McDaniel v. Woodard

• Decision Date: 18 October 1989
• Docket Number: No. 89-7021,89-7021
• Citation: 886 F.2d 311
• Parties: Syble McDANIEL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas B. WOODARD, IV, individually and in his official capacity as District Judge of Pickens County, Alabama, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 311

886 F.2d 311

Syble McDANIEL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas B. WOODARD, IV, individually and in his official

capacity as District Judge of Pickens County,

Alabama, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 89-7021.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Oct. 18, 1989.

Robert M. Weinberg, Asst. Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Ala., for defendant-appellant.

John C. Falkenberry, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before CLARK and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges, and TUTTLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Syble Z. McDaniel sued Thomas B. Woodard, IV, the state district judge of Pickens County, Alabama, ¹ alleging that she was discharged from her employment as Judge Woodard's confidential secretary in violation of her first amendment rights. The district court denied Judge Woodard's summary judgment motion, which asserted qualified immunity. We reverse and remand, directing the district court to enter summary judgment for Judge Woodard in his individual capacity on McDaniels' constitutional claims.

While Ms. McDaniel was serving as Judge Woodard's confidential secretary, she tried to enroll her son in a school program for "gifted" students. Enrollment in the program required a series of tests, which were administered by Ben P. Curry, a licensed professional counselor. In administering the tests, Curry made an error that threatened to disqualify McDaniel's son for admission to the "gifted program."

After consulting with Dr. Jean Spruill of the Psychological Clinic of the University of Alabama, McDaniel became concerned that Curry had committed a misdemeanor by falsely holding himself out as a psychologist. Dr. Spruill told McDaniel that the Curry matter was being investigated and that a criminal prosecution would be pursued if Curry had engaged in unlawful activity. Dr. Spruill provided Judge Woodard with similar information because Curry had testified as an expert witness in Judge Woodard's court. Soon afterward, Dr. Spruill called Judge Woodard again to tell him that, although Curry was not a licensed psychologist, Curry (as a licensed professional counselor) was qualified to conduct testing and evaluations.

A couple of months later, the district attorney visited Judge Woodard's office to speak with McDaniel; she was not in the office, but Judge Woodard was. Judge Woodard then wrote McDaniel a letter instructing her not to assist the district attorney with the Curry matter ² and to leave the matter to the appropriate authorities because "[t]his office cannot afford, by implication or public impression, to be seen as involved in a prosecutorial function, even by association." ³ Instead of giving the

                judge the assurance he sought, McDaniel responded by a note that she would answer the judge's concerns when she felt "calm enough." 4   A little over a week after the district attorney's visit, Judge Woodard learned that McDaniel--to help a friend--had gone with a process server to obtain a restraining order from another judge and to serve a divorce complaint and the restraining order on Judge Woodard's brother.  Four days after the papers were served, Judge Woodard fired McDaniel
                

JURISDICTION

The district court denied the motion for summary judgment because the court concluded that genuine issues of material fact existed. A district court's denial of summary judgment based on a claim of qualified immunity is immediately appealable if the denial turns on a question of law. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The district court's determination that genuine issues of material fact preclude summary judgment is itself a conclusion of law. That factual disputes remain does not preclude summary judgment for defendants based on qualified immunity: in reviewing a qualified immunity claim we assume the facts to be as plaintiff alleges them and then determine the purely legal issue of whether those facts show a violation of clearly established rights of which a reasonable official in defendant's circumstances would have known. Id. at 527, 105 S.Ct. at 2816-17.

The record before us is adequate for us to conclude that the qualified immunity claim hinges solely on an issue of law; thus, this case is properly before us on appeal.

QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the Supreme Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Id. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. "In so holding, the Court established an objective standard to make summary judgment and similar judicial decisions appropriate devices to 'avoid excessive disruption of government and permit the resolution of many insubstantial claims....' " Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1189 (11th Cir.1989) (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738).

When a defendant advances a defense of qualified immunity, the "plaintiff bears the burden of showing that 'the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions....' " Id. at 1190 (quoting Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528, 105 S.Ct. at 2816). "The words 'clearly established ... constitutional rights' may not be used to read the defense of immunity out of federal tort law by the facile expedient of stating constitutional rights in the most general possible terms...." Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1301 (7th Cir.1986). The Supreme Court has stressed that "the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been 'clearly established' in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).

An official will be immune if "the law with respect to [his] actions was unclear at the time the cause of action arose" or if " 'a reasonable officer could have believed ... [his actions] to be lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information ... [the officer] possessed.' " Clark v. Evans, 840 F.2d 876, 879, 880 (11th Cir.1988) (quoting Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. at 3040)). For purposes of qualified immunity, the plaintiff must do more than simply make "general, conclusory allegations of some constitutional violation or [ ] stat[e] broad legal truisms," Barts, 865 F.2d at 1190; "generalities are just not helpful." Muhammad v. Wainwright, 839 F.2d 1422, 1424 (11th Cir.1987); see Clark, 840 F.2d at 881, 882 (proper inquiry is "fact-specific"; officer who shot and killed fleeing prisoner is immune because "[n]o case ha[d] expressly held that an officer has to first shoot to maim before shooting to kill"). In sum, "the qualified immunity defense ... provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986).

McDaniel alleges that Judge Woodard violated her clearly established first amendment right to discuss a pending criminal investigation with the district attorney. In evaluating the constitutionality of a public employer's termination of an employee in response to the employee's speech, the Supreme Court has balanced the interest of the employee in speaking on matters of public concern against the interest of the employer in performing public services efficiently. See Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 1734-35, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). As this court observed in Dartland v. Metropolitan Dade County, 866 F.2d 1321 (11th Cir.1989),

[b]ecause of this case-by-case approach, "there will rarely be a basis for [an] a priori judgment that the termination or discipline of a public employee violated 'clearly established' constitutional rights." Because no bright-line standard puts the reasonable public employer on notice of a constitutional violation, the employer is entitled to immunity except in the extraordinary case where Pickering balancing would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the discharge of the employee was unlawful.

Id. at 1323 (quoting Noyola v. Texas Dep't of Human Resources, 846 F.2d 1021, 1025 (5th Cir.1988)). Because the balance of interests in this case is not so clear, we conclude that Judge Woodard is entitled to immunity for discharging McDaniel.

McDaniel claims that she has a clearly established right, if not a duty, to talk to the district attorney about a suspected crime. But the question here is not whether she has a right to speak with the district attorney; the question is whether she has the right to remain employed as a judge's secretary if he has directed her not to speak to the district attorney and she has not accepted that direction. She brings to our attention no case in which a court has held that there is a right to remain employed while refusing to agree not to speak to the district attorney, especially when there is at least an articulable reason why speaking with the district attorney might impair the proper functioning of the judicial office. Judge Woodard expressed in his letter to McDaniel the concern that if McDaniel continued her involvement in the Curry matter, the office might be seen as becoming entangled in the "prosecutorial function." Even assuming that talking with the district attorney about a suspected crime is a clearly established constitutional right--and McDaniel cites no case clearly establishing such a right in this circuit--no clearly established law indicates that such a right would "inevitabl[y]" outweigh a judge's interest in avoiding the appearance of impropriety. See Dartland, 866 F.2d at...