Opinion ID: 173926
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First Amendment Rights of Public Employees

Text: The First Amendment prohibits the government from punishing a person for exercising the right to free speech. When the government is the person's employer, however, the right to free speech is limited in ways that would otherwise be unconstitutional. On one hand, the First Amendment protects a public employee's right, in certain circumstances, to speak as a citizen addressing matters of public concern. Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 417, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006). But [a]t the same time it cannot be gainsaid that the State has interests as an employer in regulating the speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the citizenry in general. Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). Accordingly, we follow a five-step approach (the Garcetti/Pickering analysis) to determine whether the government employer has violated the employee's free-speech rights. The first step, which the Supreme Court announced only four years ago in Garcetti, is for the court to determine whether the employee speaks pursuant to his official duties. If the employee speaks pursuant to his official duties, then there is no constitutional protection because the restriction on speech simply reflects the exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or created. Brammer-Hoelter v. Twin Peaks Charter Acad., 492 F.3d 1192, 1202 (10th Cir.2007) (brackets, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted). If the speech is not pursuant to official duties, the second step (which, like the remaining three, derives from Pickering ) requires the court to determine whether the subject of the speech is a matter of public concern. If the speech is not a matter of public concern, then the speech is unprotected and the inquiry ends. Id. at 1202-03 (citations omitted). If the speech is on a matter of public concern, [t]hird, . . . the court must determine whether the employee's interest in commenting on the issue outweighs the interest of the state as employer[;][f]ourth,. . . the employee must show that his speech was a substantial factor or a motivating factor in a detrimental employment decision[;] [and fifth], if the employee establishes that his speech was such a factor, the employer may demonstrate that it would have taken the same action against the employee even in the absence of the protected speech. Id. at 1203 (brackets, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted). As a general rule, the district court resolves the first three steps, and the last two are jury questions. See id. But the first three may turn on resolution of a factual dispute by the jury (such as deciding precisely what the plaintiff said, which could affect the analysis of each of the first three steps), see, e.g., Casey v. City of Cabool, 12 F.3d 799, 803 (8th Cir.1993); and there may be no genuine issue of fact for the jury to resolve on the last two.