Court Opinion

ID: 9634166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:52:51.964052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:36.071487
License: Public Domain

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Though I agree with the result the majority reaches on Price’s and Warren’s petition claim, I write separately to note my hesitation in finding that their e-mail complaints up the chain of command (as distinguished from their communications to the State Auditor), did not constitute petitioning activity. Rather, I would assume, ar-guendo, that the e-mails were petitioning activity, but conclude that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Garcetti v. Ceballos, — U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 1960, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006), barred their petitioning claim given that they sent their complaints up the chain of command “pursuant to their official duties.” See majority opinion at 241.
The majority finds that because Price’s and Warren’s “complaints within the chain of command were not directed to the DSP as a governmental agency, but rather were directed to the DSP as their employer,” Price and Warren cannot seek solace now in the Petition Clause. Majority opinion at 247; see also id. at 237 (noting Price and Warren “appealed to their employer, which also happened to be a state agency, through informal channels”). In San Fi-lippo v. Bongiovanni, 30 F.3d 424, 449 (3d Cir.1994), we held “that a public employee is protected under the Petition Clause against retaliation for having filed a petition ... addressing a matter of purely private concern.”11 We explained that the reason for our conclusion was “[t]he first amendment’s petition clause imposes on the United States an obligation to have at least some channel open for those who seek redress for perceived grievances. Through its incorporation of the first amendment, the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of ‘liberty’ imposes the same obligation on the states.” Id. at 442. Thus:
[W]hen government — federal or state— formally adopts a mechanism for redress of those grievances for which government is allegedly accountable, it would seem to undermine the Constitution’s vital purposes to hold that one who in good faith files an arguably meritorious ‘petition’ invoking that mechanism may be disciplined for such invocation by the very government that in compliance with *248the petition clause has given the particular mechanism its constitutional imprimatur.
Id. Additionally, we distinguished retaliation claims based on speech, which are subject to the rule announced by the Supreme Court in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 146, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1690, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983),12 as follows: “[W]hen one files a ‘petition’ one is not appealing over government’s head to the general citizenry. when one files a ‘petition’ one is addressing government and asking government to fix what, allegedly, government has broken or has failed in its duty to repair.” San Filippo, 30 F.3d at 442.
Notwithstanding the above, both San Filippo and the majority concede that there also exist “less formal mechanisms by which a petition may be made,” although they “may occasion a lesser degree of constitutional protection than them formal counterparts.” Majority opinion at 237; see also McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479, 480, 105 S.Ct. 2787, 2788, 86 L.Ed.2d 384 (1985) (recognizing letters sent to President of United States by defendant charged with defaming plaintiff as petitions). The majority concludes, however, that because Price and Warren, in their capacity as public employees, “appealed to them employer, which also happened to be a state agency,” their e-mails cannot constitute petitioning activity. Majority opinion at 238. I find the result reached somewhat troubling. Specifically, given our broad characterization of a public employee’s right to petition in San Filippo, it is unclear to me why Price’s and Warren’s complaints would constitute petitioning activity if they had contacted “a state agency qua agency,” id., rather than the same agency as their employer. Indeed, if in both cases plaintiffs are asking government to fix what it “has broken or has failed in its duty to repair” through means the government has deemed acceptable,13 San Filippo, 30 F.3d at 442, why should the activity be stripped of its constitutional protection in one instance but not the other? 14
We can avoid the need to resolve the difficult question of whether a public employee ever can “petition” the government when the government is also the public employee’s employer by looking, instead, to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Garcetti v. Ceballos.15 In Garcetti, the Supreme Court held that when public employees speak “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.” 126 S.Ct. at 1960. While the Supreme Court did not address the question of whether the rule it announced in Garcetti applies to First Amendment retaliation claims based *249on a public employee’s petitioning activities, as distinguished from his speech, there is good reason to believe that it does.
To be sure, “[t]he petition clause of the first amendment was not intended to be a dead letter — or a graceful but redundant appendage of the clauses guaranteeing freedom of speech and press.” San Filippo, 30 F.3d at 442. Rather, the right to petition “is an assurance of a particular freedom of expression,” McDonald, 472 U.S. at 482, 105 S.Ct. at 2789, and “has a pedigree independent of-and substantially more ancient-than the freedoms of speech and press.” San Filippo, 30 F.3d at 443. Nonetheless, “[t]he right to petition is cut from the same cloth as the other guarantees of that Amendment.” McDonald, 472 U.S. at 482, 105 S.Ct. at 2789. To this end, the Supreme Court has plainly recognized that:
The Petition Clause ... was inspired by the same ideals of liberty and democracy that gave us the freedoms to speak, publish, and assemble.... These First Amendment rights are inseparable ... and there is no sound basis for granting greater constitutional protection to statements made in a petition ... than other First Amendment expressions.
Id. at 485, 105 S.Ct. at 2791 (internal citations omitted); see also San Filippo, 30 F.3d at 450 (Becker, J., concurring and dissenting) (noting “even if all petitions now constitute speech (given the broad interpretation the Supreme Court has given to speech), I do not see why it matters that the guarantees overlap”). Given the above, it certainly would be plausible for us to believe that, if presented with the question, the Court is likely to find that when public employees petition the government pursuant to their official duties, the Constitution does not insulate such petitions from employer discipline. See Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1960; see also D’Angelo v. School Bd. of Polk County, Fla., No. 06-13582, 2007 WL 2189099, at *7 (11th Cir. Aug.1, 2007) (noting that, after Garcetti the court must ask “whether the public employee made his petition both on a matter of public concern and as a citizen” and “[i]f the petition fails this threshold question, it is not protected under the First Amendment”).
Assuming, arguendo, that' Price and Warren’s complaints up the chain of command did constitute petitioning activity, because I believe that Garcetti applies to their claim, I similarly would uphold the district court’s order granting judgment against them as a matter of law for this reason. For the reasons the majority thoughtfully sets forth, it seems plain that Price and Warren acted “pursuant to their official duties,” Garcetti, 126 S.Ct. at 1960, in voicing their complaints up the chain of command. Accordingly, their complaints cannot be the basis underlying a First Amendment claim against defendants.

. We quote this language characterizing the majority opinion in San Filippo from Judge Becker's concurring and dissenting opinion in that case.

. In Connick, the Supreme Court held that a government employee who goes public with an employment dispute that is not a "matter of public concern” does not have first amendment immunity against subsequent employer discipline. Connick, 461 U.S. at 146, 103 S.Ct. at 1690.

. This discussion assumes that e-mail was the typical means by which their employer expected Price and Warren — as well as other DSP employees — to communicate their concerns to it.

. Notably, although we observed in Hill v. Borough of Rutztown, 455 F.3d 225, 242 n. 24 (3d Cir.2006), that "[w]e have never held ... a report of a superior’s misconduct to a legislative body when the legislative body is also the reporter's employer constitutes ‘petitioning activity,’ ” so far as I am aware we similarly never have held to the contrary.

.Obviously, a public employee can petition his governmental employer regarding a matter completely unrelated to his employment and be in the position of any other petitioner for constitutional purposes. But that situation is not present here.