Court Opinion

ID: 9455563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:26:02.278252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:38.680685
License: Public Domain

*474DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I disagree respecting the action reflected in the majority’s Per Curiam1 following our rehearing en banc.
To begin with, and as to the first charge, I had found myself in accord with the rationale as presented and the conclusion reached in the opinion2 released on April 18, 1968. It seemed clear beyond peradventure that the appellant was properly to be found amenable on the ground of conduct unbecoming a police officer and that his proposed discharge was not unlawful. That much established, unanimously, the court, in my view, need have gone no farther. Affirmance was in order.
Then came the appellant’s Petition for Reconsideration which resulted in the opinion3 of August 23, 1968, continuing but broadening the first order of remand, assertedly to take account of Pickering v. Board of Education4 but permitting the introduction of additional evidence and inviting “an administrative disposition to settle this case.”
Our en banc consideration has culminated in the reinstatement of the August 23, 1968 order, which had included a precatory exhortation for the Commission
to reconsider its precedents in view of Pickering and to establish general guidelines insofar as that may be feasible.
Now the majority directs that (1) charges 2 and 3 be dismissed; (2) charge 1 be reconsidered in light of Pickering; and (3) if charge 1 upon reconsideration “is still found to be validly charged and proved,” the penalty is to be reconsidered in view of the dismissal of charges 2 and 3.
I
My reading of Pickering leads me to conclude, that the Court’s decision there does not call for the action taken by the majority, and rather, upon the basis of its opinion, the legality of the proposed discharge of Meehan should be upheld in accordance with the unanimous views of the sitting division as set out in the first opinion.5
Let it be noted at once that at all times, this appellant was free to vent his opposition to the Governor’s policy through “regular channels, including appeals to Congress.” He and others comparably situated were not under prohibition to refrain from adverse criticism. There was no purportedly official edict suppressing their speech. Rather the appellant’s brief6 tells us that the four union officials present had been urged
to avoid local issuance of comments or statements which could be used by the Panamanian press to inflame further the current difficulties between the United States and Panama.
Again, and respecting the same meeting, the record shows 7 that the Lieutenant Governor requested of those present
that all possible care be taken to present any opposition to the employment plan through regular channels including protests or appeals to Congress. (Emphasis added.)
*475The appellant had been called to the meeting with the Personnel Director and the Lieutenant Governor
in his capacity as President of the Police Lodge, American Federation of Government Employees.
It is completely obvious that the Governor had caused to be taken into the confidence of the Administration, men he assumed he could trust, representatives of unions of employees whose support he hoped to enlist.
The Governor “had decided to make a concession to Panama by employing 40 citizens of Panama as police officers on the Panama Canal Zone Police Force,” the appellant tells us on brief.8
The appellant’s bitter opposition to that plan led to his utterances, his “Dear Friends” letter and the poem, “a contemptuous and derogatory lampoon of the Governor and his policies,” as the original opinion described it. The appellant’s conduct “was a legitimate basis for discharge to promote the efficiency of the service.”9
Meehan’s conduct must appear the more flagrant, quite apart from his betrayal of the confidence reposed in him, because he well knew of the violent disorders which had broken out10 in the Zone in January, 1964. He told us on brief that wild mobs had attacked in the Zone which had become a battleground; five persons had been killed, hundreds were wounded. Property valued at more than $1,500,000 had been destroyed, and thousands of Panamanian rioters had entered the conflict. United States Army units were called in to quell the disturbance.
Against background of that nature, Major General Fleming as Governor had proposed the step by way of concession to Panama against which this appellant knowingly had undertaken a contrary course, which in totality constituted conduct unbecoming an officer, contrary to his basic responsibility.
Our unanimous division in its first opinion concluded — properly, I submit— as follows:
We cannot upset the administrative determination that this responsibility was violated. * * * [His motive] does not justify his failure to comply with his obligation as an employee of the executive branch, an obligation intensified rather than diluted by the tense and sensitive situation of the time and place.
The District Court’s judgment should be affirmed, forthwith and without more.
II
Do any of my colleagues really believe that the situation thus described and the conclusions reached will come within Pickering v. Board of Education?11
Pickering, a school teacher, in advance of public voting as to the needs for additional school funds, had written for publication a letter critical of the Board’s allocation of funds between educational and athletic programs. What Pickering said in no way could be presumed to have impeded his own performance of his duties as a teacher, or to have interfered with the operation of the schools, the Court observed. There was no question of the fitness of Pickering as a teacher.
His statements were in no way directed toward any person with whom Pickering normally as a teacher would be in contact. There was no question, the Court said, of maintaining discipline by Pickering’s superiors or of continuing *476harmony among his co-workers. Neither personal loyalty nor confidence had been impaired.
The contrast in fact and in effect between Pickering’s case and Meehan’s is so marked that every facet of the result and the reasons for it as seen by the Court in Pickering, condemn the course followed by Meehan. No wonder the Court said the exercise by a teacher12 of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment. But that is not this case — or anything like it.
The Court explicitly observed an unwillingness to lay down a general standard, because of the enormous variety of fact situations which made it neither appropriate nor feasible to do so. I have no sort of doubt that the Meehan issue illustrates the prescience of the court’s reluctance to prescribe the general standard, so disclaimed.
It may thus be suggested to my colleagues that this police officer because he was president of his union, had been permitted to share a confidence which for his own purposes he chose to violate; that he did so knowingly, and fully aware of the critical situation in which the Governor acted; that the latter in execution of the responsibilities devolving upon him, had turned for support and understanding to those of his subordinates upon whom he thought he could rely. Instead of the loyalty which he sought and reasonably could have expected to receive, the Governor found his position undermined, with himself and his government’s policy held up to contumely and scorn in the very sensitive area in which the utmost of concern and caution had seemed to be required. And Meehan was responsible.
Pickering v. Board of Education requires no Temand here. On the contrary, the circumstances shown, the facts found, and the record exhibited combine to call for affirmance of the agency action as impeccable as a matter of law.
I am authorized to say that Circuit Judges BURGER and TAMM join in this dissent.

. 138 U.S.App.D.C. -, 425 F.2d 472 (1969).

. Meehan v. Macy, 129 U.S.App.D.C. 217, 392 F.2d 822. I would then have joined Judge Tamm in his dissent respecting the second and third charges, and I would have aligned myself with him in opposing a remand.

. The appellant had then claimed that Pickering, infra note 4, required reversal of the court’s upholding the legality of the discharge on the first ground, above noted.

. 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).

. Supra note 2, wherein had been discussed, to the extent deemed necessary, the background and the facts as found by the agency.

. Referring to the Personnel Director’s memorandum of February 15, 1964. (J.A. 72-73)

. Id.

. Of course Congress — and the Departments of State and Defense — were in position to take whatever action might be deemed appropriate to countermand any such plan. It may be assumed, in view of the unique status of the American administration of the Canal Zone, that the Major General Commandant, the “Governor,” had “cleared” his program with his superiors.

. Meehan v. Macy, supra note 2, 129 U.S. App.D.C. at 228, 392 F.2d at 833.

. Diplomatic relations between the United States and Panama then were severed and were not resumed until April, 1964.

. Supra note 4.

. The Court staked out a caveat in its note 3, 391 U.S. at 570, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811, exempting from the impact of its holding certain situations involving confidentiality, relationships which might impair the effectiveness of harmonious cooperation between subordinate and superior, and such. Assuredly, Meehan’s status comes within the ambit of the Court’s concern, decision respecting which was expressly exempted from the Pickering holding.