Opinion ID: 1248286
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Eng Alleged a Violation of a Constitutional Right

Text: Before addressing whether Eng has demonstrated that the Defendants violated his constitutional rights, we must first decide as a threshold matter whether he has a first person interest, or third-party standing to vindicate Geragos's interest, in Geragos's interview with the Los Angeles Times. Both the parties and the district court frame this question as one of third-party standing. The Defendants argue that Eng cannot pursue a vicarious First Amendment retaliation claim for statements made by Geragos because Eng has not demonstrated that Geragos was hindered from protecting his own interests. Eng counters that because Geragos was not himself injured, his ability to protect his own First Amendment interests was indeed hindered because he has no standing to bring his own lawsuit. The district court agreed, concluding that Eng should be granted third-party standing to assert a claim based, in part, upon the violation of his attorney's right to free speech. We lack jurisdiction, however, to consider whether Eng may assert third-party standing to vindicate Geragos's First Amendment interests. Our interlocutory review of the denial of qualified immunity in this case is limited to the narrow question whether the allegations indicate the Defendants violated Eng's clearly established constitutional rights. The question of standing, however, is relevant only to whether Eng may ultimately recover for the alleged violation and is collateral to the inquiry whether the violation has been sufficiently plead. See, e.g., Davis v. Federal Election Comm'n, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2759, 2769, 171 L.Ed.2d 737 (2008) (standing is relevant only to whether the party invoking jurisdiction had the requisite stake in the out-come when the suit was filed, not to the merits of the underlying claim). Qualified immunity, the Supreme Court has explained, focuses on the objective legal reasonableness of an official's acts,  Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (emphasis added), and not on whether the plaintiff may or may not recover for the alleged illegalities. We therefore agree with the Seventh Circuit that the appropriate focus in a qualified immunity analysis is the legality of the conduct of the public official, not ... his liability to the ultimate plaintiff. Triad Associates, Inc. v. Robinson, 10 F.3d 492, 499 (7th Cir.1993). According to the policies underlying qualified immunity, `[w]here an official could be expected to know that certain conduct would violate statutory or constitutional rights, he should be made to hesitate,' regardless whether `the person who suffers injury caused by such conduct may have a cause of action.' Id. at 500 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 821, 102 S.Ct. 2727). Whether Eng has standing to assert Geragos's own First Amendment interests is therefore not before us. [2] In any event, we do not believe Eng need raise a third-party standing claim because we hold that Geragos and Eng each have a first person constitutional interest in Geragos's speech. It is well settled that when a lawyer speaks on behalf of a client, the lawyer's right to speak is almost always grounded in the rights of the client, rather than any independent rights of the attorney. Mezibov v. Allen, 411 F.3d 712, 718, 720 (6th Cir.2005) (citing Zal v. Steppe, 968 F.2d 924, 931 (9th Cir.1992) (Trott, J., concurring)). In Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 533, 121 S.Ct. 1043, 149 L.Ed.2d 63 (2001), for example, the Supreme Court considered whether Congress could impose negative conditions on grants to legal services organizations, such as prevent[ing] an attorney from arguing to a court that [federal welfare laws are] violative of the United States Constitution. Id. at 536, 121 S.Ct. 1043. By its terms, the law at issue in that case prevented attorneys who accepted funding from the Federal Legal Services Corporation (LSC) from speaking certain words on behalf of their clients. The Supreme Court framed the question presented, however, as whether the law violates the First Amendment rights of LSC grantees and their clients.  Id. at 536 (emphasis added). In invalidating the restrictions, Velazquez reasoned that an LSC-funded attorney speaks on the behalf of the client and is the client's speaker. Id. at 542, 121 S.Ct. 1043. Just as the government's lawyer must deliver the government's message, the private citizen's lawyer must deliver the private citizen's message. Id. Velazquez therefore suggests that government action seeking to limit an attorney's advocacy on behalf of a client implicates the client's, as well as the attorney's, First Amendment intereststhe attorney is, after all, the client's speaker hired to deliver the client's message. [3] This conclusion is a natural corollary of the long-recognized First Amendment right to hire and consult an attorney. See, e.g., Mothershed v. Justices of the Supreme Court, 410 F.3d 602, 611 (9th Cir. 2005) ([W]e recognize ... the `right to hire and consult an attorney is protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, association and petition.'  (quoting Denius v. Dunlap, 209 F.3d 944, 953 (7th Cir.2000))); DeLoach v. Bevers, 922 F.2d 618, 620 (10th Cir.1990) (The right to retain and consult an attorney... implicates ... clearly established First Amendment rights of association and free speech.). The Tenth Circuit has concluded, for example, that an individual's First Amendment rights of association and free speech are violated when a police officer retaliates against her for retaining an attorney. Malik v. Arapahoe County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 191 F.3d 1306, 1315 (10th Cir.1999). But the First Amendment's prohibition against state retaliation for hiring a lawyer would ring hollow if the state could simply retaliate for the lawyer's advocacy on behalf of the client instead. A client's free speech interest in an attorney's speech on the client's behalf therefore necessarily follows from the client's First Amendment right to retain counsel. The further corollary of that interest, as Velazquez recognized, is that [c]ounsel [must] be free of state control and unfettered in the exercise of independent judgment on behalf of the client. 531 U.S. at 542, 121 S.Ct. 1043 (citing Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 321-22, 102 S.Ct. 445, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981)). In this case, if the state were able to retaliate freely against Eng for statements made by his lawyer on his behalf, lawyers' representation of public-employee-plaintiffs would be chilled, and the state's actions would be insulat[ed] from full and open judicial challenge, thereby distort[ing] the legal system. Id. at 544, 547, 121 S.Ct. 1043. There can be little doubt, then, that `[s]tate action designed to retaliate against and chill [an attorney's advocacy for his or her client] strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.' Soranno's Gasco, Inc. v. Morgan, 874 F.2d 1310, 1314 (9th Cir. 1989) (citation omitted). Here, the district court concluded that when Geragos spoke to the press about Eng's First Amendment retaliation case, Geragos made the statements on Eng's behalf, in his role as counsel. The Defendants do not dispute this characterization. Because Geragos spoke on Eng's behalf in his capacity as Eng's lawyer, his words were Eng's words as far as the First Amendment is concerned. Eng himself therefore had a personal First Amendment interest in Geragos's speech.
Having determined that Eng had a personal constitutional interest in his own speech about the leak to the IRS and in Geragos's interview with the Los Angeles Times, we turn now to the question whether Eng has alleged a violation of that interest. It is well settled that the state may not abuse its position as employer to stifle the First Amendment rights[its employees] would otherwise enjoy as citizens to comment on matters of public interest. Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). Acknowledging the limits on the state's ability to silence its employees, the Supreme Court has explained that [t]he problem in any case is to arrive at a balance between the interests of the [public employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees. Id. In the forty years since Pickering, First Amendment retaliation law has evolved dramatically, if sometimes inconsistently. Unraveling Pickering 's tangled history reveals a sequential five-step series of questions: (1) whether the plaintiff spoke on a matter of public concern; (2) whether the plaintiff spoke as a private citizen or public employee; (3) whether the plaintiff's protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse employment action; (4) whether the state had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from other members of the general public; and (5) whether the state would have taken the adverse employment action even absent the protected speech. Analysis of these questions, further complicated by restraints on our interlocutory appellate jurisdiction, involves a complex array of factual and legal inquiries requiring detailed explanation. First, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the speech addressed an issue of public concern. See Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); Bauer v. Sampson, 261 F.3d 775, 784 (9th Cir.2001). Speech involves a matter of public concern when it can fairly be considered to relate to `any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community.' Johnson v. Multnomah County, Or., 48 F.3d 420, 422 (9th Cir.1995) (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 146, 103 S.Ct. 1684). But speech that deals with `individual personnel disputes and grievances' and that would be of `no relevance to the public's evaluation of the performance of governmental agencies' is generally not of `public concern.' Coszalter v. City of Salem, 320 F.3d 968, 973 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705 F.2d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir.1983)). `Whether an employee's speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.' Johnson, 48 F.3d at 422 (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 147-48, 103 S.Ct. 1684). The public concern inquiry is purely a question of law, which we review de novo. Berry v. Dept. of Soc. Servs., 447 F.3d 642, 648 (9th Cir.2006) (citing Hyland v. Wonder, 972 F.2d 1129, 1134 (9th Cir.1992)). If the speech in question does not address a matter of public concern, then the speech is unprotected, and qualified immunity should be granted. Second, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing the speech was spoken in the capacity of a private citizen and not a public employee. See Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 421-22, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006); Posey v. Lake Pend Oreille School Dist. No. 84, 546 F.3d 1121, 1126-27 (9th Cir.2008). Statements are made in the speaker's capacity as citizen if the speaker `had no official duty' to make the questioned statements, or if the speech was not the product of `performing the tasks the employee was paid to perform.' Posey, 546 F.3d at 1127 n. 2 (some internal quotations and alterations omitted) (quoting, respectively, Marable v. Nitchman, 511 F.3d 924, 932-33 (9th Cir.2007), and Freitag v. Ayers, 468 F.3d 528, 544 (9th Cir.2006)). While the question of the scope and content of a plaintiff's job responsibilities is a question of fact, the ultimate constitutional significance of the facts as found is a question of law. Id. at 1129-30. In evaluating whether a plaintiff spoke as a private citizen, we must therefore assume the truth of the facts as alleged by the plaintiff with respect to employment responsibilities. If the allegations demonstrate an official duty to utter the speech at issue, then the speech is unprotected, and qualified immunity should be granted. Third, the plaintiff bears the burden of showing the state took adverse employment action ... [and that the] speech was a `substantial or motivating' factor in the adverse action. Freitag, 468 F.3d at 543 (quoting Coszalter v. City of Salem, 320 F.3d 968, 973 (9th Cir.2003)); see also Marable, 511 F.3d at 930, n. 10 (It is [the plaintiff]'s burden to show that his constitutionally protected speech was a motivating factor in [the state]'s adverse employment action.). This third step is purely a question of fact. Once again, in evaluating whether the government's adverse employment action was motivated by the employee's speech, we must assume the truth of the plaintiff's allegations. If the plaintiff does not sufficiently allege that the state retaliated for the employee's exercise of First Amendment rights, there can be no recovery, and qualified immunity should be granted. Fourth, if the plaintiff has passed the first three steps, the burden shifts to the government to show that under the balancing test established by [ Pickering ], the [state]'s legitimate administrative interests outweigh the employee's First Amendment rights. Thomas v. City of Beaverton, 379 F.3d 802, 808 (9th Cir.2004); see also CarePartners, 545 F.3d at 880. This inquiry, known as the Pickering balancing test, asks whether the relevant government entity had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Its qualified restriction of ordinarily protected speech recognizes that [a] government entity has broader discretion to restrict speech when it acts in its role as employer, but the restrictions it imposes must be directed at speech that has some potential to affect the entity's operations. Id. Although the Pickering balancing inquiry is ultimately a legal question, like the private citizen inquiry, its resolution often entails underlying factual disputes. See, e.g., Rivero v. City & County of San Francisco, 316 F.3d 857, 865-66 (9th Cir.2002) (determining the outcome of the Pickering balancing test requires resolving underlying question[s] of fact); Hyland, 972 F.2d at 1139 (Application of this balancing test entails resolution of underlying factual inquir[ies]). Thus we must once again assume any underlying disputes will be resolved in favor of the plaintiff to determine, as a matter of law, whether the state has adequate justification to restrict the employee's speech. If the allegations, viewed in light most favorable to the plaintiff, indicate adequate justification, qualified immunity should be granted. Fifth and finally, if the government fails the Pickering balancing test, it alternatively bears the burden of demonstrating that it would have reached the same [adverse employment] decision even in the absence of the [employee's] protected conduct. Thomas, 379 F.3d at 808 (quoting Ulrich v. City and County of San Francisco, 308 F.3d 968, 976-77 (9th Cir.2002)). In other words, it may avoid liability by showing that the employee's protected speech was not a but-for cause of the adverse employment action. See Mt. Healthy City School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). This question relates to, but is distinct from, the plaintiff's burden to show the protected conduct was a substantial or motivating factor. It asks whether the adverse employment action was based on protected and unprotected activities, and if the state would have taken the adverse action if the proper reason alone had existed. Knickerbocker v. City of Stockton, 81 F.3d 907, 911 (9th Cir.1996) (emphasis added). The Mt. Healthy but-for causation inquiry is purely a question of fact. Wagle v. Murray, 560 F.2d 401, 403 (9th Cir.1977) (per curium) ( Mt. Healthy indicates the `trier-of-fact' should determine whether the firing would have occurred without the protected conduct.); see also Karam v. City of Burbank, 352 F.3d 1188 (9th Cir. 2003). In evaluating whether the employee's speech was a but-for cause of the adverse employment action, we must therefore once again assume the truth of the plaintiff's allegations. Immunity should be granted on this ground only if the state successfully alleges, without dispute by the plaintiff, that it would have made the same employment decisions even absent the questioned speech.
Applying this five-step First Amendment retaliation test, we conclude the allegations here demonstrate that Eng's First Amendment rights were violated with respect to both Eng's comments about the leak to the IRS and Geragos's statements on Eng's behalf to the press.
The Defendants did not argue below and have not argued on appeal that Eng's statements did not address a matter of public concern. Accordingly, any such argument is waived. See, e.g., Butler v. Curry, 528 F.3d 624, 642 (9th Cir.2008) (defendant waived this argument by failing to raise it either in the district court or in his brief on appeal (citing Nw. Acceptance Corp. v. Lynnwood Equip., Inc., 841 F.2d 918, 923 (9th Cir.1988))). In any event, there is little doubt that Eng's speech did address matters of public concern. `[C]ommunication[s] on matters relating to the functioning of government'... are matters of inherent public concern. Johnson v. Multnomah County, Or., 48 F.3d 420, 425 (9th Cir.1995) (quoting McKinley v. City of Eloy, 705 F.2d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir.1983) (quoting Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 575, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980) (plurality opinion))). The leaking of information (whether true or false) about the School District's lease-purchase agreements to the IRS was therefore a matter of public concern insofar as it led to the need for additional, more expensive financing for the public school complex. Speech that is `relevan[t] to the public's evaluation of the performance of governmental agencies' also addresses matters of public concern. Freitag, 468 F.3d at 545 (quoting Coszalter v. City of Salem, 320 F.3d 968, 973-74 (9th Cir. 2003)). Here, the leaking of such statements, as well as Geragos's statements to the Los Angeles Times regarding the retaliatory prosecution against Eng, were certainly `relevan[t] to the public's evaluation of the performance of' the District Attorney's office. Freitag, 468 F.3d at 545 (quoting Coszalter, 320 F.3d at 973-74). We therefore conclude Eng's speech addressed matters of public concern.
The Defendants expend great effort arguing that Eng's speech with respect to the IRS leak was inextricably related to his work, and therefore that his speech was not protected because it was uttered in his capacity as public employee. But the district court determined that there is a genuine factual dispute between the parties regarding whether Eng's speech about the IRS leaks was made as part of his Task Force duties or as a private citizen. The district court's determination that the parties' evidence presents genuine issues of material fact is not reviewable on interlocutory appeal. Lee, 363 F.3d at 932. Once again, [w]here disputed facts exist,... we can determine whether the denial of qualified immunity was appropriate [only] by assuming that the version of the material facts asserted by the non-moving party is correct. Jeffers, 267 F.3d at 903. Here, there can be no doubt that Eng's version of the facts plausibly indicates he had no official duty to complain about any leak to the IRS or to authorize Geragos to speak to the press about the retaliation being taken against him.
As a threshold matter, we must consider the full range of adverse employment actions alleged in the complaint. Although the Defendants correctly note that the district court determined Eng was barred by the statute of limitations from recovering for any adverse employment actions taken before January 1, 2003, [4] whether any specific acts complained of are time-barred is (like the third-party standing question) collateral to the limited, interlocutory qualified immunity inquiry. Whether a plaintiff brings an action in time to challenge certain conduct is irrelevant, that is, to the logically independent question whether the state violated the plaintiff's clearly established rights. The applicability of the statute of limitations is therefore not before us, and we will consider the full range of adverse employment actions stated in Eng's complaint. The Defendants do not dispute that the initial investigations and first suspension were motivated by Eng's protected speech. They argue only that Eng's transfer to the juvenile division was not motived by any subject speech and that any argument by [Eng] that the 2003 suspension was motivated by his attorney's statements [to the press] was unsupported by the evidence. These assertions ignore, however, that we must assume resolution of the disputed facts in Eng's favor. Eng's account of the meeting with Livesay and Sowders, for example, plainly undermines the Defendants' contrary assertion that the systematic investigations, prosecution, suspensions, and demotion of Eng were not motivated by his speech. Eng's further accounts of Cooley's meetings with his staff to discuss a method of forcing David Eng out of the District Attorney's Office, and Sowders's threats to both Eng and Geragos following publication of the Los Angeles Times article, all also indicate that Eng's speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse employment action.
Eng having passed the first three steps of the First Amendment retaliation test, the burdens of evidence and persuasion now shift to the Defendants to show that the balance of interests justified their adverse employment decision. But the Defendants did not argue before the district court, and do not argue before us now, that their interest in regulating Eng's speech was sufficient to outweigh Eng's free speech interest. They have therefore waived this argument. See, e.g., Butler, 528 F.3d at 642. In any event, Eng's allegations show that the District Attorney lacked adequate justification for treating Eng differently from other members of the public. The Defendants have neither alleged nor offered any evidence to support a conclusion that investigating, suspending, prosecuting, or transferring Eng for his speech was necessary for [the District Attorney's office] to operate efficiently and effectively. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 419, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (citing Connick, 461 U.S. at 147, 103 S.Ct. 1684). Rather, viewing the allegations in the light most favorable to Eng, the full range of adverse employment action appears to have been a politically-motivated effort to silence Eng, who stood to embarrass Cooley by undermining a central plank in his campaign platform. On the record before us at this stage in the case, the Defendants have not met their burden under the Pickering balancing test.
Rather than addressing Pickering, the Defendants argue that they would have reached the same [adverse employment] decision even in the absence of [Eng]'s protected conduct. Thomas, 379 F.3d at 808 (quoting Ulrich, 308 F.3d at 976-77). They assert, for example, that Eng's suspensions would have been approved regardless of his protected speech because they were in fact due to the information gathered from three separate internal investigations involving separate and independent allegations of misconduct. This argument ignores Eng's allegations that the investigations and apparently baseless charges were themselves motivated by his exercise of his First Amendment rights. The Defendants further assert that Eng's performance on a promotability review undermines a but-for connection between his speech acts and his having been passed over for promotion. But Eng alleges he received a low score on the promotion review in part because his record contained accusations of sexual harassment and misuse of office computers accusations themselves motivated by his exercise of his First Amendment rights. Taking Eng's version of the facts as true, the Defendants have therefore not met their burden to show that Eng's protected speech was not a but-for cause of the adverse employment actions taken against him. In sum, Eng has properly alleged a violation of his constitutional rights.