Employment — public employment — freedom of speech

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Employment — public employment — freedom of speech

Where a public employee was transferred two days after making constitutionally protected statements to a reporter, summary judgment should not have been granted to the employer on his First Amendment claim.

“Here, Peele made his protected comments on May 8, 2007. They were published in the newspaper the very next day (May 9, 2007), and Peele was transferred the day after that (May 10, 2007). ‘The closer two events are, the more likely that the first caused the second,’ Loudermilk, 636 F.3d at 315, and it is hard to imagine two key events closer in time than the ones at stake here. Even if this extraordinary temporal proximity is not enough to create a triable issue of fact on its own—a question we need not answer—at the very least, it provides some evidence that a retaliatory motive lurked behind Peele’s transfer. See id.; Spiegla, 371 F.3d at 943 (‘It is settled in this Circuit that a plaintiff may establish a causal link between protected expression and adverse action through evidence that the adverse action took place on the heels of protected activity.’) (internal comma, brackets, and ellipsis omitted).”

Reversed and Remanded.

12-3562 Peele v. Burch

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Cherry, Mag. J., Kanne, J.