Opinion ID: 2720081
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Amendment Speech

Text: Hurst’s first argument on appeal is that the district court erroneously granted Lee County’s Rule 50 motion because Hurst’s speech was not employee speech pursuant to his job duties and should have been considered citizen speech protected by the First Amendment. We disagree. While government employees are not stripped of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech by virtue of their employment, this right is not without exception. Pickering v. Bd. of Educ. of Tp. High Sch. Dist. 205, Will Cnty., Ill., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968). A four-pronged test is used to determine whether the speech of a public employee is entitled to constitutional protection from employer discipline. See Juarez v. Aguilar, 666 F.3d 325, 332 (5th Cir. 2011). A plaintiff must establish that: (1) he “suffered an adverse employment 4 Case: 13-60540 Document: 00512741969 Page: 5 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 No. 13-60540 decision”; (2) his “speech involved a matter of public concern”; (3) his interest in speaking outweighed the governmental defendant’s “interest in promoting efficiency”; and (4) “the protected speech motivated the defendant’s conduct.” Id. The Supreme Court noted in Garcetti v. Ceballos that, for an employee’s speech to qualify for First Amendment protection, he must be speaking “as a citizen on a matter of public concern.” 547 U.S. 410, 418 (2006). This court has characterized that requirement – that he be speaking as a citizen on a matter of public concern – as a “threshold layer” to the second prong of the retaliation test. See Davis v. McKinney, 518 F.3d 304, 312 (5th Cir. 2008). Garcetti further states that, “when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421. In the past, we have acknowledged that Garcetti does “not explicate what it means to speak ‘pursuant to’ one’s ‘official duties.’” Williams v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 480 F.3d 689, 692 (5th Cir. 2007) (quoting Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 424). More recently, however, the Supreme Court expounded upon this issue in Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369, 2379 (2014). In Lane, the Court reasoned that “the mere fact that a citizen’s speech concerns information acquired by virtue of his public employment does not transform that speech into employee—rather than citizen—speech. The critical question under Garcetti is whether the speech at issue is itself ordinarily within the scope of an employee’s duties, not whether it merely concerns those duties.” Id. The Court ultimately held in that case that the First Amendment “protects a public employee who provide[s] truthful sworn testimony, compelled by subpoena, outside the course of his ordinary job responsibilities.” Id. at 2374-75. 5 Case: 13-60540 Document: 00512741969 Page: 6 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 No. 13-60540 When a court determines that an employee is not speaking as an employee, but rather as a citizen on a matter of public concern, “the possibility of a First Amendment claim arises.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418. To then determine whether the employee’s speech is entitled to First Amendment protection, the court proceeds to the Pickering balancing test, which inquires as to whether the interest of the government employer “in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees” outweighs the employee’s interests, as a citizen, “in commenting upon matters of public concern.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 568. In performing this balancing test, the court looks at “whether the statement impairs discipline by superiors or harmony among co-workers, 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 v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 388 (1987). Here, Hurst was an officer who, according to the Department’s media relations policy, could have obtained authorization from his superiors to speak to the media about the event involving Bumphis that took place while Hurst was off duty the night before. 2 He chose, however, to make statements to the media without obtaining that authorization and was ultimately terminated for doing so. Hurst argues on appeal that his job duties were limited to supervising his subordinate officers and keeping the officers and inmates safe. However, Sheriff Johnson’s media relations policy states that employees like Hurst were authorized to field calls from the media - such as the numerous 2 We note herein that the fact that Hurst first learned of Bumphis’s arrest upon arriving to begin his shift at the Jail is not dispositive of the question of whether his speech to the reporter about the arrest was employee speech. See Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369, 2379 (2014) (stating that “the mere fact that a citizen’s speech concerns information acquired by virtue of his public employment does not transform that speech into employee—rather than citizen—speech.”). 6 Case: 13-60540 Document: 00512741969 Page: 7 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 No. 13-60540 calls Hurst fielded on January 1, 2012 - and to provide certain limited information when doing so. If Hurst was not authorized as a designee to speak on a specific issue about an arrest, he was permitted to provide certain publicly available information to the media such as the name of the arrestee, the charge, the amount of the arrestee’s bond, and whether the Department had released the arrestee. Further, the Sheriff at his discretion could have authorized Hurst as his designee to make other statements to the media. Hurst did not obtain that authorization before making the statements at issue to the news reporter. Accordingly, we hold that Hurst’s statements to the news reporter, i.e., the speech at issue, was “ordinarily within the scope of [Hurst’s] duties” and did not “merely concern those duties.” Lane, 134 S. Ct. at 2379. 3 Thus, Hurst was not speaking as a citizen for First Amendment purposes, and consequently his communications were not constitutionally insulated from employer discipline. Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 421. Moreover, because we have held Hurst’s speech to be ordinarily within the scope of his duties and therefore not citizen speech protected by the First Amendment, we do not reach the issue of whether Hurst’s speech involved “a matter of public concern.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418; Juarez, 666 F.3d at 332.