Opinion ID: 2402642
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Anemone's Speech to the Times

Text: This conclusion is not altered by the fact that Dellaverson has acknowledged that the Times article affected his decision to terminate Anemone. [12] Importantly, Dellaverson was very specific in his explanation of why he deemed the Times story relevant. Dellaverson, who played a significant role in Anemone's earlier, successful corruption investigations, specifically noted that it was both the perceived baselessness of Anemone's claims that his corruption investigations were being obstructed and the connection of those baseless allegations to an assertion that placed MTA customers at risk. Dellaverson Dep. at 248. As Dellaverson phrased his concern, [Anemone] ... chose to misrepresent [facts] in a fallacious fashion to the reporters in order to make this connection that the organization ... was not adequately securing itself for its customers. Id. at 260. On this record, the Defendants may well have established their entitlement to a Pickering defense with respect to Anemone's remarks to the Times. Once Anemone demonstrated that his speech to the Times was a motivating factor behind at least one of the adverse employment actions he sufferednamely, his terminationthe Defendants, to make out a Pickering defense, were required to demonstrate that (1) [their] prediction of disruption [from the speech was] reasonable; (2) the potential disruptiveness [was] enough to outweigh the value of the speech; and (3) [they] took action against [Anemone] based on this disruption and not in retaliation for the speech. Locurto v. Giuliani, 447 F.3d 159, 172-73 (2d Cir. 2006) (quoting Jeffries v. Harleston, 52 F.3d 9, 13 (2d Cir.1995)). With regard to the potential for disruption emanating from Anemone's remarks, Anemone himself recognized the MTA's legitimate concerns regarding public disclosure of security matters when explaining why, as a general matter, he needed the approval of Lapp to speak to the press. Thus, he acknowledged a concern [within the MTA] that security issues shouldn't be public knowledge or our attempts to mitigate those security concerns shouldn't be publicly broadcast. Anemone Dep. at 18. As for the First Amendment value of Anemone's security-related speech, any weight we might ordinarily attach to such speech in other circumstances is diminished here by the fact that Anemone's claims that his investigation was impeded are conclusory, and belied by the record, which shows that authority over the Bauer/Plasser investigation was merely transferred to the OIG. Further, Anemone's connection of his obstruction allegations to terrorism concerns, the most incendiary aspect of his comments to the Times, is without factual support. See Anemone, 2008 WL 1956284, at . And perhaps most importantly, Anemone's status as the top-level MTA official with respect to security issues, including safeguarding transit riders from terrorist threats, weighs heavily against him in the Pickering balance. See McEvoy v. Spencer, 124 F.3d 92, 103 (2d Cir. 1997) ([W]here the employee holds an extremely confidential or highly placed advisory position, it would be unlikely if the Pickering balance were to be struck in his favor. The tremendous disruption to the public workplace likely to result from the critical speech of such an employee would in most cases outweigh any First Amendment interests possessed by that employee.); see also Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 390, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987) (The burden of caution employees bear with respect to the words they speak will vary with the extent of authority and public accountability the employee's role entails.). All this said, we need not resolve whether the Defendants established their entitlement to a Pickering defense on the record here, because we conclude that the clearly disruptive character of Anemone's speech to the Times provides yet further support for our determination that a Mt. Healthy defense has been amply made out. Under Mt. Healthy, evidence of the disruptive impact of potentially protected speech is relevant to the extent that it serves as an additional, permissible reason for which the government could have taken an adverse employment action against a government employee. Thus, as noted previously, although the language in Mt. Healthy refers to the plaintiff's [protected] conduct, the Court's analysis, properly understood, attempts to weigh the impact of the defendant's impermissible reason on the defendant's decision to act. Greenwich Citizens Comm., 77 F.3d at 32; see also Scott, 344 F.3d at 288 (stating that in establishing a Mt. Healthy defense, the defendant must show it would have taken exactly the same action absent the improper motive  (emphasis added)). The relevant question then, with respect to Anemone's speech to the Times, is not whether he would have suffered termination absent the speech itself, but rather whether even without the improper motivation the alleged retaliatory action would have occurred. Scott, 344 F.3d at 287-88. We conclude that even assuming the Defendants here acted partly on the basis of an improper retaliatory motive emanating from Anemone's speech to the Times  a generous assumption, even viewing the record in the light most favorable to Anemoneany reasonable jury would determine that Anemone would have suffered termination absent any such motive. Considering both Anemone's non-speech-related misconduct, beginning with his superiors' initial dissatisfaction with his ability to control his deputy Casale and extending to his pattern of insubordination and deception from February through March 2003, and the disruptive character of his speech to the Times, there is simply no question of material fact that Anemone would have been suspended and terminated in any event. Finally, while the close proximity of the Interim Report to the Times interview might ordinarily give rise to an inference that an impermissible motive prompted both the issuance of the Report and Anemone's subsequent discipline, we agree with the district court that the timing here reflected instead the steady accumulation of misconduct on Anemone's partmisconduct prompting the ultimate conclusion that suspending and then terminating him was necessary. As discussed above, the full extent of Anemone's misconduct only became clear at the very end of March, with his and Casale's depositions before the OIG revealing the extent to which they had failed to cooperate in the Bauer/Plasser investigation. The disruptive dimension to his Times comments then provided even further permissible and non-retaliatory reason to discipline him. Ultimately, we find no material question of fact as to whether the Defendants in this case would have issued the Interim Report, placed Anemone on administrative leave and subsequently terminated him in the absence of any potentially retaliatory intent arising out of protected speech. [13] The district court therefore properly granted summary judgment to the Defendants pursuant to Mt. Healthy. [14]