Hartman v. Moore

• Citation: 126 S. Ct. 1695,547 U.S. 250
• Decision Date: 26 April 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-1495,04-1495
• Parties: MICHAEL HARTMAN, FRANK KORMANN, PIERCE McINTOSH, NORMAN ROBBINS, AND ROBERT EDWARDS, Petitioners v. WILLIAM G. MOORE, JR.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

547 U.S. 250,

126 S. Ct. 1695,

MICHAEL HARTMAN, FRANK KORMANN,

PIERCE McINTOSH, NORMAN ROBBINS,

AND ROBERT EDWARDS,

Petitioners

v. WILLIAM G. MOORE, JR.

No. 04-1495

SUPREME COURT OF

THE UNITED STATES

January 10, 2006, Argued

April 26, 2006, Decided

Edwin S. Kneedler argued the cause for petitioners.

Patrick F. McCartan argued the cause for respondent.

Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Ginsburg, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer, J., joined, post, p. 266. Roberts, C. J., and Alito, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

OPINION

Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a Bivens action against criminal investigators for inducing prosecution in retaliation for speech. The question is whether the complaint states an actionable violation of the First Amendment without alleging an absence of probable cause to support the underlying criminal charge. We hold that want of probable cause must be alleged and proven.

I

In the 1980's, respondent William G. Moore, Jr., was the chief executive of Recognition Equipment Inc. (REI), which manufactured a multiline optical character reader for interpreting multiple lines of text. Although REI had received some $50 million from the United States Postal Service to develop this technology for reading and sorting mail, the Postmaster General and other top officials of the Postal Service were urging mailers to use nine-digit zip codes (Zip + 4), which would provide enough routing information on one line of text to allow single-line scanning machines to sort mail automatically by reading just that line.

Besides Moore, who obviously stood to gain financially from the adoption of multiline technology, some Members of Congress and Government research officers had reservations about the Postal Service's Zip + 4 policy and its intended reliance on single-line readers. Critics maligned single-line scanning technology, objected to the foreign sources of single-line scanners, decried the burden of remembering the four extra numbers, 1 and echoed the conclusion reached by the United States Office of Technology Assessment, that use of the single-line scanners in preference to multiliners would cost the Postal Service $1 million a day in operational losses.

Moore built on this opposition to Zip + 4, by lobbying Members of Congress, testifying before congressional committees, and supporting a "Buy American" rider to the Postal Service's 1985 appropriations bill. Notwithstanding alleged requests by the Postmaster General to be quiet, REI followed its agenda by hiring a public-relations firm, Gnau and Associates, Inc. (GAI), which one of the Postal Service's governors, Peter Voss, had recommended.

The campaign succeeded, and in July 1985 the Postal Service made what it called a "mid-course correction" and embraced multiline technology. Brief for Respondent 4. But the change of heart did not extend to Moore and REI, for the Service's ensuing order of multiline equipment, valued somewhere between $250 million and $400 million went to a competing firm.

Not only did REI lose out on the contract, but Moore and REI were soon entangled in two investigations by Postal Service inspectors. The first looked into the purported payment of kickbacks by GAI to Governor Voss for Voss's recommendations of GAI's services, as in the case of REI; the second sought to document REI's possibly improper role in the search for a new Postmaster General. Notwithstanding very limited evidence linking Moore and REI to any wrongdoing, an Assistant United States Attorney decided to bring criminal charges against them, and in 1988 the grand jury indicted Moore, REI, and REI's vice president. At the close of the Government's case, after six weeks of trial, however, the District Court concluded that there was a "complete lack of direct evidence" connecting the defendants to any of the criminal wrongdoing alleged, and it granted the REI defendants' motion for judgment of acquittal. United States v. Recognition Equip. Inc., 725 F. Supp. 587, 596 (DC 1989).

Moore then brought an action in the Northern District of Texas for civil liability under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971), 2 against the prosecutor and the five postal inspectors who are petitioners here (a sixth having died). His complaint raised five causes of action, only one of which is relevant here, the claim that the prosecutor and the inspectors had engineered his criminal prosecution in retaliation for criticism of the Postal Service, thus violating the First Amendment. In the course of these proceedings Moore has argued, among other things, that the postal inspectors launched a criminal investigation against him well before they had any inkling of either of the two schemes mentioned above, that the inspectors targeted him for his lobbying activities, and that they pressured the United States Attorney's Office to have him indicted. Moore also sought recovery from the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The District Court dismissed the claims against the Assistant United States Attorney in accordance with the absolute immunity for prosecutorial judgment, and rejected an abuse-of-process claim against the inspectors. Moore v. Valder, Civil Action No. 3:91-CV-2491-G (ND Tex., Sept. 21, 1992). 3

The claims remaining were transferred to the District Court for the District of Columbia, where Moore's suit was dismissed in its entirety 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13943, Civ. Nos. 92-2288 (NHJ), 93-0324 (NHJ), 1993 WL 405785 (Sept. 24, 1993), only to have the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reinstate the retaliatory-prosecution claim. Moore v. Valder, 314 U.S. App. D.C. 209, 65 F.3d 189 (1995). The District Court then permitted limited discovery on that matter so far as the inspectors were involved, but again dismissed the remaining charges against the United States and the prosecutor. Moore v. Valder, Civil Action No. 92-2288 (NHJ) et al., Record, Tab No. 32 (Memorandum Opinion, Feb. 5, 1998). Although Moore succeeded in having the District of Columbia Circuit reinstate his FTCA claim against the United States, the dismissal of his claims against the prosecutor was affirmed. Moore v. United States, 341 U.S. App. D.C. 348, 213 F.3d 705 (2000).

With the remainder of the case back in District Court, the inspectors moved for summary judgment, urging that because the underlying criminal charges were supported by probable cause they were entitled to qualified immunity from a retaliatory-prosecution suit. The District Court denied the motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. 363 U.S. App. D.C. 350, 388 F.3d 871 (2004).

The Courts of Appeals have divided on the issue of requiring evidence of a lack of probable cause in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Bivens retaliatory-prosecution suits. Some Circuits burden plaintiffs with the obligation to show its absence. See, e.g., Wood v. Kesler, 323 F.3d 872, 883 (CA11 2003); Keenan v. Tejeda, 290 F.3d 252, 260 (CA5 2002); Mozzochi v. Borden, 959 F.2d 1174, 1179-1180 (CA2 1992). Others, including the District of Columbia Circuit, impose no such requirement. See, e.g., Poole v. County of Otero, 271 F.3d 955, 961 (CA10 2001); Haynesworth v. Miller, 261 U.S. App. D.C. 66, 820 F.2d 1245, 1256-1257 (CADC 1987). We granted certiorari, 545 U.S. 1138, 125 S. Ct. 2977, 162 L. Ed. 2d 886 (2005), to resolve the Circuit split and now reverse.

II

Official reprisal for protected speech "offends the Constitution [because] it threatens to inhibit exercise of the protected right," Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 588, n. 10, 118 S. Ct. 1584, 140 L. Ed. 2d 759 (1998), and the law is settled that as a general matter the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions, including criminal prosecutions, for speaking out, id., at 592, 118 S. Ct. 1584, 140 L. Ed. 2d 759; see also Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597, 92 S. Ct. 2694, 33 L. Ed. 2d 570 (1972) (noting that the government may not punish a person or deprive him of a benefit on the basis of his "constitutionally protected speech"). Some official actions adverse to such a speaker might well be unexceptionable if taken on other grounds, but when nonretaliatory grounds are in fact insufficient to provoke the adverse consequences, we have held that retaliation is subject to recovery as the but-for cause of official action offending the Constitution. See Crawford-El, supra, at 593, 118 S. Ct. 1584, 140 L. Ed. 2d 759; Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 283-284, 97 S. Ct. 568, 50 L. Ed. 2d 471 (1977) (adverse action against government employee cannot be taken if it is in response to the employee's "exercise of constitutionally protected First Amendment freedoms"). When the vengeful officer is federal, he is subject to an action for damages on the authority of Bivens. See 403 U.S., at 397, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619.

III

Despite a procedural history portending another Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, 4 the issue before us is straightforward: whether a plaintiff in a retaliatory-prosecution action must plead and show the absence of probable cause for pressing the underlying criminal charges. 5

A

The inspectors argue on two fronts that absence of probable cause should be an essential element. Without such a requirement, they first say, the Bivens claim is too readily available. A plaintiff can afflict a public officer with disruption and expense by alleging nothing more, in practical terms, than action with a retaliatory animus, a subjective condition too easy to claim and too hard to defend against. Brief for Petitioners 21-23; see also National Archives and Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 175, 124 S. Ct. 1570, 158 L. Ed. 2d 319 (2004) (allegations of government misconduct are "'easy to allege and hard...