Opinion ID: 3004567
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Adverse Employment Action and Causation

Text: Graber argues that he experienced adverse employment actions after his conversations with Mascari, Meverden, and Nyklewicz since he received a seven‐day suspension in November 2010, and a two hour “verbal assault” by Clarke. The district court found that Graber’s suspension was not a result of his speech on June 25, 2010, and so could not qualify as an adverse employment action for retaliation purposes. The court “assumed” that Clarke’s comments to Graber constituted a violation of his First Amendment rights due to the fact that Clarke criticized Graber “to an unnecessarily belittling degree” in a “vulgarity‐laden” meeting. However, even if a plaintiff proves that he experienced an adverse employment action, he must still show causation between his speech and the adverse action. Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 429 U.S. at 287. The court found that Graber failed to show that the protected statements he made to Mascari and Meverden motivated the scathing comments by Clarke. We first address whether Graber established an adverse employment action related to his suspension. To determine whether an action is sufficiently adverse, it must present an actual or potential danger of deterring or chilling the plaintiff’s exercise of free speech. DeGuiseppe v. Village of Bellwood, 68 F.3d 187, 191 (7th Cir. 1995). The defendants concede that if the 20 No. 13‐2165 seven‐day suspension was issued in retaliation for Graber’s constitutionally protected speech, it would be an actionable offense under § 1983. However, the record does not show a causal connection between Graber’s comments on June 25, 2010, and the seven‐day suspension he received for the signing of a deficient memo book in 2009. The actual suspension did not occur until November 2010, but the investigation of the memo book incident commenced in December 2009, over six months before the O’Donnell Park incident. Although Graber’s speech preceded the suspension, without other evidence linking the two events, we cannot find the suspension was motivated by that speech. See Mullin v. Gettinger, 450 F.3d 280, 285 (7th Cir. 2006) (“[T]he fact that a plaintiffʹs protected speech may precede an adverse employment decision alone does not establish causation.”). Perhaps most significantly, when Graber was specifically asked at his suspension hearing whether the seven‐day suspension was linked to any com‐ ments he made on June 25, 2010, Graber admitted that he “was not disciplined for [his] conduct as a union official for anything about O’Donnell Park.” We now turn to whether Clarke’s hostile meeting with Graber qualified as an adverse employment action. “[R]etali‐ ation need not be monstrous to be actionable under the First Amendment … ’A campaign of petty harassment may achieve the same effect as an explicit punishment.’” DeGuiseppe, 68 F.3d at 192 (quoting Walsh v. Ward, 991 F.2d 1344, 1345 (7th Cir. 1993)). Graber claims that the purpose of the meeting was for Clarke to “intimidate and harass him,” that he was directly threatened by Clarke, and that he experienced great stress as a result. For the sake of brevity, we will assume that the heated No. 13‐2165 21 meeting was an adverse employment action and discuss the more pressing issue: whether Graber’s protected speech motivated his “dress down” by Clarke. “In the end, the plaintiff must demonstrate that, but for his protected speech, the employer would not have taken the adverse action.” Kidwell v. Eisenhauer, 679 F.3d 957, 965 (7th Cir. 2012). As discussed above, Graber’s conversation with Mascari and Meverden was protected by the First Amendment, but his comments to Nyklewicz were not. Therefore, Graber must show that but for his discussion with Mascari and Meverden, Clarke would not have called the extended meeting with Graber. The evidence is insufficient to show that but for Graber’s conversation with Mascari and Meverden, he would not have been “bullied” by Clarke in their meeting. Clarke and Bailey testified at trial that the reason the meeting was called with Graber was because of Nyklewicz’s complaints. The meeting between Clarke and Graber would have occurred even if the conversation with Mascari and Meverden never happened. While additional testimony revealed that Graber’s conversa‐ tion with Mascari and Meverden may have been brought up during the extended meeting with Clarke, the purpose and focus of the meeting related to Graber challenging orders, blocking department resources, personally attacking Clarke, and acting insubordinate in his encounter with Nyklewicz. Clarke’s belittling “dress down” of Graber, even when consid‐ ered an actionable offense, was due to the aggressive and insubordinate manner in which Graber spoke to Nyklewicz; it was not the result of any protected speech in which Graber engaged. 22 No. 13‐2165