Court Opinion

ID: 9465788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:55:45.352775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:22.314056
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
As the majority correctly notes, the curious feature of this case, and that which greatly narrows the question it presents, is the outstanding injunction against all appellants — the portion of the judgment below that was not appealed from. Under it appellants stand forbidden to enforce Article 5.3 of the Fire Regulations, the “derogatory statements — adverse criticism” provision. Thus, at present, insofar as is material to this case against these appellants, the prohibitions of Article 5.3 must be viewed as subtracted from the more general, catchall language of the ordinance penalizing “[cjonduct prejudicial to good order” that is before us. Manifestly, the city cannot penalize, under the catch-all provision, conduct that it has been forbidden to penalize under the more specific Article 5.3. To do so would be to trifle with the court below. I therefore conclude that, since the injunction against enforcing Article 5.3 protects almost all conceivable speech and activity shielded by the first amendment, these forms of expression are generally withdrawn from the catch-all prohibition as well.1
In this posture of the record, then, first amendment considerations largely depart this particular case and with them most, probably all, of the questions of over-breadth that stem from those considerations. See, e. g., Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, 91 S.Ct. 1686, 29 L.Ed.2d 214 (1971), distinguishing the first amendment basis of the overbreadth doctrine from the due process grounding of the vagueness one.2 We are thus left to determine whether, first amendment matter aside, the ordinance is such that firemen of common intelligence must necessarily guess — at their peril — -at its meaning. A corollary question is whether, if this be so, the level of guessing required here is such as to offend due process. I would hold that it is not.
The majority holds that it is because, as I understand the opinion, the majority thinks it can conceive of some types of “conduct expressive of opinion” that might fall outside Article 5.3 but within the prohibition of “conduct prejudicial to good order.” Since it can do so, it proceeds to invalidate this ordinance as facially unconstitutional. If my experience is any criterion, today’s judgment will require the revision of a very great many, perhaps all, sets of fire (and, *923perhaps, police) regulations in the circuit, since for reasons I note later such “conduct-to-the-prejudice” provisions seem to be very common. This is a most serious interference with state and municipal power and practical policy, taken on what I regard as quite strained and abstract grounds. If the majority is right, of course, the thing must be done; but even so, it should be done with deep reluctance.
I am the more reluctant to see it done because I think the majority is probably not right. The basis of its ruling is imagined types of “expressive” conduct — none claimed to be involved here — which might fall outside the scope of the enjoined Article 5.3 (derogatory statements/adverse criticism) but within Article 5.5 (conduct prejudicial). I doubt that such types of conduct exist to any significant degree in the real world, and my doubts are reinforced by the illustrations the opinion offers. These appear around its note call 5 and in that note, and I must suppose that they are the most likely examples that occurred to my brethren. Certainly, none of these are presented by this case, and, with one possible exception, all of them seem to me to be illustrations either of the kind of conduct protected by the injunction against enforcing Article 5.3 or of the kind that ought not to be protected g,t all. In the latter category, and probably in the first as well, falls “disclosure of a secret department policy” and thumbing the nose, “giving the bird,” or directing Bronx cheers at one’s superiors. In the former falls advertising a pay grievance, surely precisely that “adversely criticizing department policy” that the injunction protects. See Article 5, redacted at note 1 to this dissent.
There remains “criticism of the mayor,” which is arguably protected by the injunction (if malicious, clearly so) and which to the extent it is not, is so clear and pure an example of political speech that only a true perversion of the prohibition of “conduct prejudicial to good order” could be thought to cover it. After all, any rule governing conduct can be perverted or deviously applied, and such applications should meet their due reward. As an illustration: suppose a fire department rule that “Firemen shall, while on duty, maintain a courteous and respectful demeanor toward their superiors and obey their instructions promptly.” It seems unlikely to me that the majority would invalidate this rule on its face as violative of the first amendment. Yet it, though somewhat narrower than Article 5.5, could as easily be twisted to punish on-duty “criticism of the mayor.”
Catch-all provisions such as this persist in military and civil-service codes, though often challenged and sometimes invalidated on grounds such as those asserted here. See, e. g., Bence v. Breier, 501 F.2d 1185 (7th Cir. 1974), and generally, Note, Vagueness Doctrine, 53 Tex.L.Rev. 1298 (1975). The reason why they do seems manifest. For in private employment, one can be disciplined or discharged for almost any reason or for no reason, and that this arrangement obtains is generally known. In civil service employment, by contrast, discharge and discipline generally must rest on “cause.” Fair notice consequently requires some specification of what actions constitute cause, but it may well be impossible for the mind to imagine or the hand to transcribe every sort of human misconduct that might fairly call for disciplining. And if it were, the product would doubtless fill volumes of particulars and therefore go unread — except perhaps by superiors searching out support for disciplinary action already determined upon.
Thus, ironically, these catch-all provisions, so often attacked and here stricken down on “notice” and vagueness grounds, probably give the only notice that can practically and effectively be given that the employer thinks himself entitled to impose punishment on grounds that cannot practically be set out with particularity. They “require ... a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensible normative standard.” Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. at 614, 91 S.Ct. at 1688. Thus, in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974), the Supreme Court upheld a civil service dismissal for “such cause as will promote the efficiency *924of the service.” It did so on reasoning that the quoted standard was “essentially fair” and that requiring greater specificity was not feasible “Because of the infinite variety of factual situations in which public statements by Government employees might reasonably justify dismissal for ‘cause.’ ” Id. at 161, 94 S.Ct. at 1648. (emphasis added). And in Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974) — a case concerning political speech and symbolic conduct almost exclusively — the Court sustained against a vagueness challenge Article 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, which contains language almost identical to that attacked here, “disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order . . . .” Were the Irving Fire Department a military unit, I would regard Levy as controlling authority, closely in point.
But it is not. The fire department is at most quasi-military and partakes even of this quality chiefly when on duty. The Court did rely strongly, in Levy, on the military context and tradition, and I am loath to equate a municipal fireman with a paratrooper or even with such a quasi-soldier as the recalcitrant officer-dermatologist, Levy. Military society, to function at all, appears inexorably to work itself out at least partly in terms of status and to require something more in terms of performance than mere efficiency, of conduct than mere failure to stampede the carriage horses. I do not, therefore, regard Levy as squarely controlling. Kennedy, however, does not concern the military, and the catch-all language there upheld could scarcely be broader.
It is certainly possible, as the majority does in passing, to isolate discrete elements within the analysis: size of the unit to be controlled; disparateness of function within it; the need for discipline, on or off the job, etc. The majority correctly notes, moreover, certain differentiating features of both cases: the presence of underlying regulations and available counsel in Kennedy, the military context and “partially” narrowing military court decisions in Levy. The central fact remains that in both cases pure speech was held validly punished under provisions as vague as this, and in Levy speech of a mostly political nature. I do not believe that the considerations noted by the majority suffice to transport the faintly military fireman outside the boundaries laid down in Levy and Kennedy. For me, he lies somewhere within, them. I would therefore reason between these lines, since it seems to me that the Irving Fire Department lies well within them. Levy concerned speech and conduct near to the core values of the first amendment. All the same, it was punished, and punished pursuant to a rule as vague as this one.
And when first amendment considerations are not involved, as they mainly are not here, I do not think that advising a fireman that he may be disciplined for behaving himself in a manner “prejudicial to good order” requires him to do unconstitutional guessing or infringes his constitutional rights. To the contrary, such a rule does no more than give him notice that as a public servant he is expected to observe something approaching the norms of decent conduct. True, the standard is not precise, but I do not think it incomprehensible.
When firemen are disciplined under it for having a beer off duty, for wearing green nightshirts in the firehouse, or for criticizing the mayor, the courthouse doors should be open. Until such things are done, I see no need to conceive imaginary bugbears, drag them in by the heels, and invalidate this common-sense and, I fancy, widely used provision because of them. I am glad it does not fall to me to draft the new Irving Fire Code. I would reverse.

. Thus the posture of Article 5.5 before us is as though it read, insofar as pertinent:
Conduct prejudicial to good order is punishable by reprimand, reduction in rank, suspension or dismissal; provided, that it shall not be deemed such conduct to
(1) engage in malicious gossip, reports or activity that would tend to disrupt department morale or bring discredit to the department or any member thereof;
(2) or make derogatory statements or adversely criticize department policy, activities, or officers.
This somewhat curious effect is the result of the failure of the city et al. to appeal from the other portions of the judgment.

. Despite their different bases, the doctrines overlap considerably. Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974).