Court Opinion

ID: 9483612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:26:17.587893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:43.779712
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the defendants are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity, I respectfully dissent.
I.
As a preliminary matter, I agree with the majority that the two-prong test to determine whether a government official is entitled to the defense of qualified immunity requires a decision (1) whether a plaintiff has demonstrated a “clearly established” right that was violated by the defendants, and (2) whether reasonable officials in the defendants’ positions should have known that their conduct violated that right. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). I disagree, however, with the majority’s application of that test to the facts of this case and, in particular, its failure to carefully examine and apply the law of a public employee’s First Amendment rights as developed since Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).
The majority opinion concludes, in remarkably summary fashion, that the free speech rights of public employees are not so well-established that the defendants should have reasonably known that their actions infringed on them, and thus, that the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. The principal basis for that conclusion is a statement by this court in Mey*1158ers I characterizing the legal standards for a public employee’s free speech rights as being “somewhat imprecise.” From that statement in Meyers I, the majority opinion concludes that we have “established] that the contours of public employee speech were by no means ‘clearly established’ in early 1988.” I believe the majority has mistaken the lack of clarity at the boundaries of the law for uncertainty regarding its very core. It is true that the precise extent of public employees’ First Amendment rights is unclear, but simply because we are unsure about First Amendment rights at the margins does not mean infringements against the essence of those rights are not readily apparent constitutional violations.
The majority opinion also refers to the' district. court’s statement in what became Meyers I that Meyers’s speech “was merely personal opinion that was not a matter of public concern” as an indication that Meyers’s First Amendment rights were not clear and therefore that Meyers’s statement was not entitled to constitutional protection. The majority has forgotten apparently that we reversed that very district court holding in Meyers I, and the language we used in doing so:
In the instant case, plaintiff’s speeches on a matter of public concern.... The charges against the plaintiff refer to an affirmative action lawsuit brought against the City of Cincinnati and the consent decree stemming from that suit as a reason for the city’s affirmative action policy_ Just as an opinion concerning the general policy of affirmative action would be a matter of public concern, so too is speech concerning methods of implementing affirmative action. Under the facts of this case, speech about a politically charged issue like affirmative action — whether pro or con— should be considered a matter of public concern.
Meyers v. Cincinnati, 984 F.2d 726, 729-30 (6th Cir.1991). The majority opinion fails to explain how or why the reasoning of the lower court we held to be erroneous should now be invoked to exonerate the defendants from their liability for violating the clearly established rights of the plaintiff. The question, it seems to me, answers itself.
II.
A.
The -core questions on this appeal are whether the law upon which the plaintiff relies — First Amendment right of free speech — was clearly established at the time of Meyers’s constructive discharge and whether the defendants’ actions were reasonable in light of then existing law. The answer’ to those questions requires an examination of the test for the First Amendment rights of public employees that was first developed by the Supreme Court in Pickering, 391 U.S. at 563, 88 S.Ct. at 1731. In Pickering, the Court declared that the First Amendment protects public employees from being disciplined for (1) commenting on matters of public concern, unless (2) the employee’s interest is outweighed by the employer’s interest in the “efficiency of public services it performs through its employees,” because the employee’s comments impair the efficient operation of those public services. Id. at 568, 88 S.Ct. at 1734.
We discussed the first, “public concern” prong of Pickering in Meyers I. However, a fuller discussion is merited today and will reveal, I believe, that there can be no serious doubt that the statement for which Meyers was effectively fired was on a matter of public concern.
In Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 148, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1690, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983), the Supreme Court held that speech having to do only with an employee’s internal complaints about a supervisor or office policy is not a matter of public concern and therefore is not entitled to constitutional protection. Speech that, concerns an issue important to the greater community, however, is entitled to such protection, even if it is made in a private forum. Id. at 148 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. at 1690 n. 8. Meyers’s state*1159ment,1 given its broadest construction, was a comment on the efficacy of affirmative action policies in general and, more narrowly, on the effects of such policies on the safety, preparedness, and efficacy of the Cincinnati fire department. Courts have repeatedly held that these and similar issues are matters of public concern. For example, in Connick itself, the Court held that criticism of a school district’s allegedly racially discriminatory policies involved a matter of public concern.
In Donahue v. Windsor Locks Bd. of Fire Comm’r, 834 F.2d 54 (2d Cir.1987), the Second Circuit held that an employee’s complaints regarding perceived gender discrimination by the fire department for its failure to hire the employee’s wife was speech protected by the First Amendment. In Burgess v. Pierce County, 918 F.2d 104 (9th Cir.1990), the plaintiff, a fire marshal, made statements regarding certain ordinances that he believed conflicted with state fire flow and private road standards and so threatened life and property — statements relating to the safety and preparedness of the fire department. These were held to be statements of public concern. And as long ago as 1974, in Jannetta v. Cole, 493 F.2d 1334 (4th Cir.1974), a fire department employee circulated a letter within the fire department after a black fireman was promoted over several white firemen with greater seniority, questioning the qualifications of the promoted fireman. When the letter circulator was fired, the court held that his dismissal “was imper-missibly predicated upon his exercise of first and fourteenth amendment rights.” Id. at 1338. Although the court did not explicitly hold that the statements were matters of public concern, it stated: “The First Amendment is not limited in its protection to issues of great social and political impact, ... and Jannetta’s petition.should not be denied such protection simply because it dealt with matters of a local nature.” Id. at 1337 n. 5. Thus, that the statements were on matters of concern to the local public was an implicit part of the court’s rationale. .See also Dougherty v. Barry, 604 F.Supp. 1424 (D.C.Dist.Col.1985).
In addition to case law, common sense tells us' that Meyers’s statement addressed matters of public concern. The defendants’ own statements during the controversy over Meyers’s comments indicate that the defendants regarded city policy on affirmative action to be a matter of great public interest. Apparently that was the judgment of the Cincinnati area media as well, which gave considerable publicity to Meyers’s comments. Indeed, it ought to be indisputable that the issue of affirmative action, especially in urban police and fire departments, commands intense public scrutiny and debate.2
In deciding this issue, the Donahue court wrote:
As Thomas Emerson,, the first amendment scholar, noted, free speech is most valuable when it relates to the exigencies of the time. T. Emerson, The System of Freedom of Expression (1970). Issues of gender-based discrimination and governmental decisions made in “smoke-filled” rooms are topical concerns in our society. Speech regarding these issues functions as a "check” upon the abuses by government. Moreover, it is in line with the greatest of American traditions, practiced by distinguished libertarians from Adams to Whitman, to inform the *1160public of inequities. Thus Donahue’s claims of gender-based discrimination and Freedom of Information Act violation's fall within the- first amendment’s protective ambit: both were matters of public concern.
Donahue, 834 F.2d at 58. I believe that affirmative action policies and their possible effects on the safety, preparedness, and efficacy of the fire department are manifestly topics of public concern, and that Meyers's statements meet this prong of Pickering.
B.
Pickering’s second, “impairment of public services” prong was also discussed by this court in Meyers I:
In order to justify a restriction on speech of public concern by a public employee, plaintiff’s speech must impair discipline by superiors, have a detrimental impact on close working relationships, undermine a legitimate goal or mission of the employer, impede the performance of the speaker’s duties, or impair harmony among co-workers. The state bears the burden of showing a legitimate justification for discipline.... The City offered no evidence of any adverse effect upon plaintiff’s relationship with his co-workers, nor of any adverse impact upon the City’s affirmative action program except for the anger the speech in question raised in Green and Foster. There was no evidence that the City’s ability to provide firefighting services was undermined, nor evidence that plaintiff could not command the respect of his minority or non-minority subordinates_ Since there is no evidence of any City interest which would permit the limitation of the speech in question here, we hold that plaintiff’s speech is protected under the First Amendment.
934 F.2d at 730. In its opinion today, the majority fails even to consider this prong of Pickering.
The Supreme Court has provided clear guidance on the question of how an employee’s speech may impair a public employer’s efficient operations, using virtually the same language as that used by this court in Meyers I. See Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 388, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 2899, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987) (citing Pickering, 391 U.S. at 570-73, 88 S.Ct. at 1735-37). It should be recognized that an employer’s interest in this regard may deserve heightened consideration in the fire department context. As the court in Donahue explained, the plaintiff’s
position as a fireman ... may be a factor in determining whether his speech warrants less protection than it otherwise would_ [T]he government has a legitimate interest in the smooth functioning of a public facility and, especially, in preserving the ‘esprit de corps’ that is essential to a fire department’s joint endeavor of saving lives....
Donahue, 834 F.2d at 58 (citation omitted). The defendants produced no evidence whatsoever that could reasonably lead this court to conclude that the Cincinnati fire department’s efficient operation of public services was impaired by Meyers’s statements. The closest the majority gets to acknowledging this prong of Pickering is when it writes: “The evidence suggests that both defendants believed their actions to be necessary to uphold the city’s affirmative action policy.” But this is a far cry from saying that the City produced evidence that would lead one to conclude that the defendants’ beliefs were objectively warranted. Moreover, affirmative action is not the public service that the fire department performs; fire fighting is. The record is totally devoid of evidence indicating that the department’s fire-fighting ability was in any way impaired by Meyers’s statement.
III.
To reiterate, in considering whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, we must determine (1) whether a plaintiff has demonstrated a “clearly established” right that was violated by the defendants, and (2) whether reasonable officials in the defendants’ positions should have known that their conduct violated that right.
*1161A.
In Shirley v. Chagrin Falls Exempted Village School Board of Education, 521 F.2d 1329 (6th Cir.1975), we indicated that decisions from other circuits may not serve to put an official on notice that an action would violate the rights of an employee, because this would be tantamount to charging the official with predicting the future course of constitutional law. Nonetheless, I do not think there can be any difficulty in concluding that the core of public employees’ First Amendment rights has been clearly established since Pickering in 1968. First of all, given the sheer mass of the cases (cited in part II.A.) construing statements similar to those at issue here to be protected by the First Amendment, there should be no hesitation to impute knowledge of the substance of that body of law to the defendants, even though those cases were generated by other circuits. Moreover, the Supreme Court has repeatedly spoken to the First Amendment rights of public employees, and it is clear that as the law stood when the defendants constructively discharged Meyers, “discharging a public employee in retaliation for protected speech violated clearly established law_” Burgess, 918 F.2d at 106 (citing, inter alia, Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 142, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 1687, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); Givhan v. Western Line Consol. School Dist., 439 U.S. 410, 414-16, 99 S.Ct. 693, 696-97, 58 L.Ed.2d 619 (1979)); see also Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987); Mount Healthy City School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977). All of this case law, with its consistent protection of public employees speaking on matters of public concern, should have made it apparent to the defendants that Meyers’s speech was of a protected nature. Because Meyers’s statements failed to impair the provision of firefighting services, the defendants should have been aware that there could be no justification for punishing him for the legal exercise of his free speech right.
B.
Reasonable officials would have understood that their actions violated Meyers’s First Amendment rights. As the Supreme Court stated in Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987),
[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he was doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful; but it is to say that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.
Id. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. Because the defendants were unable to demonstrate that Meyers’s speech had an adverse effect on any interest of the City that is relevant under the Pickering balancing test, and because Meyers’s statements so clearly related to matters of public concern, reasonably competent public officials should have known that Meyers’s interest in commenting on the City’s method of implementing affirmative action was not outweighed by any interest of the City in providing efficient fire-fighting services. Thus, reasonably competent public officials would not have embarked on a course of action leading to Meyers’s constructive discharge.
IV.
We concluded in Meyers I— without any qualification or any indication that it was a close call — that Rager’s and Johnson’s actions violated Meyers’s First Amendment rights. It is a mystery to me why the majority now justifies its grant of qualified immunity on the reasoning that First Amendment law on this issue is not well-established. The defendants should have known that Meyers’s interest in expressing his views was not outweighed by any significant fire-fighting interest that could conceivably have been “impaired” by his statement. I would affirm the district *1162court’s judgment denying qualified immunity to the defendants.

. As we wrote in Meyers I, the City takes the position that Meyers told two influential citizens "that he thought it was improper for [their company] to help people pass the civil service exams when they could not then do a good job.” Meyers I at 727. Meyers denies that he made this statement.

. A Nexis search for news articles regarding affirmative action in urban police and fire departments reveals that 125 articles on this topic were written in 1987 alone, the year in which Meyers’s statements are alleged to have been made. I also note that the Supreme Court’s 1987 denial of certiorari for this court’s decision in Youngblood v. Dalzell, 804 F.2d 360 (6th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 935, 107 S.Ct. 1576, 94 L.Ed.2d 767 (1987) — in which we held that a consent decree imposing affirmative action on the Cincinnati fire department was a permissible remedy under the Equal Protection Clause — received significant media attention, ranging from local Cincinnati newspapers to the New York Times.