By: Derek Hawkins//May 4, 2016//
US Supreme Court
Case Name: Heffernan v. City of Paterson
Case No.: 14-1280
Focus: First Amendment – Unlawful Employer Activities
When employer demotes an employee to prevent the employee from engaging in political activity, the employee is entitled to challenge that unlawful action on 1st amendment and Section. 1983 grounds even if the employer’s actions are based on a factual mistake.
“To answer the question whether an official’s factual mistake makes a critical legal difference, the Court assumes that the activities that Heffernan’s supervisors mistakenly thought he had engaged in are of a kind that they cannot constitutionally prohibit or punish. Section 1983 does not say whether the “right” protected primarily focuses on the employee’s actual activity or on the supervisor’s motive. Neither does precedent directly answer the question. In Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U. S. 410, and Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, there were no factual mistakes: The only question was whether the undisputed reason for the adverse action was in fact protected by the First Amendment. However, in Waters v. Churchill, 511 U. S. 661, a government employer’s adverse action was based on a mistaken belief that an employee had not engaged in protected speech. There, this Court determined that the employer’s motive, and particularly the facts as the employer reasonably understood them, mattered in determining that the employer had not violated the First Amendment. The government’s motive likewise matters here, where respondents demoted Heffernan on the mistaken belief that he had engaged in protected speech. A rule of law finding liability in these circumstances tracks the First Amendment’s language, which focuses upon the Government’s activity. Moreover, the constitutional harm— discouraging employees from engaging in protected speech or association—is the same whether or not the employer’s action rests upon a factual mistake. Finally, a rule of law imposing liability despite the employer’s factual mistake is not likely to impose significant extra costs upon the employer, for the employee bears the burden of proving an improper employer motive”
Reversed and Remanded
Dissenting: THOMAS, ALITO