Brown v. Disciplinary Committee of Edgerton Volunteer Fire Dept.

• Citation: 97 F.3d 969
• Decision Date: 07 October 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-3443,95-3443
• Parties: , 12 IER Cases 177 Richard L. BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF the EDGERTON VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT, Edgerton Fire Protection District Commission, Kenneth Crandal, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 969

97 F.3d 969

65 USLW 2319, 12 IER Cases 177

Richard L. BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF the EDGERTON VOLUNTEER FIRE

DEPARTMENT, Edgerton Fire Protection District

Commission, Kenneth Crandal, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 95-3443.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 3, 1996.

Decided Oct. 7, 1996.

Mary E. Kennelly (argued), Fox & Fox, Madison, WI for Richard L. Brown.

W. Scott McAndrew (argued), David J. Pliner, Bell, Metzner, Gierhart & Moore, Madison, WI, for Edgerton Fire Protection District Commission, Kenneth Crandal, Michael Reynolds, Roger Schieldt, Michael Drought, Arnold Lund, Disciplinary Committee of the Edgerton Volunteer Fire Dept., Stanley Foreman.

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge.

The difference between calling something the "Edgerton Fire Department" and the "Edgerton Fire District" might not seem monumental to the outside observer, but to Richard L. Brown it was a matter of significant public import. Brown was a volunteer firefighter for fifteen years in the Edgerton Fire Department, Edgerton, Wisconsin. When organizational changes caused the Department to change its name to the Edgerton Fire District, Brown was offended. He passed his views along to a local newspaper reporter, and soon found himself suspended and eventually terminated from his post. He responded with this lawsuit, in which he claimed that the Disciplinary Committee, the District Commission, and its members (referred to here as "the Committee") had violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. The district court dismissed the action on the ground that Brown appeared to be the only person who found the name change worthy of public discussion. We conclude that this reflected too narrow a view of the protection afforded by the First Amendment to public employee speech, and we therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings.

For many years, the City of Edgerton operated a fire department that provided fire protection services to a geographic area including both the city and the surrounding townships of Albien, Fulton, Porter, and Sumner. On May 7, 1992, the city entered into a written agreement with those townships to create a new entity, the Edgerton Fire Protection District. The towns also created the Edgerton Fire Protection District Commission, a municipality under Wis. Stat. Ann. § 66.30 (1995), which had final authority over disciplinary matters within the Department. Prior to the creation of the District, there had been a public debate about the problems of the existing structure: residents of Edgerton complained that they were subsidizing rural fire protection, and residents of the townships and rural areas complained that they had no voice in setting budgetary priorities. The new District was the response to both those problems. The Edgerton Fire Department remained in existence as a separate entity, but it became subordinate to the District. The new name began to show up around the area, including on the sign outside the headquarters building and the insignia on the fire trucks and firefighter uniforms.

Brown, as noted above, was displeased with these changes. He believed that the use of the word "District," rather than "Department," compromised the history and heritage of the fire department. The Department had been in existence for over 100 years. Some firefighters had died serving under that name, and others had retired. He felt that Edgerton, as a city sensitive to its history, would be interested in preserving its heritage as well as possible. With this in mind, Brown first asked the president of the Fire District Commission, Jim Linsley, whether the name could be changed back to fire "Department." Linsley responded negatively. Around March 9, 1993, Brown went to the offices of the Edgerton Reporter, the local newspaper, and spoke with reporter Robert Samuelson about the name change. He asked Samuelson how one went about getting an article in the paper. Samuelson told him, and asked what the subject was; Brown replied, "I was trying to see how much support and how many people would like to see the Edgerton Fire Department name back to the Edgerton Fire Department--change it back from Edgerton Fire District to the Edgerton Fire Department."

Samuelson's interest was not piqued. Instead, he contacted the fire chief, Mark Backus, and asked him what was happening. Backus was displeased to learn about Brown's inquiry and convened a special meeting of the department on March 11, 1993. When asked why he had done it, Brown said again that he wanted to preserve the department's heritage. Following that meeting, the Disciplinary Committee (the members of which were included among the defendants in Brown's suit) voted to suspend Brown for six months, because he had "acted unjustly in going to the media." The Committee imposed several conditions on him in addition to the suspension: he was prohibited from talking about departmental topics to the public without permission from the fire chief or the Commission president; he was not given credit for fire calls or special meetings; and he was required to attend regular monthly meetings, again with no credit for his attendance. After the suspension, Brown missed five meetings in a row--April through August 1993. This prompted the Commission to take further steps. By letter of October 7, 1993, Brown was notified that the Fire Department had voted to revoke his membership outright. As was his right, Brown requested a hearing, which was held on December 2, 1993. After that hearing, at which he had the opportunity to present his case, present witnesses, cross-examine the Commission's witnesses, and subpoena witnesses under Wis. Stat. Ann. § 62.13(5), the Commission voted to revoke Brown's membership in the Department, purportedly for failure to attend the meetings after his suspension.

The district court assumed for the sake of argument that Brown had some sort of employment relationship with the Fire Protection District, and thus that his claims should be analyzed under the cases dealing with public employee free expression rights. Considering the form, content, and context of Brown's speech, the judge concluded that it did not raise a matter of public concern. She gave two principal reasons for her ruling: first, there was no evidence that others shared Brown's concerns about the name change, and second, the name was not part of the public debate that preceded the creation of the District. Brown's failure to show that the speech was a matter of public concern meant that it was not protected under the First Amendment. The court also ruled that Brown failed to show that his due process rights were violated, because the District gave him an adequate notice and hearing. On appeal to this Court, Brown raises only the First Amendment issue.

This Court recently had occasion to review the law governing public employee free speech claims, in Dishnow v. School District of Rib Lake, 77 F.3d 194 (7th Cir.1996). Referring to the earlier decision in Eberhardt v. O'Malley, 17 F.3d 1023 (7th Cir.1994), the court reiterated that

when the Supreme Court in its cases establishing and bounding the rights of public employees to exercise free speech limited those rights to speech on matters of "public concern," they did not mean matters of transcendent importance, such as the origins of the universe or the merits of constitutional monarchy; they meant matters in which the public might be interested, as distinct from wholly personal grievances-which whether or not protected by the First Amendment are too remote from its central concerns to justify judicial interference with the employment relation, ... and casual chit-chat, which is not protected by the First Amendment at all.

77 F.3d at 197 (citations omitted). A three-step sequence governs the analysis of these claims: first, would the speech be protected if uttered by someone who was not a public employee; second, is the speech something more than an unprotected personal employee grievance; and third, has the public employer shown a convincing reason to forbid the speech? Id. See generally Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968); Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977); Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 103 S.Ct. 1684, 75 L.Ed.2d 708 (1983); Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 107 S.Ct. 2891, 97 L.Ed.2d 315 (1987); Waters v. Churchill, 511 U.S. 661, 114 S.Ct. 1878, 128 L.Ed.2d 686 (1994).

Before undertaking that analysis, we pause briefly on a potential problem with Brown's case: as a volunteer firefighter, did he lose anything valuable enough to give him standing to sue for his termination? We are obligated to consider the issue of standing, like any other question implicating our Article III jurisdiction, whether or not the parties have raised it. See Bender v. Williamsport Area Sch. Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 1331, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986); Family & Children's Ctr., Inc. v. School City of Mishawaka, 13 F.3d 1052, 1058-59 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 420, 130 L.Ed.2d 335 (1994). The record on summary judgment indicates that the answer is yes. First, from the simple standpoint of monetary loss, Brown's termination meant that he would not qualify for the $700 annual pension given to volunteer firefighters who serve for twenty-five years. Second, Wisconsin law treats volunteer firefighters as state employees for a variety of purposes. The District Commission here had the status of a municipality, Wis. Stat. Ann. § 66.30, and the workmen's compensation law makes it clear that members of volunteer fire companies are "employees." Wis. Stat. Ann. § 102.07(7) (1996). That would make Brown an employee of the municipal fire district, no...