Opinion ID: 770662
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Form and Context

Text: 19 Even when the content of a public employee's speech addresses matters of public concern, the form and context of the speech are also relevant to our analysis. See Shands, 993 F.2d at 1343. The defendants charge that Belk's statements, taken in context, could not have addressed matters of public concern because they were made in the course of a private conversation with Dolby and because she had improper motives for making them. 20 Although the context of the speech must be considered, the fact that a plaintiff made statements in a private conversation about a public official toward whom she may have harbored personal animosity does not vitiate the status of statement as addressing a matter of public concern. See Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 387 n.11 (1987). Private statements are particularly amenable to First Amendment protection when they are made to a public official in his official capacity. See id. at 387. The inappropriate or controversial character of a statement is irrelevant to the question of whether it deals with a matter of public concern. Id.. Nor does the presence of unsavory personal motives eviscerate the protection, so long as the speech itself addresses matters of public concern. See id. 21 If it raises any inference, the private nature of Belk's conversation with Dolby suggests that her statements addressed matters of public concern. After coming across information that she believed revealed inappropriate compensation of a city employee, she approached an elected city official in private and passed on the information, identifying the portion that she knew to be a rumor. Although her conduct may not be so obvious an exercise of political speech as pamphleteering or soap-box speeches, it is considerably more so than, for instance, the offhand comment of the plaintiff in Rankin who, in the course of a private conversation with a co-worker, stated that she hoped that the next attempt on the President's life would be successful. 22 The defendants also point to Belk's admitted difficulties with Link as evidence that her motivations were those of a town gossip rather than a concerned citizen. Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to Belk, as we must, we see no basis for the defendants' contention that Belk was motivated by a desire to spread gossip and rumors about Link. She told Dolby that reports of the affair were only rumors. She spoke to him in private, and asked him not to share her comments with others. Later, when she was presented with the more public forum at the meeting of the concerned citizen's group, she chose not to comment on Link's affair. Any prurient appeal that Belk's statements may have contained did not affect their underlying content, nor did it give Belk a personal interest in passing on the information that would diminish its First Amendment protection. Accordingly, we reject the defendants' contextual argument. In light of the jury's findings that Belk told Dolby of her concerns about Carpenter's benefits and that this conversation was a motivating factor in Belk's discharge, we proceed to the second portion of the Connick framework. See Shands, 993 F.2d at 1343.