J. Murray v. Bryan Williams, 670 F. App'x 608

Plaintiff J. Michael Murray, a caseworker at Southern Desert Correctional Center, sued supervisors Bryan Williams, Cheryl Burson, and Tonya Hill under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for First Amendment retaliation and under Title VII for constructive discharge; an Equal Protection claim was withdrawn.
Defendants moved for summary judgment asserting, inter alia, qualified immunity; the district court denied the motion on the First Amendment claim (the Title VII denial was not appealed).
The Ninth Circuit reviews denial of qualified immunity orders as a legal question on interlocutory appeal and limited to questions of law.
The panel concluded the district court erred in finding Murray’s statements addressed matters of public concern: the speech was marginally related to public issues, arose from workplace dissatisfaction, and was directed to coworkers.
The court further held that, even if Murray’s speech were protected, the law was not clearly established such that the defendants would be denied qualified immunity.
Result: the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of summary judgment on the First Amendment retaliation claim and granted qualified immunity to the defendants.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Murray's speech addressed a matter of public concern	Murray contended his statements implicated matters of public concern and merited First Amendment protection	Defendants argued the speech was workplace-related, directed to coworkers, and not a public concern	Court: Speech was only marginally related to public concern and primarily workplace dissatisfaction; not protected
Whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity for alleged First Amendment retaliation	Murray argued his rights were violated and clearly established	Defendants argued the law was not clearly established given context-intensive analysis of public-employee speech	Court: Qualified immunity applies because the law was not clearly established
Whether interlocutory appeal on qualified immunity was proper	Murray implicitly opposed interlocutory reversal	Defendants invoked Mitchell to support appealability of qualified immunity denials	Court: Exercised jurisdiction to review as a question of law under precedent
Scope of appellate review vis-à-vis unappealed Title VII ruling	Murray sought relief on all claims	Defendants did not appeal denial as to Title VII constructive discharge	Court: Did not consider the unappealed Title VII portion; reversed only First Amendment denial

Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985) (denial of qualified immunity is immediately appealable as a question of law)
Eng v. Cooley, 552 F.3d 1062 (9th Cir. 2009) (whether speech involves public concern is a legal question reviewed de novo)
Johnson v. Multnomah County, 48 F.3d 420 (9th Cir. 1995) (speech to coworkers about workplace matters may not be public concern)
Turner v. City & County of S.F., 788 F.3d 1206 (9th Cir. 2015) (speech arising from dissatisfaction with job status is not public concern)
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009) (qualified immunity requires assessing whether law was clearly established)
Moran v. Washington, 147 F.3d 839 (9th Cir. 1998) (public-employee speech decisions are context-intensive, making clearly established law rare)