Opinion ID: 31
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Foley's First Amendment Claim

Text: Foley argues that his speech to the media at the scene of the fire on May 17, 2007, was protected by the First Amendment and that by disciplining him on account of that speech, the Defendants have violated the Constitution. Given the circumstances surrounding the speech in this case, we disagree. The Supreme Court has long recognized that public employees do not forego all the protections of the First Amendment by virtue of working for the government. See Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). The Court's employee-speech jurisprudence has protected the rights not only of the employees themselves, but of the general public in receiving the well-informed views of government employees engaging in civic discussion. Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 419, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006). Against these interests, the Court has sought to balance the interests of government employers in exercising some degree of control over their employees' words and actions in order to ensure the efficient provision of public services. Id. at 418-19, 126 S.Ct. 1951. The Court has held that [s]o long as employees are speaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they must face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employers to operate efficiently and effectively. Id. at 419, 126 S.Ct. 1951. In other words, to determine whether Foley's speech is entitled to First Amendment protection, the first question we must answer is whether Foley was both (1) speaking about a matter of public concern and (2) speaking as a citizen. [7] If the answer to either of these sub-parts is no, then he has no First Amendment claim based on the Defendants' action in relation to his speech. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418, 126 S.Ct. 1951. It is only if we determine that Foley was speaking as a citizen about a matter of public concern that the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises, and the second step of the inquiry is made: `The question becomes whether the relevant government entity had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public.' Curran v. Cousins, 509 F.3d 36, 45 (1st Cir.2007)(quoting Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418, 126 S.Ct. 1951). Here, Foley was obviously speaking about a matter of public concern. The budget and effectiveness of a town's fire department is certainly of concern to the public, especially when that budget may be impacted by voter approval of an increase to the town's property tax burden. As Chief of the Fire Department, Foley's opinion on the effect of diminished resources on the Department's ability to fight fires is an example of the well-informed views which the public has an interest in receiving. At issue, then, is whether Foley was speaking as a citizen when he made his remarks to the press about underfunding and understaffing. In Garcetti, the Court held that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, they are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communication from employer discipline. 547 U.S. at 421, 126 S.Ct. 1951. This is so because [e]mployers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by an employee in his or her professional capacity. Id. at 422, 126 S.Ct. 1951. But the Court acknowledged that the case afforded it no occasion to articulate a comprehensive framework for defining the scope of an employee's duties in cases where there is room for serious debate since the plaintiff, Ceballos, had conceded his speech was pursuant to his employment duties. [8] Id. at 424. The Court did provide some guidance, however, indicating that the scope of an employee's duties for First Amendment purposes may not necessarily be determined by the employee's formal job description, as [f]ormal job descriptions often bear little resemblance to the duties an employee actually is expected to perform. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 424-25, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Further, it was not dispositive that Ceballos expressed his views inside his office, rather than publicly or that the speech in question concerned the subject matter of [his] employment. Id. at 420-21, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Ultimately, [t]he proper inquiry is a practical one. Id. at 424, 126 S.Ct. 1951. In dicta, the Court stated that an employee's speech retains some possibility of First Amendment protection when it is the kind of activity engaged in by citizens who do not work for the government. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 423, 126 S.Ct. 1951. The Court cited two examples of such activity: (1) writing a letter to a local newspaper, as the teacher-plaintiff did in Pickering to criticize the school board, see 391 U.S. at 566, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, and (2) discussing politics with a co-worker, see Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987), and equated them to public statements [made] outside the course of performing [one's] official duties. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 423, 126 S.Ct. 1951. The Court distinguished those examples from speech made pursuant to employment responsibilities, for which there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees. Id. at 424, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Ceballos's speech had no such analogue; when he wrote the internal memorandum at issue in the case, he spoke as a prosecutor fulfilling a responsibility to advise his supervisor about how best to proceed with a pending case. Id. at 421, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (emphasis added). In analyzing whether Foley spoke as a citizen rather than as the Chief of the Fire Department, we first note that it is not dispositive that Foley was not required to speak to the media. See Brammer-Hoelter v. Twin Peaks Charter Academy, 492 F.3d 1192, 1203 (10th Cir.2007) (speech may be made pursuant to an employee's official duties even if it deals with activities that the employee is not expressly required to perform); Williams v. Dallas Ind. Sch. Dist., 480 F.3d 689, 693 (5th Cir.2007) ([a]ctivities undertaken in the course of performing one's job are activities pursuant to official duties even if the speech at issue is not necessarily required by [the employee's] job duties). Foley's job description is neither necessary nor sufficient to determine whether his speech at the press conference was pursuant to his official duties, Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 425, 126 S.Ct. 1951, though we do note that the fact that Foley was ostensibly evaluated on whether he [i]nteracts well with the media suggests that speaking to the press is a duty he actually [was] expected to perform. Id. at 424-25, 126 S.Ct. 1951. More critical to our analysis is the context of Foley's speech. Though Foley was not required to speak to the press as part of his job, he did, in fact, choose to do so at a press conference convened by the State Fire Marshal, at the scene of a fatal fire, at which no one but the Marshal, the Marshal's lead investigator, and Foley himself gave comment. Foley was in uniform and on duty at the time. [9] While he declined to answer certain questions posed by reporters, he voluntarily spoke about issues related to the budget and staffing of the Department. As Chief, he had been in command of the scene, and when choosing to speak to the press, he would naturally be regarded as the public face of the Department when speaking about matters involving the Department. [10] Under these circumstances, Foley addressed the media in his official capacity, as Chief of the Fire Department, at a forum to which he had access because of his position. Thus, there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 424, 126 S.Ct. 1951; see Brammer-Hoelter, 492 F.3d at 1203 (equating speaking as a government employee with speaking as an individual acting `in his or her professional capacity' (quoting Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 422, 126 S.Ct. 1951)); cf. Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1092 (7th Cir. 2008) (holding that a senior administrator of an agency was not speaking as a citizen when testifying before a legislative committee since she was testifying because of the position she held within the agency and was not appearing as `Jane Q. Public'). We note that Foley's speech is distinguishable from the letter to the editor written by the plaintiff in Pickering. As the Court noted in Garcetti, that letter had no official significance and bore similarities to letters submitted by numerous citizens every day. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 422, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Here, given that Foley spoke from the scene of the fire where he was on duty, in uniform, and speaking alongside the State Fire Marshal, we cannot say that the speech had no official significance. In fact, it is more likely that anyone who observed the speech took it to bear the imprimatur of the Fire Department. Certainly, Foley's comments to the press fall closer to the line of citizen speech than the internal memorandum that Ceballos submitted to his supervisor in Garcetti. However, the fact that Foley expressed his views to the public rather than within the workplace is not dispositive, and other courts have found employee speech to fall outside the protection of the First Amendment even when it is delivered publicly. See, e.g., Nixon, 511 F.3d at 498; Turner v. Clark County Sch. Dist., No. 2:07-CV-00101-JCM-GWF, 2009 WL 736016, at  (D.Nev. Mar.19, 2009). Foley argues that his speech is nonetheless analogous to that of citizens who avail themselves of opportunities to publicly express themselves through the media. Foley points specifically to a Boston Globe article in which Randolph residents expressed their opinions on the budgetary and staffing issues of the Fire Department as they related to the May 17, 2007, fire. Foley also cites an article from the Patriot Ledger in which Randolph residents spoke to a reporter regarding their votes on the Proposition 2 ½ override of 2008. However, this speech is not analogous to Foley's. Any citizen can be interviewed by a reporter about her reaction to an event or her thoughts about an issue. But when a government employee answers a reporter's questions involving matters relating to his employment, there will be circumstances in which the employee's answers will take on the character of [o]fficial communications, Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 422, 126 S.Ct. 1951, and thus will not be entitled to First Amendment protection. Those circumstances were present here: Foley spoke while in uniform and on duty; he spoke from the scene of a fire where he had been in command as the Chief of the Fire Department; and his comments were bookended by those of another official the State Fire Marshal. When Foley availed himself of this particular opportunity to communicate with Town residents through the media on matters involving his Department, his speech took on a degree of official significance that has no relevant analogue to speech by citizens. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 424, 126 S.Ct. 1951. Foley also contends that the content of his speech at the press conference entitles that speech to First Amendment protection. He argues that once he stopped speaking about the fire and began to lecture the Town residents about their defeat of the Proposition 2½ overrides, he was speaking as a citizen. We disagree. Foley characterizes the nature of his comments about Proposition 2 ½ too narrowly. His remarks on Proposition 2½ related to his concerns about its impact on the budget and staffing needs of the Fire Department. The general topic of Foley's remarks was the struggle of the Fire Department to accomplish its goals in the absence of additional funding and staffing that an override of Proposition 2½ could provide. The subject of Foley's speech was entirely related to matters concerning the Fire Department. [11] Under the circumstances of the press conference, when speaking about such matters, Foley was speaking in his official capacity as Chief. Our holding does not, as Foley claims, strip him of the opportunity ever to speak publicly on similar issues, without fear of retaliatory discipline. As Chief, Foley is on call at all hours, but that does not mean that any public statements he makes regarding the Fire Department will be outside the protection of the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court has recognized, [w]ere [public employees] not able to speak on [the operation of their employers], the community would be deprived of informed opinions on important public issues. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 420, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (citing San Diego v. Roe, 543 U.S. 77, 82, 125 S.Ct. 521, 160 L.Ed.2d 410 (2004)) (second and third alterations in Garcetti ). As Fire Chief, Foley is `the member[ ] of [the] community most likely to have informed and definite opinions' about the budget and staffing of the Fire Department, see Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 419, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (quoting Pickering, 391 U.S. at 572, 88 S.Ct. 1731), but he is also the individual whose speech is most likely to be construed as an [o]fficial communication of the Department. Thus, determining whether a government employee who is the head and de facto spokesperson of his department is speaking as a citizen or an employee is a highly fact-specific inquiry. We emphasize that our holding is limited to the particular facts of this case. Under the circumstances of the press conference discussed above, there could be no doubt that Foley was speaking in his official capacity and not as a citizen. However, as the district court noted, had Foley voiced his concerns and frustrations in another forumat a town meeting, in a letter to the editor, or even in a statement to the media at a different time and/or placewe might characterize his speech differently. See, e.g., McLaughlin v. City of Nashville, Civil No. 06-4069, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78133, at -9 (W.D.Ark. Oct. 23, 2006) (holding that city finance director stated a claim that she spoke in her capacity as a concerned citizen, rather than in her official capacity when she spoke about the financial situation of the city, via newspaper and radio, at her own expense and on her own time); Hailey v. City of Camden, Civil No. 01-3967, 2006 WL 1875402, at  (D.N.J. July 5, 2006) (holding that deputy fire chiefs who attended City Council meeting and complained about fire department practices after plac[ing] their names on the agenda as any citizen would were not speaking pursuant to their official duties).