Opinion ID: 685658
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Barnard's Contacts with the FBI

Text: 18 Barnard alleges that his contacts with the FBI which spanned three years were protected First Amendment activity and played a substantial role in the legislature's decision to terminate him. In support of his argument, Barnard proffers several statements from legislators which he contends illustrate their disapproval with his meetings with the FBI and create a fact issue on causation, thereby precluding summary judgment. The district court held that Barnard's meetings with the FBI were stale, i.e., too remote in time to have played a role in the legislature's decision to fire him. Barnard, 832 F.Supp. at 1340. Specifically, the district court ruled as a matter of law that [i]nsufficient evidence of causation mandates a ruling for defendants on the FBI issue. Id. Before making its causation ruling and without citation to Connick or Rankin, the district court said that [i]t seems rather well settled, however, that private communications in the nature of whistle-blowing are entitled to First Amendment protection from governmental discipline or retaliation, and that any such retaliation against plaintiff for going to the FBI would violate plaintiff's federally protected employment rights. Id. 19 Barnard's FBI contacts must be subjected to Connick 's two-part test to determine whether they are speech protected by the First Amendment. Again, this is a question of law for the court. Connick, 461 U.S. at 148 nn. 7 & 10, 103 S.Ct. at 1690 nn. 7 & 10. Speech disclosing allegations of criminal activity allegedly committed by elected public officials and allegations of official misconduct by an incumbent elected official are matters occupying the highest rung of hierarchy of First Amendment values. O'Connor v. Steeves, 994 F.2d 905, 915 (1st Cir.) (quoting Connick, 461 U.S. at 145, 103 S.Ct. at 1689), cert. denied sub. nom., Town of Nahant, Mass. v. O'Connor, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 634, 126 L.Ed.2d 593 (1993). Such speech is of inherent public concern. Id. See also O'Donnell v. Yanchulis, 875 F.2d 1059, 1061 (3rd Cir.1989) ([a]llegations of corrupt practices by government officials are of the utmost public concern); Gorman v. Robinson, 977 F.2d 350, 356 (7th Cir.1992) (communications over a three year period to the FBI by housing authority purchasing agent concerning crimes by public housing employees are matter of great concern to the public); Roth v. Veteran's Admin. of Gov't of U.S., 856 F.2d 1401, 1406 (9th Cir.1988); Brown v. Texas A & M Univ., 804 F.2d 327, 337-38 (5th Cir.1986). Accordingly, because Barnard's contacts with the FBI constitute speech on a matter of public concern, we proceed to discuss Connick's second requirement--the Pickering balancing test. 20 Information alleging abuse of public office by an elected public official represents a public benefit entitled to great weight in the Pickering balance. O'Connor, 994 F.2d at 915. Considerations relevant to the legislators' interests are those we enumerated earlier which include but are not limited to whether the statement impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among coworkers, has a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary, or impedes the performance of the speaker's duties or interferes with the regular operation of the enterprise. Rankin, 483 U.S. at 388, 107 S.Ct. at 2899. 21 We also observe that Barnard's personal motives, if any there be, for divulging information to the FBI may be factored in the Pickering balancing test. See O'Connor, 994 F.2d at 915. [I]nsofar as self-interest is found to have motivated public-employee speech, the employee's expression is entitled to less weight in the Pickering balance than speech on matters of public concern intended to serve the public interest. Id. In the present case, the district court determined that Barnard has apparently served as a self-appointed informant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Barnard, 832 F.Supp. at 1339. 22 Because the district court decided this case on Plaintiff's failure to demonstrate causation because of staleness, a decision we hereinafter conclude to have been erroneous, it never performed the Pickering balancing test with respect to the FBI contacts. We believe the district court is best equipped to do so in the first instance, and hence we will remand for that purpose. Upon remand, the district court is free in conducting the Pickering test to determine whether Barnard's motives for speaking with the FBI were less than altruistic and therefore accord this expression less weight than speech purely intended to serve the public's interest. 5 23 If speech is determined to be protected under the Connick two-part test, then a plaintiff must show that the speech played a substantial role in his discharge or, to put it in other words, that it was a motivating factor in the [discharge] decision. Mount Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 576, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977) (quotations and footnote omitted). If the plaintiff makes that showing, then the burden shifts to the defendant to prove that it would have reached the same decision ... even in the absence of the protected conduct. Id. at 287, 97 S.Ct. at 576. Ordinarily, the issue of whether protected speech played a substantial role in a public employee's termination is an issue of fact to be resolved by the jury. Shands, 993 F.2d at 1343; Cox v. Dardanelle Pub. Sch. Dist., 790 F.2d 668, 675 (8th Cir.1986). However, the discharged employee does not in every case successfully resist a summary judgment motion merely by asserting that certain protected speech caused termination from public employment. At some point, the speech becomes so remote in time to the discharge that a court may rule as a matter of law that even if such speech enjoys First Amendment protection, it played no role in the employee's termination. See O'Connor v. Chicago Transit Auth., 985 F.2d 1362, 1368 (7th Cir.1993) (the mere fact that protected speech precedes an employment decision does not create the inference that the speech motivated the employment decision). 24 The plaintiff's evidence would tend to show that in late April 1990, after learning that Barnard was talking to the FBI, the Chairman of the Legislature, the Reverend Mr. Tindall, asked Barnard for his resignation. When Barnard asked why the request was made, Chairman Tindall refused to state a reason. At an executive session of the legislature held on May 7, 1990, called to discuss Barnard's performance, Mr. Tindall led off the meeting by informing the other legislators that Barnard had gone to the FBI, that Tindall did not trust Barnard, that Tindall had asked Barnard for his resignation and that Barnard had refused to give it, and that Tindall wanted Barnard fired. Barnard has one witness who attended the May 7 meeting who will testify that Tindall said Barnard should be fired because he went to the FBI. Other legislators asked Barnard to tell them what he had told the FBI about them. Some of them expressed anger that Barnard had gone to the FBI without telling them first. Legislator Waits asked Barnard sometime prior to the May 7 meeting if Barnard was wired and what Barnard had told the FBI about him. Legislator Coe (about whom Barnard had specifically gone to the FBI in the first instance) reportedly said, That's why they [the FBI] have so much information on me. 25 There is some evidence that a deal was struck at the May 7, 1990, meeting which included Barnard's agreement that he would not talk to the FBI again without first notifying the legislature and that he would continue to be employed until the new legislature took office at the beginning of 1991 (after the 1990 elections) when a decision would be made about his continued employment. 26 Arrayed against this evidence is the evidence provided by the individual legislator defendants that their decisions to terminate Barnard, made some three months later on August 13, 1990, were not based upon his previous FBI contacts but upon a variety of other factors including his violation of the April 27, 1990, Communication Guidelines in going to the Star about the medical examiner's audit in late June of 1990, his general incompetence as an auditor, his taking of an allegedly unofficial vacation, and other assorted management and personal shortcomings. 27 We believe the district court erred when it held as a matter of law that the plaintiff failed to produce sufficient evidence of causation to raise a genuine issue of fact as to whether or not his contacts with the FBI, which continued up to May 7, 1990, were a motivating factor in his termination on August 13, 1990. It took six votes to terminate Barnard. Of the seven votes cast against him, three were cast by legislators who three months earlier were the most vocal critics of his informer's relationship with the FBI. According to one witness, all of the legislators who voted to terminate him would have heard Chairman Tindall declare that Barnard should be fired for going to the FBI. We do not believe that the three-month time span between the May 7 meeting and the August termination is long enough to make the FBI matter stale as a matter of law. The evidence of record, together with the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from it, creates a jury issue concerning whether or not Barnard's FBI contacts were a motivating factor in any legislator's termination decision. 28 The district court also ruled that because there was no evidence that the two-thirds of the legislators necessary to terminate were adversely motivated by reason of the plaintiff's FBI contacts, there was no factual basis for a trier of fact to conclude that such hostility may have caused the plaintiff's termination. If the plaintiff's evidence and its reasonable inferences are credited by the fact finder, it could find that three of the seven legislators who voted for termination were motivated by an unconstitutional reason, and without those three votes, Barnard would not have been fired. In fact, even if only two of those three votes were improperly motivated, the motion to fire Barnard would not have received the necessary six votes to pass. 6