Court Opinion

ID: 9892840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-25 00:00:27.613106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:47:31.823263
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-30113        Document: 00516942523             Page: 1      Date Filed: 10/24/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                                     United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                              Fifth Circuit

                                     ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                     October 24, 2023
                                       No. 23-30113                                    Lyle W. Cayce
                                     ____________                                           Clerk

   Amalgamated Transit Union; Valerie Jefferson,

                                                                  Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                            versus

   New Orleans Regional Transit Authority; Alex
   Wiggins,

                                              Defendants—Appellees.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Eastern District of Louisiana
                              USDC No. 2:21-CV-1790
                     ______________________________

   Before Graves, Higginson, and Ho, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
         Valerie Jefferson, a bus driver and president of the Amalgamated
   Transit Union, was fired after she made certain comments to the CEO of the
   company. So she and the union collectively brought this suit. The parties
   present conflicting accounts of what she said to the CEO. On appeal,
   Plaintiffs argue that this fact dispute precludes summary judgment. But

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-30113        Document: 00516942523          Page: 2   Date Filed: 10/24/2023

                                      No. 23-30113

   Plaintiffs never argued to the district court that the employer’s investigation
   of the incident was unreasonable. Without that argument, Supreme Court
   precedent requires us to defer to the employer’s decision. Accordingly, we
   affirm.
             Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue of
   material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
   Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). To establish a First Amendment retaliation claim,
   the plaintiff must show that (1) she suffered an adverse employment action,
   (2) she spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern, (3) her interest in
   speaking outweighs the government’s interest in efficient provision of public
   services, and (4) the protected speech motivated the adverse employment
   action. See Nixon v. City of Hous., 511 F.3d 494, 497 (5th Cir. 2007).
             In First Amendment retaliation cases, the parties may disagree as to
   the “factual basis for applying the test—what the speech was, in what tone it
   was delivered, what the listener’s reactions were.” Waters v. Churchill, 511
   U.S. 661, 668 (1994). In such cases, courts must defer to the employer’s
   decision, but only so long as that decision “rests on a reasonable belief about
   the contents of the speech, formed after an objectively reasonable
   investigation of the facts to determine what the employee actually said.”
   Cutler v. Stephen F. Austin State Univ., 767 F.3d 462, 470 (5th Cir. 2014)
   (citing Waters, 511 U.S. at 677−78).
             We need not decide whether the employer’s investigation was
   reasonable here, because, as the district court noted, Plaintiffs did not
   “dispute the applicability of Waters . . . ; indeed, they ma[d]e no response to
   the argument whatsoever.” Amalgamated Transit Union v. New Orleans Reg’l
   Transit Auth., 2023 WL 1469570, at *11 (E.D. La. Feb. 2, 2023). Plaintiffs’
   counsel conceded during oral argument that they failed to argue that the
   investigation was unreasonable before the district court.        Oral Arg. at

                                           2
Case: 23-30113         Document: 00516942523               Page: 3      Date Filed: 10/24/2023

                                           No. 23-30113

   37:55−39:54. In fact, Plaintiffs did not acknowledge the Waters precedent
   until their appellate reply brief, despite Defendants’ arguments at the
   summary judgment phase. Accordingly, Plaintiffs forfeited the argument.
   See Rollins v. Home Depot USA, 8 F.4th 393, 397 (5th Cir. 2021) (“A party
   forfeits an argument by failing to raise it in the first instance in the district
   court—thus raising it for the first time on appeal—or by failing to adequately
   brief the argument on appeal.”); see also Whitehead v. Food Max of Miss., Inc.,
   163 F.3d 265, 270 (5th Cir. 1998) (“Generally, we do not address points
   presented for the first time in a reply brief.”).
           During oral argument, Plaintiffs’ counsel contended only that they
   had “argued it factually . . . showing the facts that show[ed] that the
   investigation was not reasonable.” Oral Arg. at 38:04−38:16. But a party
   must “assert a legal reason why summary judgment should not be granted”
   or the ground “cannot be considered or raised on appeal.” Keenan v. Tejeda,
   290 F.3d 252, 262 (5th Cir. 2002) (citation omitted). “[T]he party must
   press and not merely intimate the argument during the proceedings before
   the district court. An argument must be raised to such a degree that the
   district court has an opportunity to rule on it.” Dallas Gas Partners, L.P. v.
   Prospect Energy Corp., 733 F.3d 148, 157 (5th Cir. 2013) (citation omitted).
           We accordingly affirm. 1

           _____________________
           1
              Plaintiffs argued that Jefferson’s termination was retaliation in violation of both
   Jefferson’s First Amendment right to free speech and free association. We agree with the
   district court that the freedom of speech claim and the freedom of association claim fail for
   essentially the same reasons. The Supreme Court has held that Waters not only applies to
   cases involving protected speech but also to those involving protected political activity. See
   Heffernan v. City of Paterson, N.J., 578 U.S. 266, 273 (2016) (“We conclude that, as in
   Waters, the government's reason for demoting Heffernan is what counts here. When an
   employer demotes an employee out of a desire to prevent the employee from engaging in
   political activity that the First Amendment protects, the employee is entitled to challenge

                                                 3
Case: 23-30113        Document: 00516942523             Page: 4      Date Filed: 10/24/2023

           _____________________
   that unlawful action under the First Amendment . . . even if, as here, the employer makes
   a factual mistake about the employee's behavior.”).