It is hard to overstate the impact on public safety employee free speech rights produced by the 2006 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos. In Garcetti, a deeply-divided Supreme Court overturned more than 40 years of public employee free speech law. The decision held that if speech is “ordinarily within the job duties” of the public employee, it has no constitutional protection under the First Amendment. Garcetti has led to…
Sergeant Silvia Cotriss worked for the City of Roswell, Georgia. The City began investigating Cotriss when it received a complaint that she was flying a Confederate battle flag in her front yard, sometimes with her police cruiser present. During the investigation, Cotriss admitted that there had been two Confederate-like flags separately displayed on a flagpole underneath an American flag at her home since 2015, sometimes when her police cruiser…
One might think that speech to a city council is clearly protected by the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. As two high-ranking police officers with the City of Jellico, Tennessee discovered, the Supreme Court’s constricted view in Garcetti v. Ceballos of free speech rights of public employees means that even speech to a city council can be the basis for termination. The dispute started when Dwight Osborn…
Scott Specht works as a fire marshal for the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), where his primary responsibilities involved investigating the origins of fires. In that capacity, Specht investigated a fire in March 2018 that destroyed a five-story brownstone in Manhattan where a motion picture was being filmed. The fire resulted in serious damage to the building and the death of a firefighter. Over the course of his…
Jennifer Tyler is a member of the Chelan County Deputy Sheriff’s Association in Washington. When a vice-president of the Association resigned, Sergeant Adam Musgrove ran for the position. On October 12, 2018, Tyler responded to Musgrove’s nomination in an email sent to the private email addresses of all union members. Tyler wrote, “I would like to contest the nomination of Adam Musgrove on the basis of evidence of workplace…
Gerald Olbek was the deputy chief of the Wildwood Police Department in Florida. After a series of events that included a fire at the Department’s station, Olbek became concerned that the station had a serious mold problem. Olbek wrote a memo detailing the mold issues. The memo cited the fact that numerous employees had complained of health conditions related to mold and that the City had tried to remedy…
You know a court’s opinion will be anything but run-of-the-mill when it begins: “Social media has allowed Americans to connect with friends in far-flung places and to share their opinions on topics both mundane and momentous. But social media can also tempt people to impulsively make inflammatory comments that they later regret. And even worse for them, employers often react by firing or punishing them for their ill-advised remarks….
Jamie Marquardt was a captain with City of Cleveland’s Department of Emergency Medical Services. Marquardt had a “private” Facebook page which did not identify him as a City employee. A little more than a year after a Cleveland police officer shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a post appeared on Marquardt’s Facebook page: “Let me be the first on record to have the balls to say Tamir Rice should…
In March 2016, then-interim Santa Maria, California Fire Chief Scott Kenley first raised the possibility with the Santa Maria Firefighters Association (SMFA) of running an open recruitment for the position of captain, which would allow people who were not already employees of the fire department to apply for the position. Kenley cited low interest and few applications among internal candidates as the reasons for the idea. The fire department…
On December 31, 2013, Paul Carey retired from the Maryland Natural Resources Police (MNRP) after 26 years of service. He began working for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in August 2015. On May 25, 2017, three months before Carey’s contract expired, the Department abruptly fired him without giving him a reason for his termination. Carey sued, alleging that he was fired from DNR in retaliation for two posts…
James Dumas is a firefighter at St. Tammany Parish Fire District No. 3 in Louisiana, and is the vice-president of the firefighters’ union. In May 2016, the Union submitted a letter to the District’s Civil Service Board expressing a “vote of no confidence” in Fire Chief Patrick Sicard. The letter alleged that Sicard violated several provisions of civil service law, including failing to perform the duties of his position…
The Borough of Carteret, New Jersey and Local 47 of the Police Benevolent Association are parties to a collective bargaining agreement. Salvatore Renda is the president of Local 47. On October 21, 2010, there was a public meeting of the Borough Council. Individuals intending to speak at the meeting were asked to list their names on a sign-up sheet. They were reminded by the Mayor that they would have…
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