Opinion ID: 3009632
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: San Filippo's alleged protected activities

Text: In 1977, San Filippo wrote a letter to the then chemistry department chai Professor Sidney Toby, complaining about dangerous conditions in the chemistry laboratories, conditions that had been described by the New Jersey Department of He generally unsatisfactory. In 1979, in response to a newspaper reporter's questio concerning a student's collapse due to noxious fumes during a chemistry experiment, Filippo stated -- as reported by the newspaper on January 30, 1979 --that undergrad students were being subjected to a health hazard and an absolute danger and that minimum safety requirements are not being met. San Filippo was berated by the th department chairman, Professor Joseph Potenza, and by an administrator for making t comments. San Filippo's comments led to the creation of an American Association of University Professors - University Safety Committee. In 1977 and 1978, San Filippo testified before a grand jury regarding an investigation into the manufacture of illegal drugs in the chemistry laboratories. 5 Potenza criticized San Filippo for his disloyalty and for washing the department dirty linen in public. In 1983-84, San Filippo became embroiled in a dispute over what he descri an effort by members of the chemistry department's instruments committee to obtain funding for a mass spectrometer by misrepresenting the department's need for such a instrument. San Filippo threatened to tell the federal funding agency the truth ab department's needs. The committee members wrote a memorandum to Potenza, as depart chairman, protesting San Filippo's threats to undermine their efforts to obtain a m spectrometer. Potenza told San Filippo that he intended to place the memorandum in Filippo's personnel file. San Filippo contacted the United States Attorney's offic regarding this action against him, and an Assistant United States Attorney told San Filippo that such an action would be characterized as an effort to obstruct justice San Filippo told Potenza what the government lawyer had said, Potenza had the lette reprimand removed from San Filippo's personnel file. Between 1979 and 1986, San Filippo complained about certain financial irregularities in the chemistry department, particularly efforts to divert funds fr Filippo's federal grants. In October 1985, San Filippo objected to a proposal by t department chairman, Professor Robert Boikess, to impose a shop user's fee, which Filippo characterized as illegal double billing of chemistry department members. In 1981, the chemistry department declined to recommend San Filippo for promotion to full professorship. San Filippo filed a grievance in 1982, contending he had been denied promotion through manipulation of his promotion packet. While t grievance was pending, the chemistry department recommended that San Filippo be pro to full professor, effective July 1984. Although the grievance committee ultimatel agreed with San Filippo that he should have been promoted, the University took the position that the issue was moot. In September 1985, San Filippo filed a lawsuit i 6 court in which he contended that he was entitled to have his promotion effective Ju 1982. That suit is still pending. In 1984, San Filippo grieved the fact that he had been denied a merit sal increase. The University rejected San Filippo's grievance, and he filed for non-bi arbitration. The first hearings in the arbitration occurred in October 1985. On Sep 10, 1986, Boikess testified for the University. Regarding this event, the arbitrato commented in his decision dated December 26, 1986: Little things are often very revealing. A transcript does not conve full flavor of what transpires in the hearing room. Boikess was called o last day of the hearing. He brought his own lawyer with him (Mr. Peirano San Filippo cordially greeted him before he took the stand. Boikess not acknowledge the greeting and refused to acknowledge grievant's presen the room. During his testimony, Boikess kept referring to grievant's selfnomination [for the merit salary award]. His tone of voice was so caust it sparked an inquiry from me. (The inference to be drawn by the tone of employed was that a self-nomination was somehow less worthy). I specifically asked Boikess why he emphasized self-nomination. B danced around the issue and did not really answer my question. It became obvious that he would not answer, so I gave up. Further, the tenor and t his testimony revealed his near-total contempt for San Filippo. I note in passing that most of the persons being considered were sel nominated. The [merit salary award procedure] specifically provides for One would have to be a block of wood to fail to notice Dr. Boikess' complete distaste for Joe San Filippo. (A.1155 n.21). The arbitrator sustained San Filippo's complaint. He further noted opinion: San Filippo testified, without contradiction, that he was criticized by administration officials for talking to the school newspaper about unsafe conditions in the laboratories. [San Filippo] was chairman of the Safety Committee at the time. A student took ill. [San Filippo] was accused of disloyal. Putting aside the serious first amendment issues the episode (Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563), it seems to me that the to the health of the students outweighs any possible harm to the reputati 7 those in authority that disclosure of lab conditions might have created. Further, there is a difference to [sic] loyalty to the institution and th purposes it is supposed to serve and fealty to the individuals who may, a given moment, occupy positions of higher authority in the organization. is more important in the scheme of things: bruised feelings because the is tough and demanding or personal safety? . . . While not directly at issue, there was some unsettling evidence that [Dr. Filippo's] promotion packet had been surreptitiously removed and unfavora material secretly inserted. [Dr. San Filippo] had to bring successful gr action to rectify the situation. It would appear that someone was willing to extra-ordinary lengths to deny [Dr. San Filippo] professional advantag That kind of conduct is similar to what happened to [Dr. San Filippo] in [merit salary award] review. [Dr. San Filippo's] nomination was clearly judged under separate San Fil rules that were applicable to no one else. . . . . I know a pipe job when I see one. (A.1161 n.29). In November 1985, Dr. San Filippo brought a libel action in state court a three administrators who accused San Filippo of deliberately falsifying time report relating to one of his technical assistants. Finally, San Filippo brought a lawsuit in state court against the Univers March 1986 complaining about, among other things, the University's decision to proh without a hearing of any kind -- graduate student assistance in San Filippo's resea program, because of the accusations against San Filippo. B. The charges and proceedings against San Filippo As explained above, on October 1, 1986, President Bloustein brought forma written charges against San Filippo. After a hearing before the Senate Panel, which recommended dismissal, the Board of Governors, which reviewed the findings of the Senate Panel for suffici the evidence, concurred in the Senate Panel's findings sustaining the following cha 8 Charge 1: Your treatment of scholars visiting from the People's Republic China and a Chinese Teaching Assistant violated the standards of professi ethics required by all faculty members. More specifically, your treatmen respect to these individuals, as set forth more fully in the attached doc is as follows: a. You took advantage of your professorial position and exploited Mr. He Gao and Mr. Changhe Xiao, both visiting scholars from the People's Republ China, by directing them or leading them to believe that they had no choi to perform domestic work for you, such as garden work and indoor and outd cleaning work during the period May through July 1985.0 c. You exploited Messrs. Gao and Xiao by representing that they would be provided health benefits coverage and that you would deduct $700.00 from salary to be paid each of them in order to cover the costs of such benefi Despite deducting such sums, you did not provide coverage to either Mr. G Mr. Xiao. d. During the period of time that the above-named visiting Chinese schol were at Rutgers, you threatened and harassed those individuals by repeate stating that you would send them back to China and by directing abusive l toward them. e. On or about March 31, 1986, you interrupted without sufficient cause laboratory class being conducted by Teaching Assistant, Zong Ping Chen. continued that incident by treating her in an unprofessional, threatening abusive manner, within the hearing of other individuals, including her st Charge 2: On or about July 8, 1985, you directed Mr. Changhe Xiao, who h injured himself while doing maintenance work at your house, to identify h as Mr. Peng Zhou in Middlesex Hospital in order to have Mr. Xiao covered Peng Zhou's medical insurance. Charge 3: You encouraged and permitted individuals working under your di and supervision to submit false time reports and to make inappropriate ch against certain University accounts. Specifically:0 b. Ms. Marilyn Brownawell, who works directly under your supervision, su time reports for the week ending August 17, 1984. She reported and was p 40 hours of work for that period, charged against the Chemistry Departmen mass spectrometer account, even though you knew that she did not perform work related to the mass spectrometer or indeed any compensable work for of any kind during that period.0 0 The Senate Panel found that charge 1(b) was unproven, and the Board concurred in t determination. 0 The Senate Panel did not sustain charge 3(a), and the Board concurred in this determination. 0 Charge 3(c) was not sustained by the Panel, and the Board concurred in this determination. 9 Charge 4: You violated professional and academic standards and exploited foreign visitors to the University by bringing to the University as postdoctoral fellows Chinese scholars you knew did not have appropriate crede and by charging stipends of such individuals, who did not possess doctora degrees, to your NSF grant as post-doctoral fellows. Subsequently you sup these individuals for admission to the graduate program in Chemistry, a f which clearly established that they did not have the credentials to be po doctoral fellows.0 Charge 5: During Fall 1985, you submitted an application for admission t graduate program, including letters of reference, on behalf of Mr. Peng Z one of the individuals referred to in #4 above. One of the letters of ref submitted by you purportedly was written and signed by Liu Guozhi. In fa that letter was not prepared by Liu Guozhi, and you had knowledge of the and did not make it known when you submitted the letter. Charge 6: On December 16, 1985, Professor Robert Boikess, Chair of your department, specifically instructed you not to permit Mr. Peng Zhou, Mr. Yuan Guo, or any other graduate student except those already associated w your research group, to work in your laboratory, pending investigation of allegations of exploitation and harassment lodged against you by visiting Chinese scholars. Despite these specific instructions, you subsequently permitted Cong-Yuan Guo, Zhen-min He, and Peng Zhou to perform work in yo laboratory. In the Board's opinion, the Board specifically found that the conduct described in sustained charges 1(a), 1(d) and 1(e) was a serious enough breach of the role of fa member that, even if those were the only sustained charges, there would be sufficie cause for dismissal. Accordingly, on May 13, 1988, the Board directed that San Fil dismissed from the University. Board member Wechsler agreed with his colleagues' findings but felt that dismissal was too severe a sanction: Because this punishment is clearly out of pro to his alleged wrongdoing, and quite possibly tainted by a long history of animus, respectfully dissent. (A.322). C. The procedural history of this case 0 The Senate Panel sustained this charge in regard to Mr. Peng Zhou, but not in rega Mr. Cong-Yuan Guo. The Board concurred in both determinations. 10 On June 13, 1988, San Filippo filed this suit against the University and Board members who voted in favor of his dismissal. San Filippo sued under §1983 an law, alleging that the dismissal violated his speech, petition, equal protection, a process rights under the United States and New Jersey Constitutions, and violated h common law contract rights. Following the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment on a number of the district court granted San Filippo's motion for partial summary judgment on his that the regulations pursuant to which he was dismissed were void for vagueness. S Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 743 F. Supp. 327 (D.N.J. 1990). The void-for-vagueness iss certified for interlocutory appeal to this court; we reversed and remanded the case further proceedings. San Filippo v. Bongiovanni, 961 F.2d 1125, 1139-40 (3d Cir. 1 After the Supreme Court denied San Filippo's petition for certiorari, San Filippo v Bongiovanni, 113 S. Ct. 305 (1992), the district court referred the remaining summa judgment motions to a magistrate judge. In his Report and Recommendation, the magistrate judge recommended that s judgment be granted in defendants' favor on San Filippo's procedural due process cl on his state law claims, but that summary judgment be denied on San Filippo's first amendment/equal protection claim.0 Regarding the first amendment claim, the magist judge first explained that this circuit uses a three-part test to assess a public employee's claim of retaliation for having engaged in a protected activity. First, plaintiff must show that he engaged in a protected activity. Second, plaintiff mus that the protected activity was a substantial factor motivating the dismissal decis Finally, defendant may defeat plaintiff's claim by demonstrating that the same acti 0 The parties agree that the analysis is the same under the first amendment and equa protection claims. From this point, we refer to these claims as the first amendmen claim. 11 would have taken place even in the absence of the protected conduct.0 See Holder v of Allentown, 987 F.2d 188, 194 (3d. Cir. 1993); Czurlanis v. Albanese, 721 F.2d 98 (3d Cir. 1983) (citing Mt. Healthy City School Dist. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 283-87 (1977)). With respect to the first prong of this test, the magistrate judge conclu that, unlike speech generally -- which is protected under the first amendment only addresses a matter of public concern -- San Filippo's lawsuits and grievances were activities protected under the petition clause of the first amendment regardless of whether they addressed matters of public concern. The magistrate judge then noted fact-finder could reasonably infer that San Filippo's protected conduct was a subst factor motivating the decision to dismiss him from the University. Finally, the magistrate judge recommended that San Filippo be given the chance to conduct additi discovery in order to rebut Rutgers' claim that San Filippo would have been dismiss in the absence of his protected activities. Because the magistrate judge believed t defendants had not yet made relevant discovery material available to San Filippo, t magistrate judge recommended that summary judgment be denied under Rule 56(f) of th Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.0 0 The burden of persuasion shifts to Rutgers with respect to the third prong of this In this respect, the retaliatory discharge test differs from the Title VII rule established in Texas Dep't of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), an reaffirmed in St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 113 S. Ct. 2742 (1993), where the b of persuasion remains on the plaintiff even after he or she has proved a prima faci and the employer need only articulate -- not prove -- a non-discriminatory reason f actions. 0 Rule 56(f) states in relevant part: Should it appear from the affidavit of a party opposing the motion that t party cannot for reasons stated present by affidavit facts essential to j the party's opposition, the court may refuse the application for judgment order a continuance to permit . . . discovery to be had or may make such order as is just. 12 San Filippo did not object to the magistrate judge's recommendation that be granted summary judgment on the state law claims. Accordingly, in an opinion da September 28, 1993, the district court accepted those recommendations and granted R summary judgment on those claims. San Filippo objected to the magistrate judge's recommendation that Rutgers be granted summary judgment on his due process claim, a argued that he was entitled to summary judgment on that claim or at least to furthe discovery. Rutgers objected to the magistrate judge's recommendation that summary judgment on San Filippo's first amendment claim be denied. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation that sum judgment be granted on San Filippo's due process claim, but rejected the magistrate judge's recommendation that summary judgment be denied on San Filippo's first amend claim. With respect to the first amendment claim, the district court first disagre the magistrate judge's conclusion that San Filippo's lawsuits and grievances were activities protected under the first amendment petition clause regardless of whethe addressed a matter of public concern. Instead, the district court held that lawsui grievances, like speech generally, are protected activities under the first amendme if they address matters of public concern. The district court concluded that some of San Filippo's speech addressed of public concern and was therefore protected under the first amendment. The distr court also concluded that a fact-finder could reasonably infer that San Filippo's protected conduct was a substantial factor motivating his dismissal. However, the district court held that there was no basis in the record from which a fact-finder reasonably conclude that San Filippo was dismissed because of his protected conduct rather than because of the misconduct described in the charges brought against him. Moreover, the district court rejected the magistrate judge's recommendation that a on the summary judgment motion be delayed until after San Filippo had had an opport to conduct additional discovery, and instead held that San Filippo had received all 13 discovery to which he was entitled. Accordingly, the district court held that Rutg entitled to summary judgment on San Filippo's first amendment claim as well as on h process and state law claims, and dismissed San Filippo's complaint in its entirety On appeal, San Filippo argues that the district court's order granting Ru summary judgment on his first amendment claim should be vacated because the distric erred, (a) in granting Rutgers' motion for summary judgment without affording him a opportunity to take additional discovery, and (b) on the merits. San Filippo also contends that the district court's order granting Rutgers summary judgment on his d process claim should be vacated because there remains a material issue of fact rega the question whether the Senate Panel had a pecuniary interest in the outcome of th proceedings against San Filippo, and because he was entitled to additional discover