Today the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Garcetti v. Ceballos. In the 5-4 decision the court decided that the first amendment and whistle blower protections do not protect someone acting in their official capacity. More in the New York Times
The gist of it is Mr. Ceballos complained to his boss that ethically questionable practices were being used to obtain search warrants. Mr. Ceballos was subsequently passed over for promotion. The central issue, according to Mr. Justice Kennedy (via the NYT article):
The controlling factor in this case, Justice Kennedy wrote, was that Mr. Ceballos was acting purely in an official capacity when he complained internally about the search warrant. “Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part of what he was employed to do,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “He did not act as a citizen by writing it.”
Anyway, interesting article and interesting issue. Among other questions this raises, does this mean the a government employe that complains about ethical issues to his boss has less protection than if he aired his grievances live on 60 Minutes? Which, any constitutional issues aside, is a poor management position to take. I would think one would want to encourage employees to come to them first before they light the whole bridge on fire so to speak. However, that does not mean that the Constitution mandates good management practices.
So, just out of curiosity, I was wondering what the peanut gallery thought of this ruling…
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Categories: The Law & The Courts
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May 30th, 2006 at 12:41:43 pm
The moral of this story is, when in doubt STFU!
Not a very courageous way to live life, but it’s what the Powers that Be (regardless of where those “Powers” may be) want.
May 30th, 2006 at 12:43:11 pm
Justic Kennedy is telling every American worker that it is better to burn the bridge than attempt to repair said bridge yourself.
Burn baby, Burn!!!
May 30th, 2006 at 1:00:30 pm
A&A and Neb - I wouldn’t read the decision quite that way …
There tend to be a LOT of Civil Service protections, not so very different from tenure even though not called that …
Is it just to grant those protections when a person is acting in official capacity and yet not permit the employer to be able to discipline the employee ?
With that said, so far, the specific employee has lost in more of the court proceeding that he has won, and seems to have lost, also, initially, when he tried going through grievance proceedings - “He filed an employee grievance, which was denied based on a finding that he had not suffered any retaliation, despite his claim to the contrary.” …
Neb - those in Civil Service are by no means “every American worker” …
What seems to be being overlooked (for whatever reasons) in the post and the first couple of emotional responses is that the person did his job and called someone on “ethically questionable practices” … his complaint appears to be that “subsequently”, he was passed over for promotion - but doesn’t establish what needed to be established for him to prevail - if consequently he had been passed over for promotion … the two are very different situations - as the Supreme Court majority appears to have taken into account …
I cannot tell, for example, if he perhaps chose an inappropriate path to express his concern (playing office politics rather than going through established channels), or if his complaints even had merit - “Discussions with his superiors were heated, and a trial court rejected challenges to the warrant. “ - this would seem to indicate that his challenge was not found to have merit - that, combined with “heated” discussions with superiors usually do not tend to lead to favourable promotion paths … mouthing off while being wrong is usually not a good career move …
I’m curious how Brendan reads the situation based upon the evidence presented to us, so far …
And awaiting with eager anticipation, the deathless prose of the Elder Loy !
May 30th, 2006 at 1:27:40 pm
Alasdair-
Regardless. I have learned that when in doubt STFU.
I haven’t been fired yet.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:48:26 pm
Personally I’m more afraid of Bush’s use of so called Signing Statements, in many cases claiming that he can basically hide anything he wants from congress.
May 30th, 2006 at 1:54:36 pm
Signing statements have even less legal meaning than executive orders. Which already have no legal meaning unless an executive order is allowed by law in a particular area. So unless the Supreme Court is reading the BazaroWorld Constitution, the signing statements mean about as much as Robbie’s farts.
May 30th, 2006 at 2:11:44 pm
I agree with dcl about the legal weight accorded to signing statements.
May 30th, 2006 at 2:43:32 pm
LOL - Joe Mama and dcl - who doesn’t ?
May 30th, 2006 at 2:58:00 pm
That may be true guys, but I am pretty wary these days of the Supreme Court with Alito and Roberts not backing Bush.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:34:53 pm
David K-
Bush must love this decision and the way his boys voted. Basically, the Federal government is right and the individual is wrong. That’s the prism Renquist viewed the world through, and I’m sure Bush does, too.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:49:49 pm
Max, I’m afraid your wrong. It is that Republicans in the government are always right everyone else is always wrong unless there are no Republicans involved in which case the government wins. If there is no government the largest corporate interest wins. If there is no corporate interest then the Republican wins. If there are no Republicans or they both sides are Republicans then the case may be decided based on the facts, law, and Constitution.
May 30th, 2006 at 7:01:29 pm
I don’t think I like this decision, but I’m a libertarian.
What I am sure of, is that this is a shot across the bow to the media who are sadly mistaken if they think they will receive protected status in the release/publication of classified information.
The trend is unmistakable, and irreversable for at least five years.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:25:05 pm
Guys - from what I can find, so far, this is a deputy sheriff who didn’t like something, mouthed off to his bosses, and the judicial system said he was wrong and then his own grievance process also said he was wrong …
This is not a “whistle-blower” who exposed corruption or evil-doing …
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lived up to its reputation as the Circuit most-reversed by the Supreme Court …
What more evidence could we ask that this is neither a Constitutional Issue nor bad management ?
May 31st, 2006 at 6:50:10 am
we could ask the police not to commit Purgery when requesting search warrants?
May 31st, 2006 at 8:34:42 am
Just as Boeing and Microsoft have the right to restrict their employees’ speech, so also does the federal government have the right to restrict its employees’ speech as it relates to their official duties. On the other hand, while this ruling may be sound from a constitutional perspective, from a practical organizational standpoint, federal employees should not have to choose between going public with their concerns and looking the other way at potential ethics violations. It’s very important that employees have a channel through which they can express their concerns to upper management; here at Boeing, if I see something I think is not right, I can go to Human Resources or call our internal Ethics Hotline. The feds ought to have similar infrastructure in place for their employees as well if they are committed to sound, ethical leadership.
May 31st, 2006 at 10:40:16 am
the world has officially ended as I kind of agree with Andrew…
May 31st, 2006 at 3:15:26 pm
Andrew - does this - “The controlling factor in this case, Justice Kennedy wrote, was that Mr. Ceballos was acting purely in an official capacity when he complained internally about the search warrant. “ not imply that Mr Ceballos did indeed go to his “similar infrastructure” and was subsequently adjudged by said infrastructure - and the Court - and the grievance process - to have been wrong ?
Plus - are deputy sheriffs really federal employees ?
May 31st, 2006 at 5:20:49 pm
(blush)
Fess’up time … readings elsewhere have brought to my attention that Mr Ceballos is a prosecutor, not a deputy sheriff - which makes a bunch more sense given aspects of this whole thing … worse yet, I don’t remember where I read that he was a deputy sheriff …
So - I was wrong …
Mea culpa, mea culpa …
Interesting new info (from Patterico’s Thingies ) - “The Supreme Court was required to treat Ceballos’s allegations as true, because this was an appeal from summary judgment, and that’s what you do on summary judgment: assume that all justifiable inferences be drawn in favor of the plaintiff. “
I think my mind is boggling …