Opinion ID: 729769
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lubavitch's Retaliation Claim

Text: 22 Turning now to the plaintiffs' specific claims, Lubavitch first alleges that the Building Authority's adoption of Rule 13 was in retaliation for plaintiffs' exercise of their free speech rights and for their exercise of their right to petition the courts for redress of grievances. Lubavitch undoubtedly has such rights. 5 Whether Lubavitch also has a legitimate cause of action for retaliation, however, is another matter. 23 The plaintiffs cite numerous cases for the general proposition that an act in retaliation for the exercise of a constitutionally protected right is actionable under Section 1983 even if the act, when taken for different reasons, would have been proper. Howland v. Kilquist, 833 F.2d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 1987). Indeed, there seems to have been an assumption in this litigation that Lubavitch would win if it could show that the Building Authority enacted Rule 13 out of a desire to punish Lubavitch for the exercise of its constitutional rights. 24 Claims of retaliation admittedly almost always turn on the issue of motive. See, e.g., Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 598 (1972) (holding that a public employee must show the decision not to renew his contract was, in fact, made in retaliation for his exercise of the constitutional right of free speech). An examination of the cases cited in the briefs, however, indicates that both parties fundamentally misconceive the nature of retaliation claims. The broad, sweeping language cited by the parties is belied by the facts of the cases themselves. Indeed, to allow a retaliation cause of action against the Building Authority in this case would be a huge and unwarranted extension of established retaliation doctrine. 25 Of the 21 cases cited in the briefs and referenced in the District Court's opinion regarding the proper standard for retaliation claims, 16 were claims brought by either public employees or prisoners. 6 Those numbers alone should have suggested caution when considering Lubavitch's atypical retaliation claim. More tellingly, however, all of the cases cited involved challenges to discretionary government actions taken vis-a-vis individual citizens. None of these cases involved a challenge to the mere adoption of a rule, let alone a prospective and generally applicable rule like the Building Authority's Rule 13. 26 Indeed, retaliation case law demonstrates that retaliation causes of action are challenges to the application of governmental rules, not to the rules themselves. Consider a typical retaliation case. A public employee will claim that she was denied a promotion because she has exercised some right, say affiliating with a certain political party. The government employer typically responds that the employee failed to get the promotion not because of her politics but because of some independent, neutral rule (e.g., she was less qualified than other applicants). The employee never disputes that the independent reason is a valid criterion. Rather, the employee will allege only that the rule is being applied arbitrarily or unequally to her. 27 Retaliation claims are undoubtedly vital to constitutional law. No matter how constitutionally sound a given rule may be, the repeated misapplication or selective application of the rule could create an entirely unconstitutional policy. An official hiring policy that disregards political affiliation, for example, could be no different in its objective, discernible effect than a policy of hiring only Democrats if the official policy is misapplied or ignored. 28 Nonetheless, courts will not sustain a retaliation claim where a plaintiff challenges only the enactment of a prospective, generally applicable rule. Executive and legislative branches of government must not be paralyzed by the prospect of a retaliation claim (and the attendant fact-based motive inquiry 7 ) whenever they make new policy that is arguably in response to someone's speech or lawsuit. Suppose, for example, that a group of drug addicts successfully sues to get disability benefits for their addiction and Congress subsequently amends the law to prohibit benefits to drug addicts. No one would reasonably suggest that Congress's motives would then be subject to a retaliation inquiry just because it acted in response to the addicts' success in the courts. 29 Plaintiffs can, of course, attack the substance of a rule as being facially unconstitutional. See, e.g., Saia v. New York, 334 U.S. 558, 559-60 (1948) (striking down ordinance giving unfettered discretion to local officials regarding speaker permits); United Pub. Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 100 (1947) (Congress may not enact a regulation providing that no Republican . . . shall be appointed to federal office, or that no federal employee shall attend Mass or take any active part in missionary work). And government officials cannot escape a retaliation claim simply by dressing up individualized government action to look like a general rule. A policy that prohibited all lobby displays by groups that had put up displays during the previous December, for example, would be neither prospective nor generally applicable. Plaintiffs may not, however, use a retaliation claim to challenge a truly prospective and generally applicable rule that is even-handedly enforced. 30 In short, retaliation claims protect constitutional rights only against their unequal infringement. We recognized as much in Vukadinovich v. Bartels, 853 F.2d 1387 (7th Cir. 1988), where a teacher brought both retaliation and equal protection claims after he was dismissed, allegedly for statements he had made to a local newspaper. After disposing of the retaliation claim, we said his equal protection claim alleged only that he was treated differently because he exercised his right to free speech and thus was a mere rewording of plaintiff's First Amendment-retaliation claim. Id. at 1391-92; see also Thompson v. City of Starkville, Miss., 901 F.2d 456, 468 (5th Cir. 1990) (dismissing plaintiff's equal protection claim in retaliation case because it amount[ed] to no more than a restatement of his first amendment claim). In other words, retaliation doctrine protects citizens against those individualized, discretionary government actions where the government's coercive power is greatest, not against government rules that affect both majority and minority alike. 8 31 Returning to the specifics of this case, Rule 13 is unequivocally a prospective and generally applicable rule because it bans all private displays henceforth. Furthermore, no one has even hinted that the rule has been or is being applied unequally. Lubavitch therefore has not stated facts sufficient for a retaliation claim. To hold otherwise would be a significant expansion of retaliation doctrine and would encourage only litigiousness and governmental paralysis. 32