As a general rule, government employees are immune under federal law from civil damages for acts conducted in the course of their employment because of a qualified immunity. However, that qualified immunity can be lost if the government official or employee engages in conduct which violates clearly established law. Today, the Sixth Circuit released two opinions which affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to two different employers from Southern Ohio because their alleged actions violated clearly established federal law. In the first decision, the employer fired a police officer after his wife distributed letters which were critical of city government. Sigler v. City of Englewood, No. 09-4223 (6th Cir. 5/20/11). In the second decision, the Court rejected qualified immunity for school officials who failed to act upon student complaints of sexual harassment by fellow students and found that there was no collateral estoppel or res judicata from the disciplinary appeal hearings held to review the five-day suspension of the complaining female student. Evans v. Board of Education of Southwestern City School District, No. 10-4011 (5/23/11).
According to the Sigler opinion, the wife of the plaintiff police officer distributed a letter which was critical of his city government employer. He says that he never saw or heard about the letter until after she distributed it, but he did not inform his employer about the letter even after he found out. An internal affairs investigation was conducted. When initially asked about it, the plaintiff says he asked the investigating officer for a copy of it, but the officer said the plaintiff denied ever having read it. The plaintiff later admitted to having read it after his wife mailed it. The officer recommended that the plaintiff be terminated because he falsely denied having read the letter, was aware of who circulated the letter and never informed his employer about the letter, thus making him a participant. The officer contended that this violated departmental rules against dishonesty and withholding information. The City Manager accepted and acted upon the recommendation. The plaintiff then filed suit contending that he was terminated in retaliation for his marriage to the woman who distributed the letter pursuant to her First Amendment rights.
The district court denied the city's motion for qualified immunity on the grounds that retaliating against an employee because of the actions of the spouse clearly violates established First Amendment law. The Sixth Circuit affirmed and rejected the City's attempt to get the City Manager dismissed as a defendant:
Defendants finally argue that Sigler's alleged constitutional right should be construed more narrowly in determining whether it is "clearly established law." Defendants characterize the right as "whether a reasonable officer or official, standing in place of City Manager Smith or Chief Brownfield, would conclude that his actions violated Keith Sigler's First Amendment intimate association rights when Keith Sigler was terminated for violating the [City's] lawful rules and regulations." Phrasing it this way turns the qualified-immunity analysis upside down. When deciding whether a constitutional right is "clearly established law," one assumes that the right the plaintiff invokes was actually violated. Qualified immunity then excuses that violation if the right was not "clearly established law" such that the defendant should have known of it. The right Sigler invokes is the right not to be terminated in retaliation for his marital association. Assuming that Sigler was so retaliated against, defendants are only entitled to qualified immunity if it was not clearly established that such retaliation is unconstitutional. Defendants' characterization assumes away any retaliatory motive, which is Sigler's whole complaint, and instead assumes as true their purported motive for Sigler's termination. The court does not decide qualified immunity in so backwards a way.
The Court of Appeals also rejected the argument that there was not enough evidence of a factual dispute to submit the case to a jury:
The district court also implicitly held that the defendants might not be able to prove that they would have terminated Sigler even if he had not been married to Susan. The court dismissed the defendants' only evidence on this point—Smith's declaration that he would still have terminated Sigler—by stating that "[t]his, of course, is mere supposition." While abbreviated, both determinations indicate that the district court concluded that there was enough in the record to get to the jury on the questions of whether the marriage caused the termination and whether Sigler would not have been terminated if, other things being the same, he had not been married to Susan. For purposes of this interlocutory appeal, we must make the same assumptions. The alternative would be to read into the district court's holding a legal determination that Smith could be liable regardless of the extent to which Sigler's being married caused the termination. It is hard to read the court's analysis that way. We therefore lack jurisdiction to consider Smith's arguments to the extent that they challenge the factual assumptions of the district court regarding causation.
However, the Court agreed that there was insufficient evidence that the Chief of Police was sufficiently involved in the termination decision merely because he authorized the internal investigation and was aware of the City Manager's planned conduct.
In Evans, the female students complained repeatedly that they were being sexually harassed by two male students. However, no action was taken by the School. Among other things, there was an incident in the back of a school bus which put one of the plaintiffs in tears, which got the attention of a teacher, who sent the student to the Principal's office. After taking her statement, the Principal then suspended both her and the male student for five days, and called the police about the male student. The female student appealed the suspension, which was upheld because there was insufficient evidence that she resisted his advances. The following year, additional incidents occurred with another male student and the female student was repeatedly teased for having loose morals.
The School argued that the Principal was entitled to qualified immunity because collateral estoppels and res judicata attached to the appeals hearing of the female student's suspension and precluded her from later suing under § 1983 because of those incidents. However, the District Court and the Court of Appeals rejected that argument because the school appeal hearing did not address the same legal issue, could not consider the same relief and did not consider the broader course of conduct at issue in the § 1983 action (which covered the span of a few years).
NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.
