Court Opinion

ID: 9890705
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-14 00:00:34.400749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:04.342752
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-50313        Document: 00516931241             Page: 1      Date Filed: 10/13/2023

             United States Court of Appeals
                  for the Fifth Circuit
                                     ____________
                                                                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                       Fifth Circuit
                                      No. 23-50313
                                    Summary Calendar                                 FILED
                                    ____________                               October 13, 2023
                                                                                Lyle W. Cayce
   Jason Dusterhoft,                                                                 Clerk

                                                                    Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                            versus

   City of Austin; Brian Manley, individually and in his official
   capacity; Troy Gay, individually and in his official capacity; Justin
   Newsom, individually and in his official capacity,

                                              Defendants—Appellees.
                     ______________________________

                     Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Western District of Texas
                              USDC No. 1:20-CV-1081
                     ______________________________

   Before King, Haynes, and Graves, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
         Plaintiff-Appellant Jason Dusterhoft challenges the district court’s
   dismissal of his § 1983 claims for First Amendment retaliation and
   conspiracy. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

         _____________________
         *
             This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-50313          Document: 00516931241               Page: 2     Date Filed: 10/13/2023

                                             No. 23-50313

                                        I.     Background
           Dusterhoft is a former Assistant Chief of the Austin Police
   Department (the “Department”). 1 On July 14, 2017, Chief of Police Brian
   Manley and Assistant City Manager Rey Arellano held a meeting with
   Dusterhoft to inform him that he was being demoted because of “[t]wo non
   policy issues.” 2 Dusterhoft responded by raising several concerns he had
   with the Department, including “what he believed were numerous criminal
   and serious policy violations being committed by Austin police officers and
   Chief Manley himself.” Manley and Arellano then asked Dusterhoft to leave
   the room so they could speak privately. When Dusterhoft returned, Manley
   and Arellano told him that he would not be demoted. However, three days
   later, Manley informed Dusterhoft that he had changed his mind and would
   demote him to Commander as of July 30, 2017.
           Nearly a year after his demotion, Dusterhoft’s ex-girlfriend accused
   him of domestic violence. Manley investigated the allegations alongside
   former Assistant Chief Justin Newsom and Chief of Staff Troy Gay. Manley
   ultimately terminated Dusterhoft’s employment in December 2018.
   Dusterhoft appealed his termination through arbitration but was
   unsuccessful.
           On October 28, 2020, Dusterhoft initiated this suit against the City of
   Austin, Manley, Gay, and Newsom (collectively “Defendants”), alleging
   they conspired to retaliate and retaliated against him for exercising his First
   Amendment right to free speech.                    Dusterhoft claims that Defendants

           _____________________
           1
              Because we are reviewing a judgment that Dusterhoft’s pleadings were
   insufficient, this section is a summary of the complaint’s version of the relevant events. See
   Doe v. MySpace, Inc., 528 F.3d 413, 418 (5th Cir. 2008).
           2
               The complaint does not specify these issues.

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                                             No. 23-50313

   demoted and terminated him based on false accusations because of the issues
   he raised in the July 2017 meeting. Defendants subsequently moved to
   dismiss both claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c). The
   district court granted the motion, finding that Dusterhoft’s speech was not
   constitutionally protected. 3 Dusterhoft timely appealed.
                                II.     Standard of Review
           We review a district court’s dismissal under Rule 12(c) de novo. Doe
   v. MySpace, Inc., 528 F.3d 413, 418 (5th Cir. 2008). “A motion brought
   pursuant to [Rule] 12(c) is designed to dispose of cases where the material
   facts are not in dispute and a judgment on the merits can be rendered by
   looking to the substance of the pleadings and any judicially noticed facts.”
   Great Plains Tr. Co. v. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., 313 F.3d 305, 312
   (5th Cir. 2002) (quotation omitted). In reviewing these motions, we apply
   the same standard as that of Rule 12(b)(6). Doe, 528 F.3d at 418. We accept
   all well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and view them in the light most
   favorable to the nonmovant. Id. However, we will not “accept as true
   conclusory allegations or unwarranted deductions of fact.” Great Plains, 313
   F.3d at 313 (quotation omitted). “[A] plaintiff must plead ‘enough facts to
   state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Doe, 528 F.3d at 418
   (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
                                      III.      Discussion
           To state a claim for First Amendment retaliation, a public employee
   must plead sufficient facts to show, inter alia, that “he spoke as a citizen on
           _____________________
           3
             Over Dusterhoft’s objection, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s
   report and recommendation as its own order. In addition to determining that Dusterhoft
   failed to state a constitutional violation, the district court concluded that the two-year
   statute of limitations barred any claim based on the July 2017 demotion. Dusterhoft does
   not challenge this holding on appeal. Accordingly, it is affirmed.

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                                           No. 23-50313

   a matter of public concern.” Anderson v. Valdez, 913 F.3d 472, 476 (5th Cir.
   2019) (quotation omitted). This requirement “subtly sets out two predicates
   for public-employee speech to receive First Amendment protection; the
   speech must be made as a citizen and on a matter of public concern.” Gibson v.
   Kilpatrick, 773 F.3d 661, 667 (5th Cir. 2014) (emphasis in original). The
   district court found that Dusterhoft spoke as an employee at the July 2017
   meeting and that his speech was not on a matter of public concern. On
   appeal, Dusterhoft does not adequately brief whether his speech was on a
   matter of public concern. The entirety of his brief appears to be devoted to
   the “private citizen” requirement; to the extent he alludes to the “public
   concern” requirement, he provides neither legal authority nor factual
   allegations to support his argument. See Nichols v. Enterasys Networks, Inc.,
   495 F.3d 185, 190 (5th Cir. 2007). We could affirm on this basis alone. 4 See
   Bonin v. Sabine River Auth. of La., 961 F.3d 381, 388 (5th Cir. 2020).
           However, even assuming Dusterhoft did adequately brief the “public
   concern” requirement, his claim still fails because his pleaded facts show that
   he was speaking as a public employee rather than a private citizen. In
   deciding whether a plaintiff spoke as a public employee or private citizen, the
   critical question is “whether the speech at issue is itself ordinarily within the
   scope of an employee’s duties, not whether it merely concerns those duties.”
   Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228, 240 (2014).                     Speech-related activities
   undertaken in the course of performing one’s job are generally unprotected.
   See Paske v. Fitzgerald, 785 F.3d 977, 984 (5th Cir. 2015). However, “if the
   speech-related activities are ‘the kind . . . engaged in by citizens who do not

           _____________________
           4
            See Gibson v. Kilpatrick, 838 F.3d 476, 481 n.1 (5th Cir. 2016) (noting the questions
   of whether someone spoke as a citizen and on a matter of public concern are two
   independent requirements); Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228, 238–41 (2014) (analyzing them
   as separate requirements).

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                                       No. 23-50313

   work for the government,’” they are protected. Id. (quoting Garcetti v.
   Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 423 (2006)).
          Here, it is undisputed that Dusterhoft attended the July 2017 meeting
   in his role as a police officer to discuss his employment status. This context
   indicates that he spoke as a public employee. See id. (“We also note that
   private citizens do not generally have the right to participate in closed-door
   meetings of ranking police officers.”).            Further, Dusterhoft raised his
   concerns solely in response to the news of his demotion, 5 and his speech
   focused on internal policy concerns. This type of speech is not the type
   typically engaged in by private citizens.
          Dusterhoft contends that he spoke as a private citizen because
   Arellano was not within his formal “chain of command.” Although some of
   our cases note that speech is generally unprotected when taken up the chain
   of command, the inquiry into an employee’s speech is not limited to this
   formal requirement. See, e.g., Rushing v. Miss. Dept. of Child Prot. Servs., No.
   20-60105, 2022 WL 873835, at *3 (5th Cir. Mar. 24, 2022) (holding that
   complaints to a coworker were unprotected). Instead, we consider several
   factors, including whether the speech was “made publicly or to individuals
   outside the speaker’s organization.” Johnson v. Halstead, 916 F.3d 410, 422
   (5th Cir. 2019). Dusterhoft’s complaint makes clear that Arellano is internal
   to Dusterhoft’s organization. Although Arellano is not a Department police
   officer, he is a city official who, as the district court noted, directly supervised

          _____________________
          5
            This allegation also raises a causation issue. Dusterhoft argues that he was
   demoted because of his speech at the July 2017 meeting, but the complaint alleges that
   Manley and Arellano informed him of the demotion before he raised concerns about the
   Department. Indeed, the demotion was the whole reason for the meeting, not caused by
   the meeting.

                                             5
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                                            No. 23-50313

   Manley. 6 Further, the complaint alleges that Arellano attended the July 2017
   meeting to inform Dusterhoft of his demotion, and privately discussed the
   decision with Manley after asking Dusterhoft to leave the room. These
   allegations show that Arellano was involved in the Department’s
   employment decisions. Because Arellano attended the July 2017 meeting to
   discuss an internal Department issue, his presence does not render
   Dusterhoft’s speech constitutionally protected. Cf. Foerster v. Bleess, No. 20-
   20583, 2022 WL 38996, at *3 (5th Cir. Jan. 4, 2022) (concluding that a police
   chief’s report to the city manager undercut his First Amendment claim
   because the city manager was in his chain of command).
                                      IV.      Conclusion
           Considering the complaint as a whole, the district court did not err in
   dismissing Dusterhoft’s claims because he spoke as a public employee. 7
   Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Dusterhoft’s
   § 1983 claims for First Amendment retaliation and conspiracy.

           _____________________
           6
             The district court took judicial notice of the City of Austin’s organizational chart.
   See Funk v. Stryker Corp., 631 F.3d 777, 783 (5th Cir. 2011) (noting that courts may take
   judicial notice of matters of public record when ruling on a 12(b)(6) motion).
           7
             Dusterhoft’s conspiracy claim fails because he has not shown a violation of his
   First Amendment right. See Hale v. Townley, 45 F.3d 914, 920 (5th Cir. 1995) (“[A]
   conspiracy claim is not actionable without an actual violation of section 1983.” (quotation
   omitted)). Further, because Dusterhoft has failed to show that his speech was
   constitutionally protected, we need not reach the issues of causation or municipal liability,
   other than the concerns we expressed regarding causation in footnote five.

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