GARCETTI v. CEBALLOS (No. 04-473)
361 F. 3d 1168, reversed
SUPREME COURT OF
THE UNITED STATES
GIL
GARCETTI, et al.,
PETITIONERS v. RICHARD
CEBALLOS
[May 30, 2006]
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is well settled that “a State
cannot condition public employment on a basis that infringes the employee’s
constitutionally protected interest in freedom of expression.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 142 (1983). The question presented by
the instant case is whether the First Amendment protects a government employee from
discipline based on speech made pursuant to the employee’s official duties.
I
Respondent Richard Ceballos has been employed since 1989 as a deputy district
attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During the
period relevant to this case, Ceballos was a calendar
deputy in the office’s Pomona branch, and in this capacity, he exercised
certain supervisory responsibilities over other lawyers. In February 2000, a
defence attorney contacted Ceballos about a pending
criminal case. The defence attorney said there were inaccuracies in an
affidavit used to obtain a critical search warrant. The attorney informed Ceballos that he had filed a motion to traverse, or
challenge, the warrant, but he also wanted Ceballos
to review the case. According to Ceballos, it was not
unusual for defence attorneys to ask calendar deputies to investigate aspects
of pending cases.
After
examining the affidavit and visiting
the location it described, Ceballos determined the affidavit contained serious misrepresentations.
The affidavit called’ a long driveway’
what Ceballos thought should have been referred to as a ‘separate roadway’
Ceballos also questioned the affidavit’s statement that tyre tracks led
from a stripped-down truck to the premises covered by the warrant. His doubts
arose from his conclusion that the roadway’s composition in some places made it
difficult or impossible to leave visible tyre tracks.
Ceballos spoke on the telephone to the warrant affiant, a deputy sheriff
from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but he did not receive a
satisfactory explanation for the perceived inaccuracies. He relayed his
findings to his supervisors, petitioners Carol Najera
and Frank Sundstedt, and followed up by preparing a
disposition memorandum. The memo explained Ceballos’ concerns and
recommended dismissal of the case. On
March 2, 2000, Ceballos submitted the memo to Sundstedt for his review. A few days later, Ceballos presented Sundstedt with
another memo, this one describing a second telephone conversation between Ceballos and the warrant affiant.
Based on Ceballos’
statements, a meeting was held to discuss the affidavit. Attendees included Ceballos, Sundstedt, and Najera, as well as the warrant affiant and other employees
from the sheriff’s department. The meeting allegedly became heated, with one
lieutenant sharply criticizing Ceballos for his
handling of the case.
Despite Ceballos’ concerns, Sundstedt decided to proceed with the prosecution,
pending disposition of the defence
motion to traverse. The trial court held a hearing on the motion. Ceballos was called by the defence and recounted his observations about the
affidavit, but the trial court rejected the challenge to the warrant.
Ceballos claims that in the aftermath of these events, he was subjected to a
series of retaliatory employment actions. The actions included reassignment
from his calendar deputy position to a trial deputy position, transfer to
another courthouse, and denial of a promotion. Ceballos initiated an employment
grievance, but the grievance was denied based on a finding that he had not
suffered any retaliation. Unsatisfied, Ceballos sued in the
United States District Court for the Central District of California, asserting, as relevant here, a claim under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983. He alleged
petitioners violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by
retaliating against him based on
his memo of March 2.
Petitioners
responded that no retaliatory actions were taken against Ceballos
and that all the actions of which
he complained were explained by legitimate reasons such as staffing needs. They further
contended that, in any event, Ceballos’
memo was not protected
speech under the First Amendment.
Petitioners moved
for summary judgment, and
the District Court granted their
motion. Noting
that Ceballos wrote his memo pursuant to his employment duties, the court concluded he was
not entitled to First Amendment
protection for the memo’s contents. It held in the alternative that even if Ceballos’ speech was constitutionally protected,
petitioners had qualified immunity because the rights Ceballos
asserted were not clearly established
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that “Ceballos’s allegations
of wrongdoing in the memorandum constitute protected speech under the First
Amendment.” 361 F. 3d 1168, 1173 (2004). In reaching its conclusion the
court looked to the First Amendment analysis set forth in Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968) , and Connick, 461 U. S. 138 . Connick instructs courts to
begin by considering whether the expressions in question were made by the
speaker “as a citizen upon matters of public concern.” See id., at 146–147. The Court of
Appeals determined that Ceballos’ memo, which recited
what he thought to be governmental misconduct, was “inherently a matter of
public concern.” 361 F. 3d, at
1174. The court did not, however, consider whether the speech was made in Ceballos’ capacity as a citizen. Rather, it relied on
Circuit precedent rejecting the idea that “a public employee’s speech is
deprived of First Amendment protection whenever those views are expressed, to
government workers or others, pursuant to an employment responsibility.” Id., at 1174–1175 (citing cases
including Roth v. Veteran’s Admin. of Govt. of United States,
856 F. 2d 1401 (CA9 1988)).
Having concluded that Ceballos’ memo satisfied the public-concern requirement,
the Court of Appeals proceeded to balance Ceballos’
interest in his speech against his supervisors’ interest in responding to it.
See Pickering, supra, at 568. The court struck
the balance in Ceballos’ favor, noting that petitioners “failed even to suggest disruption or
inefficiency in the workings of the District Attorney’s Office” as a result of
the memo. See 361 F. 3d, at 1180. The court further concluded that Ceballos’ First Amendment rights were clearly established
and that petitioners’ actions were not objectively reasonable. See id., at 1181–1182.
Judge O’Scannlain
specially concurred. Agreeing that the panel’s decision was compelled by
Circuit precedent, he nevertheless concluded Circuit law should be revisited
and overruled. See id., at
1185. Judge O’Scannlain emphasized the distinction
“between speech offered by a public employee acting as an employee carrying out his or her ordinary job duties and
that spoken by an employee acting as a
citizen expressing his or her personal views on disputed matters of
public import.” Id., at 1187.
In his view, “when public employees speak in the course of carrying out their
routine, required employment obligations, they have no personal interest in the content of that speech that gives rise
to a First Amendment right.” Id.,
at 1189.
We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 1186 (2005), and we now reverse.
II
As the Court’s decisions
have noted, for many years “the
unchallenged dogma was that a public employee had no right to object to
conditions placed upon the terms of employment—including those which restricted
the exercise of constitutional rights.” Connick, 461 U. S., at 143. That
dogma has been qualified in important respects. See id., at 144–145. The Court has made clear that public employees
do not surrender all their First Amendment rights because of their employment.
Rather, the First Amendment protects a public employee’s right, in certain
circumstances, to speak as a citizen addressing matters of public concern. See,
e.g., Pickering, supra,
at 568; Connick,
supra, at 147; Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U. S. 378, 384 (1987);
United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U. S. 454, 466 (1995).
Pickering provides a useful starting point in explaining the Court’s
doctrine. There the relevant speech was a teacher’s letter to a local newspaper
addressing issues including the funding policies of his school board. 391
U. S., at 566. “The problem in any case,” the Court stated, “is to arrive
at a balance between the interests of the teacher, as a citizen, in commenting
upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer,
in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its
employees.” Id., at 568. The
Court found the teacher’s speech “neither [was] shown nor can be presumed to
have in any way either impeded the teacher’s proper performance of his daily
duties in the classroom or to have interfered with the regular operation of the
schools generally.” Id., at
572–573 (footnote omitted). Thus, the Court concluded, “the interest of the
school administration in limiting teachers’ opportunities to contribute to
public debate is not significantly greater than its interest in limiting a
similar contribution by any member of the general public.” Id., at 573.
Pickering
and the cases decided in its wake
identify two inquiries to guide interpretation of the constitutional
protections accorded to public employee speech. The first requires determining
whether the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern. See id., at 568. If the answer is no, the
employee has no First Amendment cause of action based on his or her employer’s
reaction to the speech. See Connick, supra,
at 147. If the answer is yes, then the possibility of a First Amendment claim
arises. The question becomes whether the relevant government entity had an
adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other
member of the general public. See Pickering,
391 U. S., at 568. This consideration reflects the importance of the
relationship between the speaker’s expressions and employment. A government
entity has broader discretion to restrict speech when it acts in its role as
employer, but the restrictions it imposes must be directed at speech that has some
potential to affect the entity’s operations.
To be sure, conducting these inquiries sometimes has proved
difficult. This is the necessary product of “the enormous variety of fact
situations in which critical statements by teachers and other public employees
may be thought by their superiors … to furnish grounds for dismissal.” Id., at 569. The Court’s overarching
objectives, though, are evident.
When a citizen enters
government service, the citizen by necessity must accept certain limitations on
his or her freedom. See, e.g., Waters
v. Churchill, 511 U. S. 661, 671 (1994)
(plurality opinion) (“[T]he government as employer indeed has far broader
powers than does the government as sovereign”). Government employers, like
private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees’
words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient
provision of public services. Cf. Connick, supra,
at 143 (“[G]government offices could not function if every employment decision
became a constitutional matter”). Public employees, moreover, often occupy
trusted positions in society. When they speak out, they can express views that
contravene governmental policies or impair the proper performance of
governmental functions.
At the same time, the Court has recognized that a citizen who works for
the government is nonetheless a citizen.
The First Amendment limits
the ability of a public employer to leverage the employment relationship to
restrict, incidentally or intentionally, the liberties employees enjoy in their
capacities as private citizens. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972). So long
as employees are speaking as citizens about matters of public concern, they
must face only those speech restrictions that are necessary for their employers
to operate efficiently and effectively. See, e.g., Connick,
supra, at 147 (“Our
responsibility is to ensure that citizens are not deprived of fundamental
rights by virtue of working for the government”).
The Court’s employee-speech
jurisprudence protects, of course, the constitutional rights of public
employees. Yet the First Amendment interests at stake extend beyond the
individual speaker. The Court has acknowledged the importance of promoting the
public’s interest in receiving the well-informed views of government employees
engaging in civic discussion. Pickering
again provides an instructive example. The Court characterized its
holding as rejecting the attempt of school administrators to “limi[t] teachers’ opportunities to contribute to public
debate.” 391 U. S., at 573. It also noted that teachers are “the members
of a community most likely to have informed and definite opinions” about school
expenditures. Id., at 572. The
Court’s approach acknowledged the necessity for informed, vibrant dialogue in a
democratic society. It suggested, in addition, that widespread costs might
arise when dialogue is repressed. The Court’s cases that are more recent have
expressed similar concerns.
See,
e.g., San Diego v. Roe, 543 U. S. 77, 82 (2004) (per curium) (“Were
[public employees] not able to speak
on [the operation of their employers], the community would be deprived
of informed opinions on important public issues. The interest at stake is as much the public’s interest
in receiving informed opinion as it is the employee’s own right to disseminate
it” (citation omitted)); cf. Treasury
Employees, 513 U. S., at 470 (“The large-scale disincentive to
Government employees’ expression also imposes a significant burden on the
public’s right to read and hear what the employees would otherwise have written
and said”).
The Court’s decisions, then,
have sought both to promote the individual and societal interests that are
served when employees speak as citizens on matters of public concern and to
respect the needs of government employers attempting to perform their important
public functions.
See, e.g., Rankin,
483 U. S., at 384 (recognizing “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”). Underlying our cases has been
the premise that while the First Amendment invests public employees with certain
rights, it does not empower them to “constitutionalise
the employee grievance.”
Connick, 461
U. S., at 154.
III
With these principles in mind, we turn to the instant case.
Respondent Ceballos believed the affidavit used to
obtain a search warrant contained serious misrepresentations. He conveyed his
opinion and recommendation in a memo to his supervisor. That Ceballos expressed his views inside his office, rather than
publicly, is not dispositive. Employees in some cases may receive First Amendment protection for expressions
made at work.
See, e.g., Givhan v. Western Line Consol. School Dist., 439 U. S. 410, 414 (1979). Many
citizens do much of their talking inside their respective workplaces, and it
would not serve the goal of treating public employees like “any member of the
general public,” Pickering, 391 U. S., at 573,
to hold that all speech within the office is automatically exposed to
restriction.
The memo concerned the
subject matter of Ceballos’ employment, but this,
too, is nondispositive. The First Amendment protects
some expressions related to the speaker’s job.
See, e.g., ibid. Givhan, supra, at 414. As the Court
noted in Pickering: “Teachers
are, as a class, the members of a community most likely to have informed and
definite opinions as to how funds allotted to the operation of the schools
should be spent. Accordingly, it is essential that they be able to speak out
freely on such questions without fear of retaliatory dismissal.” 391
U. S., at 572. The same is true of many other categories of public
employees.
The controlling factor in Ceballos’ case is that his expressions were made pursuant
to his duties as a calendar deputy. See Brief for Respondent 4 (“Ceballos does not dispute that he prepared the memorandum
‘pursuant to his duties as a prosecutor’ ”). That consideration—the fact
that Ceballos spoke as a prosecutor fulfilling a
responsibility to advise his supervisor about how best to proceed with a
pending case—distinguishes Ceballos’ case from those
in which the First Amendment provides protection against discipline. We hold
that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties,
the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and
the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer
discipline.
Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part of what he, as a
calendar deputy, was employed to do. It is immaterial whether he experienced
some personal gratification from writing the memo; his First Amendment rights
do not depend on his job satisfaction. The significant point is that the memo
was written pursuant to Ceballos’ official duties. Restricting speech that owes its existence to a public
employee’s professional responsibilities does not infringe any liberties the
employee might have enjoyed as a private citizen. It simply reflects the
exercise of employer control over what the employer itself has commissioned or
created. Cf. Rosenberger v. Rector
and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 833 (1995) (“[W]hen
the government appropriates public funds to promote a particular policy of its
own it is entitled to say what it wishes”). Contrast, for example, the expressions
made by the speaker in Pickering,
whose letter to the newspaper had no official significance and bore
similarities to letters submitted by numerous citizens every day.
Ceballos did not act as a citizen when he went about conducting his daily
professional activities, such as supervising attorneys, investigating charges,
and preparing filings. In the same way, he did not speak as a citizen by
writing a memo that addressed the proper disposition of a pending criminal
case. When he went to work and performed the tasks, he was paid to perform, Ceballos acted as a government employee. The fact that his
duties sometimes required him to speak or write does not mean his supervisors
were prohibited from evaluating his performance.
This result is consistent
with our precedents’ attention to the potential societal value of employee
speech. See supra, at 7–8. Refusing to recognize First Amendment claims based on government
employees’ work product does not prevent them from participating in public
debate. The employees retain the prospect of constitutional protection for
their contributions to the civic discourse.
This prospect of protection, however, does not invest them with a right to
perform their jobs however, they see fit.
Our holding likewise is
supported by the emphasis of our precedents on affording government employers
sufficient discretion to manage their operations.
Employers have heightened interests in controlling speech made by an employee
in his or her professional capacity. Official communications have official
consequences, creating a need for substantive consistency and clarity.
Supervisors must ensure that their employees’ official communications are
accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer’s mission. Ceballos’ memo is illustrative. It demanded the attention
of his supervisors and led to a heated meeting with employees from the sheriff’s department. If Ceballos’
superiors thought his memo was inflammatory or misguided, they had the
authority to take proper corrective action.
Ceballos’ proposed contrary rule, adopted by the Court of Appeals, would
commit state and federal courts to a new, permanent, and intrusive role,
mandating judicial oversight of communications between and among government
employees and their superiors in the course of official business. This
displacement of managerial discretion by judicial supervision finds no support
in our precedents. When an employee speaks
as a citizen addressing a matter of public concern, the First Amendment
requires a delicate balancing of the competing interests surrounding the speech
and its consequences. When, however, the employee is simply performing his or
her job duties, there is no warrant for a similar degree of scrutiny. To hold otherwise would be to demand permanent judicial
intervention in the conduct of governmental operations to a degree inconsistent
with sound principles of federalism and the separation of powers.
The Court of Appeals based
its holding in part, on what it perceived as a doctrinal anomaly. The court
suggested it would be inconsistent to compel public employers to tolerate
certain employee speech made publicly but not speech made pursuant to an
employee’s assigned duties. See 361 F. 3d, at 1176. This objection
misconceives the theoretical underpinnings of our decisions. Employees who make
public statements outside the course of performing their official duties retain
some possibility of First Amendment protection because that is the kind of
activity engaged in by citizens who do not work for the government. The same
goes for writing a letter to a local newspaper, see Pickering, 391 U. S. 563 , or discussing
politics with a co-worker, see Rankin,
483 U. S. 378 . When a
public employee speaks pursuant to employment responsibilities, however, there
is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees.
The Court of Appeals’
concern also is unfounded as a practical matter. The perceived anomaly, it
should be noted, is limited in scope: It
relates only to the expressions an employee makes pursuant to his or her
official responsibilities, not to statements or complaints (such as those at
issue in cases like Pickering and
Connick)
that are made outside the duties of employment. If, moreover, a government
employer is troubled by the perceived anomaly, it has the means at hand to
avoid it. A public employer that wishes to encourage its employees to voice
concerns privately retains the option of instituting internal policies and
procedures that are receptive to employee criticism. Giving employees an
internal forum for their speech will discourage them from concluding that the
safest avenue of expression is to state their views in public.
Proper application of our
precedents thus leads to the conclusion that the First Amendment does not
prohibit managerial discipline based on an employee’s expressions made pursuant
to official responsibilities. Because Ceballos’ memo falls into this category, his allegation of
unconstitutional retaliation must fail.
Two final points warrant
mentioning. First, as indicated above, the parties in this case do not dispute
that Ceballos wrote his disposition memo pursuant to
his employment duties. We thus have no occasion to articulate a comprehensive
framework for defining the scope of an employee’s duties in cases where there
is room for serious debate. We reject, however, the suggestion that employers
can restrict employees’ rights by creating excessively broad job descriptions.
See post, at 4, n. 2 (Souter,
J., dissenting). The proper inquiry is a practical one. Formal job descriptions often bear little resemblance to the duties an
employee actually is expected to perform, and the listing of a given task in an
employee is written job description is neither necessary nor sufficient to
demonstrate that conducting the task is within the scope of the employee’s
professional duties for First Amendment purposes.
Second, Justice Souter
suggests today’s decision may have important ramifications for academic
freedom, at least as a constitutional value. See post, at 12–13. There is some argument that expression related
to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional
constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court’s
customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do
not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same
manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching.
IV
Exposing governmental
inefficiency and misconduct is a matter of considerable significance. As the
Court noted in Connick,
public employers should, “as a matter of good judgment,” be “receptive to
constructive criticism offered by their employees.” 461 U. S., at 149. The
powerful network of legislative enactments reinforces the dictates of sound
judgment—such as whistle-blower protection laws and labour codes—available to
those who seek to expose wrongdoing. See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. §2302(b) (8);
Cal. Govt. Code Ann. §8547.8 (West 2005); Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §1102.5 (West
Supp. 2006). Cases involving government attorneys implicate additional safeguards
in the form of, for example, rules of conduct and constitutional obligations
apart from the First Amendment. See, e.g.,
Cal. Rule Prof. Conduct 5–110 (2005) (“A member in government service shall not
institute or cause to be instituted criminal charges when the member knows or
should know that the charges are not supported by probable cause”); Brady
v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963) . These imperatives,
as well as obligations arising from any other applicable constitutional
provisions and mandates of the criminal and civil laws, protect employees and
provide checks on supervisors who would order unlawful or otherwise
inappropriate actions.
We reject, however, the
notion that the First Amendment shields from discipline the expressions
employees make pursuant to their professional duties. Our precedents do not
support the existence of a constitutional cause of action behind every
statement a public employee makes in the course of doing his or her job.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.
ENDS
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