A New Jersey cop won a Supreme Court battle Tuesday allowing him to bring a suit against the city of Paterson.
Officer Jeffrey Heffernan was demoted when his boss mistakenly believed he was helping a rival political campaign to the mayor, who appointed Heffernan’s supervisor.
The court’s opinion explains how Heffernan’s dispute arose:
Petitioner Heffernan was a police officer working in the office of Paterson, New Jersey’s chief of police. Both the chief of police and Heffernan’s supervisor had been appointed by Paterson’s incumbent mayor, who was running for re-election against Lawrence Spagnola, a good friend of Heffernan’s. Heffernan was not involved in Spagnola’s campaign in any capacity. As a favor to his bedridden mother, Heffernan agreed to pick up and deliver to her a Spagnola campaign yard sign. Other police officers observed Heffernan speaking to staff at a Spagnola distribution point while holding the yard sign. Word quickly spread throughout the force. The next day, Heffernan’s supervisors demoted him from detective to patrol officer as punishment for his “overt involvement” in Spagnola’s campaign. Heffernan filed suit, claiming that the police chief and the other respondents had demoted him because, in their mistaken view, he had engaged in conduct that constituted protected speech.
The Supreme Court’s 6-2 decision does not hand the whole victory to Heffernan. It merely allows him to bring a First Amendment claim against the city for allegedly violating his rights. Lower courts ruled that because Heffernan was not actually exercising his free speech rights, and his boss only wrongly believed that he was, that he couldn’t bring a claim. But the Supreme Court ruled in Heffernan’s favor.
“When an employer demotes an employee out of a desire to prevent that employee from engaging in political activity that the First Amendment protects, the employee is entitled to challenge that unlawful action under the First Amendment and even if, as here, the employer’s actions are based on a factual mistake about the employee’s behavior,” Justice Stephen Breyer said in the majority opinion.
Breyer said there is evidence that Heffernan was punished because of a policy prohibiting “overt involvement” in political campaigns, but whether this policy was in place and whether it was violated will be decided by lower courts. Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito dissented.
“Even Snooki knows that picking up a campaign sign is protected by the First Amendment,” Stephanie Barclay, counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a statement. “It’s sad that this case had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for the City of Paterson, New Jersey to learn that freedom of speech and the right to assemble are core rights of American citizens.”
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