Court Opinion

ID: 9466601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:20:34.125898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:49.379319
License: Public Domain

THOMAS A. CLARK, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the result and in most of the reasoning of the majority opinion en banc. The language of the dissent to the panel opinion,1 however, emphasizing the very small degree to which first amendment considerations are implicated in the posture of the case as it reaches us, more closely expresses my views. I therefore adopt it as mine.
ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge, with whom GODBOLD, KRAVITCH, FRANK M. JOHNSON, Jr., HATCHETT, TATE and SAM D. JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent from the majority opinion. My brethren accept a limitation on the freedom of speech of municipal employees by a regulation consisting of a bare “catch-all provision” because it is the “only notice that can practically and effectively be given that the employer thinks [himself] entitled to impose punishment on grounds that are not set out with particularity.” Generality of proscription may be tolerable when directed at conduct. However, it cannot be sanctioned when it stifles freedom of expression. In accommodating the first amendment to the apparent needs of the government as employer, my brethren put a false dilemma: if the governmental authorities are to discipline employees they- must either adopt a rule so vague that it gives no notice to employees or they must formulate an encyclopedia of particulars. The simple answer to the apparent riddle is easy: a governmental body is not required to inhibit the freedom of expression of its employees; if it seeks to do so, then it must warn clearly what exercises of first amendment rights so far abuse the employment relationship that they constitute cause for discipline.
The statement of facts in the majority opinion is completely accurate. It fails, however, to focus on the single most important subject: whether the ordinance applies when an employee engages in speech or other self-expression that is deemed by his superiors to be “prejudicial to good order.” At the trial, in its brief and in oral argument the city asserts that speech can be thus condemned. Perhaps in recognition of the possible reach of that phrase, the majority limits it by a sort of ejusdem generis rule, “undesirable conduct not specifically forbidden by other, more specific rules but of the same general kind.” The city can, of course, revise the ordinance so as to prohibit its application to constitutionally protected speech, but the legislative body has made no such effort, and instead defends the ordinance in its full scope. Were we a state court, we could so reinterpret state codes, to attempt to bring them into constitutional line, but, as a federal court, we lack that power. Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, *1106520, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 1105, 31 L.Ed.2d 408, 413 (1972); United States v. Thirty-seven (37) Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 369, 91 S.Ct. 1400, 1405, 28 L.Ed.2d 822, 829 (1971).
Davis was not discharged for punching the chief in the nose, for damaging city property or for driving a fire truck with wild abandon. He was fired for talking to a newspaper reporter. He now knows that the ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to him. Other employees do not have the assurance that other speeches on other subjects will be similarly protected. When considering the validity of the ordinance on its face, we must consider not only whether it prohibits unruly actions but whether it might reach an attempt to express sentiments that do not meet with approval of a governmental superior. More important, the employee must consider before he speaks the possibility that he will be discharged or disciplined if he gives utterance to his thoughts. This inhibition is properly characterized as a chilling effect, for it can hardly fail both to deter all but the bravest and to limit expression by others to the safe and the accepted.
The conduct-prej udicial-to-good-order standard, even when Article 5.5 is narrowed by eliminating whatever was forbidden by Article 5.3, is designed to forbid not only actual speech and writing but also behavior that is communicative and, hence, shielded by the first amendment. Municipal employees must not be discharged pursuant to a scheme that stifles the exercise of fundamental personal liberty. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 96 S.Ct. 2673, 49 L.Ed.2d 547 (1976). The vice in the ordinance is that it is overbroad in reaching first-amendment-protected conduct, and vague in its definition of what kind of expressive conduct is or is not prohibited.
Whether such a general standard is so vague that it cannot constitutionally be applied to government employees has twice been considered by the Supreme Court. Both cases are cited and relied upon by the majority. With deference to my brethren, I read them differently as applied to the issue before us. Neither of them sanctions proscriptions against free speech by phrases Delphic in brevity and obscurity.
In Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974), the Court considered a provision of the Lloyd-LaFollette Act, 5 U.S.C. § 7501, which provides that a federal civil service employee may be removed or suspended without pay “only for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.” The statute was upheld on the premise that its language “excludes constitutionally protected speech, and that the statute is therefore not overbroad.” 416 U.S. at 162, 94 S.Ct. at 1648, 40 L.Ed.2d at 38. The Court emphasized the interpretative history of the statute, the availability of government counsel to employees who seek advice on the meaning of the act and its regulations, and the administrative interpretation of the statute by the Civil Service Commission, whose “longstanding principles of employer-employee relationships, like those developed in the private sector, should be followed in interpreting the language used by Congress.” Id. at 160, 94 S.Ct. at 1647, 40 L.Ed.2d at 36.
None of these buttresses supports this ordinance. There is no state court interpretation that safeguards constitutionally protected speech, there is no counsel to advise on the ordinance and there is no administrative history. Davis was discharged, and remained unemployed until he invoked the aid of a federal court; only then did he know that he was safe in speaking to a reporter. If his fellow firemen now wish to espouse wages considered horrendous by the chief, they have no assurance that this advocacy will not be considered prejudicial to good order.
Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974), lends no greater support to the ordinance. While the Court held valid provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice proscribing “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” (10 U.S.C. § 933) and “all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces” (10 U.S.C. § 934), it stressed that each of these articles had been:
*1107construed by the United States Court of Military Appeals, or by other military authorities in such a manner as to at least partially narrow its otherwise broad scope.
* * * * * *
The effect of these constructions of Arts. 133 and 134 by the Court of Military Appeals and by other military authorities has been twofold: It has narrowed the very broad reach of the literal language of the articles, and at the same time has supplied considerable specificity by way of examples of the conduct which they cover.
417 U.S. at 752, 754, 94 S.Ct. at 2560, 2560-61, 41 L.Ed.2d at 456. The Court also noted that military personnel were instructed regarding the contents of the Code. Id. at 751-52, 94 S.Ct. at 2559, 41 L.Ed.2d at 455. Moreover the Court stressed the “factors differentiating military society from civilian society” and held that the proper standard of review for a vagueness challenge to the articles of the Code is the standard that applies to criminal statutes regulating economic affairs. Id. at 756, 94 S.Ct. at 2562, 41 L.Ed.2d at 457.
None of the factors that the Arnett and Parker opinions mentioned as providing such limitation or guidance are found here. There are no limiting regulations; there is no body of doctrine; there is no office for interpretative guidance; the rule applies to fire department employees rather than military personnel,1 and no judicial construction of the ordinance and regulation can eliminate their overbreadth and also provide the requisite degree of clarity. See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 580-81, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 1251, 39 L.Ed.2d 605, 616 (1974); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 617-18, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 2918-19, 37 L.Ed.2d 830, 843-44 (1973); United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 579-80, 93 S.Ct. 2880, 2897-98, 37 L.Ed.2d 796, 816-17 (1973); Bence v. Breier, 501 F.2d 1185, 1188-92 (7th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1121, 95 S.Ct. 804, 42 L.Ed.2d 821 (1975); Waters v. Peterson, 495 F.2d 91, 99-100 (D.C.Cir. 1973). See generally Note, Constitutional Law — Vagueness Doctrine, 53 Tex.L.Rev. 1298 (1975). Certainly, the majority opinion has not done so. Therefore the ordinance and regulation are facially overbroad and vague.2
This dissent is not an indorsement of insubordination or anarchy in governmental service. Governmental as well as private administrative units must be responsive to management. Policy makers must have the authority to define and accomplish functional goals. Administrators must have the power to direct work and to discipline the idle and the insolent. “[I]t is not feasible or necessary ... to spell out in detail all that conduct which will result in retaliation.” Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 161, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 1648, 40 L.Ed.2d 15, 37 (1974) (quoting Meehan v. Macy, 392 F.2d 822, 835 (D.C.Cir.), modified on rehearing, 425 F.2d 469 (1968), aff’d en banc, 425 F.2d 472 (1969)). However, certain minimum standards or guidelines are required. See Smith v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566, 94 S.Ct. 1242, 39 L.Ed.2d 605 (1974). Management prerogatives can be defined in a manner that makes clear the duties and responsibilities of public employees and yet protects their rights as citizens.3 In an industrial *1108society, suspension and discharge are penalties more severe than those levied for many criminal offenses; they cannot be left to the caprice of a supervisor, particularly when action may be taken, as it was against Davis, for communication protected by the first amendment.4

. 598 F.2d at 922-924.

. The military analogy has been rejected with respect to police departments. Bence v. Breier, 501 F.2d 1185 (7th Cir. 1974), cert. denied 419 U.S. 1121, 95 S.Ct. 804, 42 L.Ed.2d 821 (1975); Muller v. Conlisk, 429 F.2d 901, 904 (7th Cir. 1970). Fire departments are also not analogous to the military.

. We need not pause here to define the differences between these defects. 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 doctrine.

. The degree of specificity required of such regulations may depend on the nature of the employees covered. If a large, heterogeneous group of employees is involved, such as in Arnett, where most federal employees were subject to the regulations in question, less specificity may be feasible than for a small, homogeneous group of employees such as municipal firefighters. See generally Note, Consti*1108tutional Law — Vagueness Doctrine, 53 Tex.L.Rev. 1298 (1975).

. We cannot excuse unwillingness to face difficult, even unfamiliar, issues because the Supreme Court has not yet reached them. Certio-rari review is reserved principally for conflicts of decision among the circuit courts. Until circuit courts wrestle with a constitutional problem and present in their opinions a full range of precedent and thought appropriate to its resolution, the highest court is not in a position to consider all facets of the problem and reach an informed disposition.