Employment
Public employment; First Amendment

A memo by a nurse at a public hospital is not speech protected by the First Amendment.

"In an effort to show that the memo was not entirely a self-serving list of personal grievances-in other words, to show that the memo addressed a 'matter of public concern'-Davis notes that the memo 'described how another nurse was being taken away and Davis was forced to take care of twelve patients all by herself without any help. She also described the abuse that nurses went through every day.' But, even if these problems in the aggregate may add up to a broader picture about the quality of health care at Stroger, Davis was still just describing the day-to-day job of a nurse. Under Garcetti, the question whether speech is about a matter of public concern does not come into play unless the court first finds that the speech was made as a citizen rather than as an employee doing her job. The speech upon which Davis would like to found her case was made pursuant to her duties as a public employee, and so it was not constitutionally protected."

Affirmed.

06-1534 Davis v. Cook County

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gettleman, J., Wood, J.

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