Phillips v. City of Dall.

• Decision Date: 27 March 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–10379.,14–10379.
• Citation: 781 F.3d 772
• Parties: Micah B. PHILLIPS, Plaintiff–Appellant v. CITY OF DALLAS, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

781 F.3d 772

Micah B. PHILLIPS, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.CITY OF DALLAS, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 14–10379.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 27, 2015.

Christopher D. Kratovil, Esq. (argued), Steven Matthew Baker, Kristina Marie Williams, Dykema Gossett, P.L.L.C., Dallas, TX, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Nicholas Dane Palmer, Attorney (argued), James Bickford Pinson, Assistant City Attorney, Ayeh Barzin Powers, Assistant City Attorney, Barbara Elaine Rosenberg, Esq., City Attorney's Office for the City of Dallas, Dallas, TX, for Defendant–Appellee.

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

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and SOUTHWICK and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

CARL E. STEWART, Chief Judge:

In 2011, Micah Phillips—then a 12–year veteran of the Dallas Fire Department—announced his candidacy in the Democratic primary for a seat on the Dallas County Commissioners Court. At that time, city laws prevented city employees from seeking office in any county overlapping the city of Dallas (as Dallas County does). The City subsequently terminated Phillips for violating those laws. In this suit, dismissed on the pleadings by the district court, Phillips challenges those laws both facially and as applied to him. We AFFIRM.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Micah Phillips (“Phillips”) began working for the Dallas Fire Department in April 1999. He was working as a fire dispatcher when, in December 2011, he announced his candidacy for the Dallas County Commissioners Court. The city of Dallas (the “City”) notified Phillips on January 23, 2012, that he had violated the Dallas City Charter and the Dallas City Code of Ethics by “fail[ing] to forfeit [his] position with the City after becoming a candidate for Dallas County Commissioner.” Two days later, the City formally discharged him.

The provision of the Dallas City Charter under which the City terminated Phillips states: “If any employee of the city becomes a candidate for nomination or election to any elective public office within Dallas County ... the employee shall immediately forfeit his or her place or position with the city.” Dallas City Charter, Ch. 3, § 17(c).¹ The ethics provision, interpreting § 17(c), limits its application to partisan office-seekers and further implements that section. It states that an “employee of the city immediately forfeits employment with the city if the employee ... becomes a candidate for nomination or election in a partisan election for public office within a county in which the city of Dallas resides....” Dallas Code of Ethics, § 12A–10(b).² For simplicity, we refer to these laws collectively as “the Charter” or the “City's Charter.”

The City denied Phillips's internal appeal, and he subsequently brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit in federal district court in August 2012, alleging that the City violated his First Amendment rights. The district court, relying primarily on Civil Serv. Comm'n v. Nat'l Ass'n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 550–51, 93 S.Ct. 2880, 37 L.Ed.2d 796 (1973) (upholding federal legislation preventing federal executive branch employees from “tak[ing] an active part in political management or political campaigns”), granted the City's Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed Phillips's claims with prejudice.³

In this court, Phillips raises three primary issues. He argues that (1) the Charter is unconstitutional as applied to him; (2) the Charter is facially overbroad; and (3) the City is estopped from defending the Charter.

II. Standard of Review

This court reviews a district court's decision to grant a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings de novo, using the same standards applicable to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. See Gentilello v. Rege, 627 F.3d 540, 543–44 (5th Cir.2010). His complaint therefore “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ).

III. Discussion

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides: “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” U.S. Const. amend. I. Speech by citizens and government employees on matters of public concern “lies at the heart of the First Amendment.” Lane v. Franks, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2369, 2377, 189 L.Ed.2d 312 (2014). And while “public employers may not condition employment on the relinquishment of constitutional rights,” id. (citations omitted), the Supreme Court has acknowledged that “[g]overnment employers, like private employers, need a significant degree of control over their employees' words and actions; without it, there would be little chance for the efficient provision of public services.” Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 418, 126 S.Ct. 1951, 164 L.Ed.2d 689 (2006) (citation omitted).

The test for balancing an employee's claimed speech interest against the government's interests derives from Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). From that case, a two-step analysis emerged: the first requires an inquiry into whether “the employee spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern.” Garcetti, 547 U.S. at 418, 126 S.Ct. 1951. If not, the “employee has no First Amendment cause of action.” Id. But if the answer is yes, “[t]he question becomes whether the relevant government entity had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public.” Lane, 134 S.Ct. at 2378 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Phillips is not the first nonsupervisory government employee to challenge a legal scheme that limits public employees' political activities. Indeed, there is a long history of similar challenges both in the Supreme Court and in this court, and perhaps an even longer history of laws like the ones at issue here. See Rafael Gely & Timothy D. Chandler, Restricting Public Employees' Political Activities: Good Government or Partisan Politics?, 37 Hous. L.Rev. 775, 776 (2000) (“The creation of an apolitical public service has been a goal of government in the United States almost since the nation's inception.”).

The starting point for a modern examination of the political rights of government employees is United Pub. Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947), which upheld federal legislation known as the Hatch Act that forbade certain political activities of federal employees,⁴ notably taking “any active part in political management or in political campaigns.” Id. at 78, 67 S.Ct. 556 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

That holding was reaffirmed in 1973 by a pair of decisions that form the contemporary jurisprudential backbone of a long line of cases rejecting First Amendment challenges to laws that restrict the political activities of government employees. In Letter Carriers, the Court upheld a host of restrictions on the political rights of federal civil servants, including—as relevant here—a restriction preventing them from being “partisan candidate[s] for ... elective public office.” 413 U.S. at 556 & 576 n. 21, 93 S.Ct. 2880. A companion case, Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 603, 617–18, 93 S.Ct. 2908, 37 L.Ed.2d 830 (1973), upheld against overbreadth and vagueness challenges a state statute that similarly prohibited state employees from, inter alia, becoming a “candidate for nomination or election to any paid public office.”⁵ And in Wachsman v. City of Dallas, this court held that “virtually all the numerous restrictions on federal employee political activity upheld in Letter Carriers ... apply as much to strictly state and local elections and political affairs as to elections for federal office and political activities attendant thereto.” 704 F.2d 160, 171 (5th Cir.1983).

Letter Carriers articulated four governmental interests supporting laws limiting public employees' political rights. First, federal employees “should administer the law in accordance with the will of Congress, rather than in accordance with their own or the will of a political party.” 413 U.S. at 564–65, 93 S.Ct. 2880. To “serve the great end of Government—the impartial execution of the laws—it is essential,” the Court recognized “that federal employees, for example, ... not run for office on partisan political tickets.” Id. at 565, 93 S.Ct. 2880. Second, and relatedly, employees should also not “appear to the public” to be influenced by politics. Id. Third, employees “should not be employed to build a powerful, invincible, and perhaps corrupt political machine.” Id. Finally, these laws serve to protect federal employees, allowing them to be free “from express or tacit invitation to vote in a certain way or perform political chores in order to curry favor with their superiors rather than to act out their own beliefs.” Id. at 566, 93 S.Ct. 2880.

This court has faithfully adhered to Mitchell and Letter Carriers , repeatedly upholding similar policies, regulations, and statutes against First Amendment challenges. See Commc'ns Workers v. Ector Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 467 F.3d 427, 431–32, 441–42 (5th Cir.2006) (en banc) (upholding public hospital non-adornment policy as content- and viewpoint-neutral restriction against a carpenter who sought to wear a pro-union lapel button); Wachsman, 704 F.2d at 169–75 (upholding provisions in Dallas municipal charter prohibiting city employees from, inter alia, circulating petitions or soliciting contributions for city council candidates and soliciting funds or serving as campaign managers in noncity elections); McCormick v. Edwards, 646 F.2d 173, 175, 179 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981) (concluding that noncivil service state employee with no policymaking responsibility could be...