Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), is a United States Supreme Court decision concerning the First Amendment rights of public employees who speak on matters of possible public concern within the workplace context. It was first brought by Sheila Myers, an Orleans Parish, Louisiana, assistant district attorney (ADA). She had been fired by her superior, District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., when, after receiving a transfer she had fiercely resisted in private conversations with him and his chief assistant district attorney, she distributed a questionnaire to her fellow prosecutors asking about their experience with Connick's management practices. At trial, Judge Jack Gordon of the Eastern District of Louisiana found the firing had been motivated by the questionnaire and was thus an infringement on her right to speak out on matters of public concern as a public employee. After the Fifth Circuit affirmed the verdict, Connick appealed to the Supreme Court.
The justices reversed the lower courts by a 5–4 margin. Justice Byron White wrote for the majority that most of the matters Myers's 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. William Brennan argued in dissent that the majority's application of precedent was flawed. He argued that all the matters in the questionnaire were of public concern, and feared a chilling effect on speech by public employees about such matters would result.
The case was the first in a line considering the right of public employees to speak contemporaneously with their employment that had started with Pickering v. Board of Education (1968) fifteen years earlier in which the Court sided with the employee. It introduced the test of whether the employee's speech had been on matters of public concern to the balancing of employer and employee interest prescribed in the earlier case. The two would guide the Court's interpretation of later cases such as Rankin v. McPherson (1987). 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.
Underlying dispute By 1980, Myers had been an assistant district attorney for more than five years. She had been an effective trial attorney who had turned down promotions to remain in the courtroom. She had also participated in programs at law schools in the New Orleans area and participated in programs sponsored by Connick's office. A judge had also persuaded her to take part in a probation program for juvenile first offenders he ran.
In October of that year, Myers was told she would be transferred to the section run by that judge. She enjoyed the position she was in at the time, in another judge's section, and feared that if she were transferred she would have to recuse herself from cases where she had counseled defendants in the program. She expressed these concerns to Dennis Waldron, the chief assistant district attorney, and Bridget Bane, the head of training for the office.
She raised these concerns again in another meeting with Waldron and Connick about another subject. The next morning she received the formal memorandum making the transfer. At another meeting with Waldron, she repeated her unhappiness and broadened her concerns to include other issues in the office she was concerned about. She said Waldron told her that those concerns were not shared, to which she responded that she would research that.
That night she was unable to sleep. She instead prepared a questionnaire about her concerns for distribution to her coworkers. Early the next morning, she made 40 copies. Connick came in, canceling a day off, to discuss the transfer with her again. She told him she would "consider" the transfer.
At lunch she distributed the questionnaire to 17 other assistant district attorneys personally. Most accepted them. Waldron learned what was happening and called Connick about a "mini-insurrection" taking place. Connick was particularly disturbed by questions about whether respondents felt confident in Waldron, Bane and other supervisors, and about whether ADAs felt pressured to work on his political campaigns, feeling it would be damaging if it got into the media. He called Myers into his office and told her she was fired, effective at the end of the day. She continued to come in for another three days, putting her files and case notes in order.
Litigation Shortly after her dismissal, Myers filed a Section 1983 suit in federal court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, against Connick both personally and in his official capacity. She alleged violation of her First Amendment rights and sought back pay, reinstatement and compensatory and punitive damages. At first she sought a preliminary injunction, but Judge Jack Gordon converted it to a trial on the merits. It was held before him two months after the firing. Myers argued that she had been fired for distributing the questionnaire; Connick claimed it was a matter of her insubordination in refusing to accept the transfer.
Myers and Connick's attorneys, George Strickler and William Wessel respectively, would represent their clients throughout the case. 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 February 1981 Gordon issued his decision. After recounting the facts of the case, he found for Myers. "The preponderance of the evidence in this case," he wrote," indicates that the plaintiff was fired by the defendant because of her circulation of the questionnaire within the District Attorney's Office." He noted in support that another ADA testified that she had been preparing for her new cases with him, and that Connick had returned home after their morning meeting, satisfied with her answer. Only after Waldron's call about the questionnaire did he return and fire her.
Having established the facts, Gordon turned to the law. He applied the test from Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle,Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, . a 1977 Supreme Court decision overturning the firing of a teacher for, among other things, sharing a proposed dress code with the media. First, Myers would have to prove that her distribution of the questionnaire was constitutionally protected speech, and that her firing was a result. If she could establish that, the burden would then be on Connick to show that she would have been fired whether she had distributed the questionnaire or not.
Gordon relied on Pickering v. Board of Education,Pickering v. Board of Education, . for the first test. In that landmark 1968 case, the Court had unanimously overturned the firing of a teacher who had written a letter to the editor of a local newspaper criticizing the school board and superintendent for its allocation of school finances. 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.'" In a more recent case, Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District,Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School District, . the Court had also held that the First Amendment protected private speech by public employees on matters of public concern. These two cases, Gordon wrote, established the possibility that her distribution of the questionnaires was constitutionally protected.
"Taken as a whole," Gordon continued," the issues presented in the questionnaire relate to the effective functioning of the District Attorney's Office and are matters of public importance and concern." He returned to Pickering, which further required a balancing test between Myers's free-speech interests and Connick's interest in the efficient operation of a public agency. A 1974 Fifth Circuit decision offered language that clarified this test: "[I]t is incumbent upon [the government] to clearly demonstrate that the employee's conduct substantially and materially interferes with the discharge of duties and responsibilities inherent in [public] employment."Smith v. United States, The decision upheld the firing of a clinical psychologist who had insisted on wearing a pin with a peace symbol while on the job at a veterans' hospital despite repeated requests from his superiors to stop, as it could have unnecessarily upset patients. For specifics Gordon looked to a 1972 Seventh Circuit decision that had offered four areas where this balance might be considered: confidentiality, discipline and harmonious relations among coworkers, relations between the employee and his or her superior, and the extent to which employee speech affected job performance.
Connick had not alleged that Myers had breached confidentiality. He had claimed that Myers violated office policy and thus impeded her job performance by photocopying the questionnaires. Gordon said Connick had offered no evidence of an office policy on photocopier use. "Even had such evidence been offered," he added, "this court could not conclude that such an act carries much weight in regard to striking a balance in the state's favor."
Connick had also not shown any evidence that the distribution of the questionnaires on work time impeded her job performance. As an assistant district attorney, Gordon wrote, she was entitled to some latitude in her work hours. "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."
Gordon called the last area, the purported effect of the questionnaire on relations between superiors and supervised, "the defendant's most forceful argument." He agreed it was important, but did not believe, as Connick did, that the mere act of distributing a questionnaire which asked, among other things, whether respondents trusted four named supervisors, was as prejudicial to discipline as a negative statement about those individuals would be. He cited a similar case where a college professor had alleged his contract was not renewed because of his role in disseminating a questionnaire. "[It was] not a statement of fact but the presentation and solicitation of ideas and opinions" and thus even more clearly protected.Lindsey v. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia, 607 F.2d 672 (5th Cir., 1979).
"When all factors are considered, it cannot be said that the defendant's interest in promoting the efficiency of the public services performed through his employees was either adversely affected or substantially impeded by plaintiff's distribution of the questionnaire", Gordon concluded. 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. Since that was the only possible reason he had found for her termination, it could not be alleged that she would have been fired without having done it, and thus she had won.
Gordon held that Connick was acting out of his official capacity, so he could not personally be held liable. He ordered her reinstated, although he worried that "it would be difficult for plaintiff to achieve a harmonious working relationship" due to the lawsuit, if she did. He also ordered back pay, $1,500 in compensatory damages, as well as costs and fees, but denied her declaratory relief and punitive damages, since there was no evidence that Connick had shown reckless or wanton disregard for her civil rights. Connick appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which summarily affirmed in mid-1981.
Before the Court