Court Opinion

ID: 9475130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:18:02.258303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:31.640508
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join in Judge Miller’s opinion, and the result, because the record shows, to me (as it did to the arbitrator1), that (a) petitioner deliberately and primarily made his comments to the media for personal motives of vindictiveness due to his failure to be promoted and his belief he could never be promoted (see, e.g., the Los Angeles Times article reprinted as Appendix A to Judge Newman’s opinion); and (b) this concentration on petitioner’s own personal situation, taken together with the personal and revengeful purpose for communicating the individual matters to the press, so dominated what public character these communications might otherwise have had as to deprive them of First Amendment and “whistleblower” protection. On this record, the private and personal was so dominant, and so intermixed with the public matters, that the public parts of the communications cannot be treated as if they stood alone.

. The arbitrator said:
“The arbitrator is convinced that the griev-ant’s motive for releasing such generalized and objurgatory statements to the press was for personal reasons and not to inform the public of matters of general concern.... ”