest in the way public institutions are run. Ferrara, 781 F.2d at 1516. [T]he relevant inquiry is not whether the public would be interested in the topic of the speech at issue but rather is `whether the purpose of the [the plaintiff's] speech was to raise issues of public concern.' Maggio v. Sipple, 211 F.3d 1346, 1353 (11th Cir.2000) (quoting Morgan, 6 F.3d at 754) (alteration in original); see Renfroe v. Kirkpatrick, 722 F.2d 714, 715 (11th Cir.1984) (per curiam) ([P]laintiff's reference to the students' welfare during her oral presentation to the Board is not sufficient to bring her grievance within the rubric of matters of `public concern.'). The safety of children under DeKalb DFCS care is the issue of paramount importance to the purpose of the agency; it is intertwined with each act of a case manager and impacts every aspect of the performance of a case manager's job. The record in this case reveals that the speech of Boyce and Robinson, while ostensibly intermingled with issues of child safety and DeKalb DFCS mismanagement, was not intended to address matters of public concern from the perspective of a citizen. See White Plains Towing Corp. v. Patterson, 991 F.2d 1049, 1059 (2d Cir.1993) (recognizing that [e]ven as to an issue that could arguably be viewed as a matter of public concern, if the employee has raised the issue solely in order to further his own employment interest, his First Amendment right to comment on that issue is entitled to little weight (citing Connick, 461 U.S. at 154, 103 S.Ct. at 1694)). Boyce and Robinson's speech addressed personal grievances and frustrations with their jobs as case managers at DeKalb DFCS, which they viewed to be the result of mismanagement of internal administrative affairs generally with no specific incidents of alleged false reporting or documentation. When a public employee speaks pursuant to employment responsibilities, . . . there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees. Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1961. Our responsibility is to ensure that citizens are not deprived of fundamental rights by virtue of working for the government; this does not require a grant of immunity for employee grievances not afforded by the First Amendment to those who do not work for the State. Connick, 461 U.S. at 147, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. Importantly, as the Court held in Connick, when a public employee speaks not as a citizen upon matters of public concern, but instead as an employee upon matters only of personal interest, absent the most unusual circumstances, a federal court is not the appropriate forum in which to review the wisdom of a personnel decision taken by a public agency allegedly in reaction to the employee's behavior. 461 U.S. at 147, 103 S.Ct. at 1690 (emphasis added); see Vila, 484 F.3d at 1339 (When a public employee speaks as an employee on matters of personal interest and not as a citizen upon matters of public concern, the First Amendment is not implicated.). Government employers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by an employee in his or her professional capacity, because they must ensure that their employees' official communications are accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer's mission. Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1960. In this case, Boyce and Robinson's complaints and excuses about their workloads were concerning and disruptive for their supervisors because the mission of DeKalb DFCS, to investigate and make recommendations concerning children reportedly in danger, was not being accomplished. Boyce and Robinson's supervisors had made some adjustments in their respective workloads, but those measures did not resolve the problem. When it became apparent to Robinson that she still could not meet her case review quota, she requested a transfer, which was granted by her supervisors. Boyce's written and verbal complaints about her workload and the lack of help, as well as her remarks expressed in an open staff meeting, were in stark contrast to the mission of the DeKalb DFCS office and confirmed that her termination was the correct decision. See Connick, 461 U.S. at 153, 103 S.Ct. at 1693 (`When a government employee personally confronts his immediate superior, the employing agency's institutional efficiency may be threatened not only by the content of the employee's message but also by the manner, time, and place in which it is delivered.' (citation omitted)). [T]he First Amendment does not prohibit managerial discipline based on an employee's expressions made pursuant to official responsibilities. Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1961. The Supreme Court's decisions in the First Amendment speech; government employment area reflect the common-sense realization that government offices could not function if every employment decision became a constitutional matter. Connick, 461 U.S. at 143, 103 S.Ct. at 1688. Consequently, government officials should enjoy wide latitude in managing their offices, without intrusive oversight by the judiciary in the name of the First Amendment. Id. at 146, 103 S.Ct. at 1690. Significantly, Boyce and Robinson were complaining to their superiors as employees about their workloads for a work reason: they wanted to have their caseloads reduced or to receive help with their work. The purpose of their grievances clearly was not to raise public awareness about children within the care of DeKalb DFCS. If that had been their intention, then they would have identified the children who were in danger. Other DeKalb DFCS case managers supervised by the same superiors during the relevant time did not join in Boyce and Robinson's § 1983 action. [13] The record shows that this was an internal employee matter and that Boyce's termination and Robinson's transfer were internal decisions by their supervisors to accomplish the work of DeKalb DFCS. [14] [T]he First Amendment does not require a public office to be run as a roundtable for employment complaints over internal office affairs. Connick, 461 U.S. at 149, 103 S.Ct. at 1691. Based upon review of the entire record, Boyce and Robinson primarily spoke as employees to improve [their] work environment; they represent that they were overworked and overwhelmed. Morgan, 6 F.3d at 755. As in Garcetti, the controlling factor was that their expressions were made pursuant to official duties, id. at 1959, and the main thrust of [their] speech took the form of a private employee grievance, Morgan, 6 F.3d at 755. Moreover, Boyd and Robinson's cases necessarily were reassigned to others; Boyce was terminated, and Robinson was transferred to another DeKalb DFCS unit, Telephone Intake, at her request. Therefore, other DeKalb DFCS employees assumed their responsibilities. Because Boyce and Robinson spoke as government employees about their jobs and not as citizens, they have no First Amendment cause of action based on [their] employer's reaction to the speech, and there is no need to engage in the Pickering balancing analysis. [15] Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1958. With no constitutional right upon which to base Boyce and Robinson's § 1983 case, their DeKalb DFCS supervisors, Andrew, McMillan, and Herren, are entitled to qualified immunity. See Anderson v. Burke County, 239 F.3d 1216, 1221 (11th Cir.2001) (per curiam) (granting qualified immunity to employer where employees asserted issues of understaffing and policies that affected the operation of county 911 system). Because Boyce and Robinson have not shown a First Amendment, retaliation cause of action concerning their supervisors for these employees' speech regarding their jobs, we reverse the denial of qualified immunity to Andrew, McMillan, and Herren.