O'hare Truck Serv. v. City of Northlake

Citation135 L.Ed.2d 874,518 U.S. 712,116 S.Ct. 2353
Decision Date28 June 1996
Docket Number95191
PartiesO'HARE TRUCK SERVICE, INC., et al. v. CITY OF NORTHLAKE et al.
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

No. 95-191.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 20, 1996

Decided June 28, 1996

Syllabus

Respondent city maintains a rotation list of available companies to perform towing services at its request. Until the events recounted here, the city's policy had been to remove companies from the list only for cause. Petitioner O'Hare Truck Service, Inc., was removed from the list after its owner, petitioner Gratzianna, refused to contribute to respondent mayor's reelection campaign and instead supported his opponent. Alleging that the removal was in retaliation for Gratzianna's campaign stance and caused petitioners to lose substantial income, petitioners filed this suit under 42 U. S. C. Section(s) 1983. The District Court dismissed the complaint in conformity with Seventh Circuit precedent that Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347 (plurality opinion), and Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507-in which the Court held that government officials may not discharge public employees for refusing to support a political party or its candidates, unless political affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the job in question-do not extend to independent contractors. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.

Held: The protections of Elrod and Branti extend to an instance where government retaliates against a contractor, or a regular provider of services, for the exercise of rights of political association or the expression of political allegiance. Pp. 3-14.

(a) In assessing when party affiliation, consistent with the First Amendment, may be an acceptable basis for terminating a public employee, "the ultimate inquiry is not whether the label `policymaker' or `confidential' fits a particular position; rather, the question is whether the hiring authority can demonstrate that party affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance of the public office involved." Branti, supra, at 518. A different, though related, inquiry, the balancing test from Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, is called for where a government employer takes adverse action on account of an employee or service provider's right of free speech. In Elrod and Branti, the raw test of political affiliation sufficed to show a constitutional violation. However, since the inquiry is whether the affiliation requirement is reasonable, it is inevitable that some case-by-case adjudication will be required even where political affiliation was the test the government imposed. The analysis will also accommodate cases where instances of the employee's speech or expression are intermixed with a political affiliation requirement. Pp. 3-7.

(b) Despite respondents' argument that the principles of Elrod and Branti have no force here because an independent contractor's First Amendment rights, unlike a public employee's, must yield to the government's asserted countervailing interest in sustaining a patronage system, this Court cannot accept the proposition that those who perform the government's work outside the formal employment relationship are subject to the direct and specific abridgment of First Amendment rights described in petitioners' complaint. The government may not coerce support in the manner petitioners allege, unless it has some justification beyond dislike of the individual's political association. As respondents offer no other justification for their actions, the complaint states a First Amendment claim. Allowing the constitutional claim to turn on a distinction between employees and independent contractors would invite manipulation by government, which could avoid constitutional liability simply by attaching different labels to particular jobs, Board of Comm'rs, Wabaunsee County v. Umbehr, ante, at ___. Accord, Lefkowitz v. Turley, 414 U. S. 70. Respondents present no convincing data to support their speculation that a difference of constitutional magnitude exists because independent contractors are less dependent on the government for income than employees are. There is little reason to suppose that a decision in petitioners' favor will lead to numerous lawsuits. While government officials may terminate at-will relationships, unmodified by any legal constraints, without cause, it does not follow that this discretion can be exercised to impose conditions on expressing, or not expressing, specific political views, see Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597. In view of the large number of legitimate reasons why a contracting decision might be made, fending off baseless First Amendment lawsuits should not consume scarce government resources. If the government terminates its affiliation with a service provider for reasons unrelated to political association, Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U. S. 274, 287, as, for example, where the provider is unreliable, or if the service provider's political ``affiliation is an appropriate requirement for the effective performance'' of the task in question, Branti, supra, at 518, there will be no First Amendment violation. The absolute right to enforce a patronage scheme as a means of retaining control over independent contractors and satisfying government officials' concerns about reliability has not been shown to be a necessary part of a legitimate political system in all instances. This was the determination controlling the Court's decisions in Elrod, supra, at 365-368, 372-373, and Branti, supra, at 518-520. There is no basis for rejecting that reasoning in this context and drawing a line excluding independent contractors from the First Amendment safeguards of political association afforded to employees. Pp. 7-13.

(c) The lower courts, upon such further proceedings as are deemed appropriate, should decide whether the case is governed by the Elrod-Branti rule or by the Pickering rule. P. 13. 47 F. 3d 883, reversed and remanded.

Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

Government officials may not discharge public employees for refusing to support a political party or its candidates, unless political affiliation is a reasonably appropriate requirement for the job in question. Elrod v. Burns, 427 U. S. 347 (1976); Branti v. Finkel, 445 U. S. 507 (1980). We must decide whether the protections of Elrod and Branti extend to an independent contractor, who, in retaliation for refusing to comply with demands for political support, has a government contract terminated or is removed from an official list of contractors authorized to perform public services. Although the government has broad discretion in formulating its contracting policies, we hold that the protections of Elrod and Branti extend to an instance like the one before us, where government retaliates against a contractor, or a regular provider of services, for the exercise of rights of political association or the expression of political allegiance.

I.

The suit having been dismissed by the District Court for failure to state a claim, the complaint's factual allegations are taken as true. Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit, 507 U. S. 163, 164 (1993). John Gratzianna is the owner and operator of O'Hare Truck Service, which provides towing services in Cook and DuPage Counties, Illinois. Gratzianna and his company are petitioners here, and we sometimes refer to them as O'Hare.

The city of Northlake, a respondent in this Court, coordinates towing services through its Police Department and for at least 30 years has maintained a rotation list of available towing companies. When the police receive a tow request, they call the company next on the list to provide the service. Until the events recounted here, the city's policy had been to remove a tow truck operator from the rotation list only for cause. O'Hare had been on the list since 1965, performing towing services at the city's request. O'Hare and the city's former Mayor, Gene Doyle, had a mutual understanding that the city would maintain O'Hare's place on the rotation list so long as O'Hare provided good service. In 1989, soon after being elected Northlake's new Mayor, respondent Reid Paxson told Gratzianna he was pleased with O'Hare's work and would continue using and referring its services.

Four years later, when Paxson ran for reelection, his campaign committee asked Gratzianna for a contribution, which Gratzianna refused to make. Gratzianna instead supported the campaign of Paxson's opponent and displayed the opponent's campaign posters at O'Hare's place of business. Soon after, O'Hare was removed from the rotation list. We shall assume, as the complaint alleges, that the removal was in retaliation for Gratzianna's stance in the campaign. Petitioners allege the retaliation caused them to lose substantial income.

O'Hare and Gratzianna sued in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging infringement of First Amendment rights in violation of Rev. Stat. Section(s) 1979, 42 U. S. C. Section(s) 1983. In conformity with binding Seventh Circuit precedent, which does not extend Elrod and Branti to independent contractors, see, e. g., Downtown Auto Parks, Inc. v. Milwaukee, 938 F. 2d 705, cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1005 (199...

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