Intern. Ass'n of Firefighters v. City of Ferguson

• Decision Date: 25 March 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-2277.,01-2277.
• Citation: 283 F.3d 969
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS OF ST. LOUIS, FRANKLIN AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, LOCAL 2665; Lloyd Thompson; and Alma Mendez-Thompson, Appellants, v. CITY OF FERGUSON and Allen D. Gill, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

283 F.3d 969

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIREFIGHTERS OF ST. LOUIS, FRANKLIN AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, LOCAL 2665; Lloyd Thompson; and Alma Mendez-Thompson, Appellants, v. CITY OF FERGUSON and Allen D. Gill, Appellees.

No. 01-2277.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 13, 2001.

Filed: March 25, 2002.

John H. Goffstein, argued, St. Louis, MO (Jeffrey E. Hartnett, on the brief), for appellant.

Priscilla F. Gunn, argued, St. Louis, MO (Brian D. Kennedy, on the brief), for appellee.

Before LOKEN, RICHARD S. ARNOLD, and BYE, Circuit Judges.

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

The International Association of Firefighters of St. Louis, Franklin, and Jefferson Counties, Local 2665, Lloyd Thompson, a Ferguson resident and employee, and his wife, Alma Mendez-Thompson, challenged a provision of the Charter of the City of Ferguson which prohibited certain city employees from sponsoring, electioneering for, or contributing money to any candidate for mayor or city council. The plaintiffs claimed that the provision abridged their freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs as to the sponsoring prohibition contained in the challenged provision, but granted summary judgment in favor of the City of Ferguson on all other claims. The plaintiffs Lloyd Thompson and Alma Mendez-Thompson appeal the decision of the District Court. We affirm the judgment insofar as it upheld the challenged provision as applied to Lloyd Thompson. The District Court also dismissed Alma Mendez-Thompson's separate claim for lack of standing. As to that issue, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I.

The City of Ferguson is a charter city located in St. Louis County, Missouri. In 1998, the City approved the current city charter. This charter includes the following provision:

Neither the city manager nor any person holding an administrative office or position under the city manager's supervision shall be a candidate for mayor or city council member or engage, directly or indirectly, in sponsoring, electioneering or contributing money or other things of value for any person who is a candidate for mayor or council. All such persons shall retain the right to vote as they choose and to express their opinions on all political subjects. Any person violating the provisions of this section shall be removed in the manner provided in the personnel code.

Appendix of Appellant (App.) 58 (quoting Section 5.3 of Ferguson City Charter). The plaintiffs contend that the provision violates their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

The District Court determined that the sponsoring provision, which prohibited employees from directly or indirectly sponsoring candidates for mayor or town council, was void for vagueness and enjoined future enforcement of that provision. This issue is not before us. All other prohibitions contained in the challenged provision were held to be constitutional as applied to the plaintiff Lloyd Thompson. The Court also determined that Alma Mendez-Thompson lacked standing to challenge the provision because she was not an employee of the City, and the City could take no action against her. The pendent state claim was dismissed by the District Court.¹

II.

This Court has reviewed constitutional challenges to provisions such as the one contained in the Ferguson City Charter in the past. Specifically, in Reeder v. Kansas City Bd. of Police Comm'rs, 733 F.2d 543 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1065, 107 S.Ct. 951, 93 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1987), we upheld a ban on political contributions by officers or employees of the Kansas City Police Department. Id. at 548. Though we did state that a restriction such as this "does abridge the freedom of speech in a literal sense," it was constitutionally permissible. Id. at 547. We noted that the Supreme Court has allowed the government to impose "substantial restrictions on [the] political activity" of its own employees and that First Amendment rights "must yield on occasion to the demands of public safety." Id. at 547. See Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973). Though the case at hand does not involve only a prohibition on funding, but also a prohibition on electioneering by government employees, the rationale used and the outcome reached in Reeder control the decision in this case. The District Court properly granted summary judgment to the City on Lloyd Thompson's First Amendment claim.

The District Court analyzed the justifications provided by the City to support the provision at issue. The Court determined that the provision, which affected only certain government employees, was "necessary to protect against the erosion of public confidence in the impartiality of the provision of Government services, in preserving the fairness of City elections, and in preserving the efficiency of the operations of the City." Int'l Ass'n of Firefighters v. City of Ferguson, No. 4:00CV00241, slip op. at 34 (E.D. Mo. April 17, 2001). Moreover, the Court noted that the restriction is narrowly tailored, because it applies only to local elections for mayor and council. Because greater restrictions may be placed on government employees than the public at large, the provision was held to be constitutional. Id. at 34-35; see Kelley v. Johnson, 425 U.S. 238, 245, 96 S.Ct. 1440, 47 L.Ed.2d 708 (1976). We agree with the decision reached by the District Court.

III.

The District Court dismissed Ms. Mendez-Thompson's separate claim for lack of standing. She is not an employee of the City, and the challenged provision of the charter clearly does not apply to her. It does apply to her husband, but she must assert her own rights, not his. However, Ms. Mendez-Thompson claims that the City is threatening to interpret Section 5.3 in such a way as to chill her own exercise of First Amendment rights. In the past, when she lived in New York, she did participate in political activities, specifically a campaign for a councilwoman. App. 159. She also worked in campaign offices and made telephone calls on behalf of candidates. Id. at 160. After moving to Missouri, she participated in the re-election campaign of a candidate for city council in Calverton Park. But, in her view, the charter provision in question in this lawsuit has prevented her from participating in similar activities in the City of Ferguson, because she feared it would jeopardize her husband's position as a city employee. Id. at 161. Her lawyer wrote a letter to the City inquiring about its interpretation of Section 5.3, specifically, whether her husband might suffer discipline if she ran for office, electioneered, or contributed money to a candidate for mayor or council. The City did not answer this letter. Ms. Mendez-Thompson has "felt intimidated to do anything of [a political] nature." Id. at 161.

As we have said, the charter obviously does not apply to Ms. Mendez-Thompson. The prohibition against "indirect," as opposed to "direct," political activities, however, does apply to Mr. Thompson. The Mayor, Steven Wegert, took the position, when testifying at a deposition under oath, that if an employee's spouse or children placed a yard sign in front of the house where they were residing with the employee, the employee would be considered to be "indirectly" engaging in political activity prohibited by the Charter. App. 177. A political contribution made from a couple's joint bank account would presumably be subject to the same logic. So it seems that Ms. Mendez-Thompson's apprehension that political activities on her part might be used to discipline her husband is not unreasonable, or, at least, that a sufficient issue as to its reasonableness has been made out to make summary judgment on the question inappropriate.

The political activities at issue here are at the core of the First Amendment. The City does not claim that it can directly regulate Ms. Mendez-Thompson's activities, but it does seem to claim that it can discipline, perhaps even discharge, her husband on account of her activities. If her testimony is believed, as it must be in this summary-judgment context, she has a reasonable apprehension that her husband might be economically disadvantaged in retaliation for political activities on her part. Does this claim assert her own rights, or merely those of her husband? We think it asserts her own rights. She has her own rights to participate in political activities, and if her husband were disciplined or lost his job, the economic adverse effect on her would be clear, especially, perhaps, in view of the fact that they have a joint bank account. We are not holding that a spouse has standing to assert a claim any time the other spouse is injured. But here, Ms. Mendez-Thompson is herself injured by having to give up, or hesitating to exercise, her First Amendment rights, and by the consequent loss of her husband's ability to provide the mutual support that the law imposes as a duty on both spouses.

Do these facts fit the law of standing? We think the answer is yes. Federal courts are authorized to decide only "cases" and "controversies." U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2. In order to meet this requirement, a plaintiff must present a concrete dispute involving an injury to himself. The law has been well summarized in New Hampshire Right to Life Political Action Committee v. Gardner, 99 F.3d 8, 13 (1st Cir.1996):

To clear the Article III hurdle, the party who invokes a federal court's authority must show that (1) he or she personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the challenged conduct; (2) the injury can fairly be traced to that conduct; and (3) the injury likely will be redressed by a favorable decision from the court.

The leading Supreme Court case is Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 471-72, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70...