[2], In October of that year, Myers was told she would be transferred to the section run by that judge. Since the former was that she had generally disparaged the supervisor and discussed various personal disputes with her, there was no need to assess whether the statements were, as Churchill had claimed, matters of public concern. [1], In February 1981 Gordon issued his decision. She had been an effective trial attorney who had turned down promotions to remain in the courtroom. Gordon quoted Thurgood Marshall's majority opinion: "'Statements by public officials on matters of public concern must be afforded First Amendment protection' even though the statements may be directed at the public officials' 'nominal superiors.'" No. The next morning she received the formal memorandum making the transfer. The district court judge, he wrote, had failed to take into account language in Pickering that said the state's burden in showing that the employee's speech impaired his or her ability to discharge official duties varies with the nature of the speech. He castigated the public-concern requirement as "[something] the Court just made up" in his book Can They Do That?.
[2][7], Connick had not alleged that Myers had breached confidentiality.
"[His dissent] is fully consistent with [his] generous view of the Court's powers ... and his commitment to the fullest possible degree of freedom of expression and access to information. "It will be an unusual case where the employer's legitimate interests will be so great as to justify punishing an employee for this type of private speech that routinely takes place at all levels in the workplace. She instead prepared a questionnaire about her concerns for distribution to her coworkers.
It was distinguished by a dispute of fact between the parties as to the substance of the remark.
Another deputy constable who overheard it told the constable, who fired her. [Eugene Volokh] May a criminal libel statute punish even true statements (when said for ‘bad motives’ or ‘unjustifiable ends’)? Following Givhan, he also found the time, place and manner relevant, since Myers had distributed her questionnaire in the office during work hours, shortly after her meeting with Connick, timing Myers said was intentional on her part. Wessel was himself a former assistant district attorney, and had in that capacity been the first to interview Myers when she had applied to Connick's office.
He shared his former superior's positive assessment of her prosecutorial skills. In Garcetti v. Ceballos, a Los Angeles County prosecutor claimed the office of Gil Garcetti had retaliated against him with a series of adverse personnel moves after he questioned the veracity of a search warrant affidavit following a conversation with a defense attorney, to the point of testifying to them in a hearing. The Global Hospitality Group® of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP represents the interests of hotel owners, developers, investors and lenders. It was initially argued with O'Connor's seat vacant following her retirement, and the justices deadlocked. Four years later, in 1987, the Court again had to consider whether a public employee's speech could constitutionally cost her her job.
81-1251.
[41], Two decades later, Strickler still disagreed with the Court. [1], Brennan's biographer David Marion sees the case as reaffirming two principles behind the justice's majority opinions in New York Times Co. v. United States, the Pentagon Papers case from 1971. Justice Byron White wrote for the majority that most of the matters Myers' questionnaire had touched on were of personal, not public, concern and that the action had damaged the harmonious relations necessary for the efficient operation of the district attorney's office. By 1980, Myers had been an assistant district attorney for more than five years.
"The [constitutional] violation does not vanish merely because the firing was based upon a reasonable mistake about what the employee said," he wrote. "Questions, no less than forcefully stated opinions and facts, carry messages and it requires no unusual insight to conclude that the purpose, if not the likely result, of the questionnaire is to seek to precipitate a vote of no confidence in Connick and his supervisors."
She alleged violation of her First Amendment rights and sought back pay, reinstatement and compensatory and punitive damages.
He noted that Pickering had been very emphatic in making that qualification, and reviewed the history of the law in that area.
[1], She and Connick, as well as Waldron, who later became a state criminal court judge,[27] remained on good terms. Thurgood Marshall wrote that the speech was on a clear matter of public concern, the president's health.
In 2006, a similar case, in that it involved an assistant district attorney in a large city challenging a nationally known superior over a job action, came before the Court. "[13] Throughout the early 20th century the Supreme Court had held similarly.
Gordon said Connick had offered no evidence of an office policy on photocopier use.
30 Mar 2010, 11:03 am by J DeVoy. [2], Myers and Connick's attorneys, George Strickler and William Wessel respectively, would represent their clients throughout the case.
First, Myers would have to prove that her distribution of the questionnaire was constitutionally protected speech, and that her firing was a result.
William Brennan's dissent was signed by Harry Blackmun, Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens.
The two would guide the Court's interpretation of later cases such as Rankin v. McPherson[1] (1987). Both would be quoted again in 2010, when Ontario v. Quon considered the same issue in holding unanimously that an audit of police pagers which revealed sexually explicit personal messages was legitimately work-related and constitutional. [2], Gordon relied on Pickering v. Board of Education,[4] for the first test. Decided April 20, 1983. Garcetti v. Ceballos potentially subsumes public employees’ First Amendment rights, The Petition Clause can avoid the "public concern" requirement, Employee alleges unlawful retaliation after reporting the unauthorized use of a State computer database by another employee, U.S. Supreme Court Rules for Demoted Employee in First Amendment Claim, http://www.thenjemploymentlawfirmblog.com/, Government Lawyer Blogging and Tweeting as Private Citizen, First Amendment protects police griping publicly about matters of public concern, A public employer may discipline an employee for refusing to support employer’s change in its operation, Teacher's blog caused a disruption resulting in no First Amendment protection. [32] Scalia's concurrence, signed by the other three justices, complained that her opinion left open the question of how courts should resolve the question if the employer's belief was found to be unreasonable. Connick came in, canceling a day off, to discuss the transfer with her again. This balancing is necessary in order to accommodate the dual role of the public employer as a provider of public services and as a government entity operating under the constraints of the First Amendment. Only after Waldron's call about the questionnaire did he return and fire her.
Last edited on 11 September 2020, at 22:25, Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Burger Court, List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 461, List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York, "Connick v. Myers: Reflections on landmark public employee free-speech case", Lindsey v. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia, "Lawyer Sheila Myers — New Orleans, LA attorney", "For years Judge Dennis Waldron has ruled from Section F of the Criminal District Court at the end of this year he'll retire", "Cop-video ruling may hurt future speech cases", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Connick_v._Myers&oldid=977942425, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Assistant district attorney's distribution of questionnaire on workplace satisfaction following an unwanted transfer was largely a matter of personal interest; her subsequent termination for that action did not violate her, White, joined by Burger, Powell, O'Connor, Rehnquist, Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, it did not consider the effect of personnel policies on the efficiency of the district attorney's office to be a matter of public concern, and, This page was last edited on 11 September 2020, at 22:25. In that 1994 case, from the Seventh Circuit, a nurse at an Illinois state hospital charged that her dismissal after remarks she made to a coworker expressing concern about the effect a supervisor's cross-training policies were having on patient care were reported to that supervisor.
"I think people believe that I will stand up for what I believe in." The Court announced its decision on April 20, 1983.
[Eugene Volokh] Is asking IRS agents to leak President Trump’s tax return a crime (and constitutionally unprotected)?
Writing at the First Amendment Center website, he noted that it suggested that it was not enough for public-employee speech to excite actual public interest to be adjudged worthy of First Amendment protection, but that such public interest must be in something legitimate. The blog also highlights ADA, labor and employment, and bankruptcy law developments that affect hotel owners and lenders.
"There is no evidence to indicate that plaintiff was anything other than a hardworking, conscientious attorney who fulfilled the requirements imposed upon her by her job.
[2], At lunch she distributed the questionnaire to 17 other assistant district attorneys personally. After the Fifth Circuit affirmed the verdict, Connick appealed to the Supreme Court. Myers' questionnaire "was nearly 100 percent internal".
He thus found Myers had met her first test, and reiterated his finding of fact that she had been fired for the distribution of the questionnaire, which satisfied the second. They focused on the sequence of events, and whether Gordon had properly balanced the two interests at stake. In the 1990s and 2000s, Waters v. Churchill (1994) and Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), the latter with some similarities to the circumstances of Connick, would further clarify the Court's holding. 30 Mar 2010, 11:03 am by J DeVoy. White found Gordon's burden on Connick "unduly onerous". "You don't need to question management when you agree with them, and you can't question management when you disagree with them because the very act of questioning them could hurt your working relationship." Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U. S. 563, 391 U. S. 568 (1968); Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 461 U. S. 140 (1983). "When close working relationships are essential to fulfilling public responsibilities, a wide degree of deference to the employer's judgment is appropriate", White wrote.
"Loose ends are the inevitable consequence of judicial invention," he complained. "Since the petitioner cannot really do anything with those facts," he said, "he urges this Court to hold as a matter of law that the content of this questionnaire was so totally devoid of value as to be per se unfit for protection under the First Amendment."
Hotel Law Blog - Global Hospitality Group® Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP. "Indeed, the questionnaire, if released to the public, would convey no information at all other than the fact that a single employee is upset with the status quo."
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