Thе City of Santa Ana, Robert Richard, its Library Department Director, and its City Manager, David Ream, defendants in a Section 1983 action,
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On November 23, 1992, the district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability, finding all of the defendants liable for violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, and denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal. It also held that plaintiffs were entitlеd to declaratory and injunctive relief. On July 26, 1993, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment denying qualified immunity to the individual defendants, but declined to rule on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment requesting immunity. On August 5, 1993, a jury awаrded Lambert $10,000 in compensatory damages from the City, Ream and Richard, and $20,000 in punitive damages from Richard.
On appeal, the defendants do not appeal the amount of. damages or thе appropriateness of the other remedies imposed by the district court. The principal thrust of their challenge to the district court’s rulings is their contention that the employee’s speеch was not entitled to First Amendment protection because it did not address a matter of public concern. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.
FACTS
On October 15, 1990, Lambert appeared beforе the Santa Ana City Council on behalf of SACEA. She read a prepared statement in which she criticized Library Director Robert Richard’s management practices. She asserted that the library was just “bаrely” functioning as a result of Richard’s mismanagement, and asked the council to turn over to SACEA a study of library staff attitudes toward Richard.
Lambert was not the first city employee to publicly question Richard’s jоb performance. Librarians had begun wearing anti-Richard buttons at work. Two weeks before Lambert addressed the council, SACEA President Eddie Bentley had complained to that body about the lack оf communication between library staff and Richard, and the staffs lack of confidence in Richard. Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young had asked Ream to investigate Bentley’s allegations and to repоrt back to the council within two weeks.
In November, Richard issued a letter of reprimand to Lambert “for insubordinate action taken by [her] at an evening session of
DISCUSSION
We review dе novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment. Jesinger v. Nevada Fed. Credit Union,
The Supreme Court outlined the test for First Amendment protection of government employees’ speech in Pickering v. Board of Educ.,
“Whether an employee’s speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Connick v. Myers,
There is no question that Richard’s management style had become an issue of significant public concern by the time Lambert spoke to the council. Among the district court’s factual findings undisputed in the record were that “[pjrior to October 15, 1990, the tension between the staff of the City Library and defendant Richard became the subject of public discussion. SACEA and its members employed by the library had protested to City managemеnt regarding Richard’s conduct. The protests included assertions that Richard mismanaged the library department and treated employees in an abusive and intimidating manner, and that Richard’s conduct was hаving an adverse effect on service to the public.”
Lambert told the council that the library was “barely” functioning and that employees who dealt regularly with the public were performing “devoid of zest, with leaden hearts and wooden hands.” Given that operation of a public library is among the most visible of the functions performed by city governments, Lambert had a Constitutional right — and perhaps a civic duty — to inform the council if library service was jeopardized by poor management at the top. See Con-nick,
The appellants’ claim that Lambert’s speech was merеly “a petty personnel grievance in which she and some of her fellow library employees were personally interested and involved” is belied by the facts that Lambert spoke as a union rеpresentative, not as an individual, and that she described departmental problems, not private grievances. Cf. Connick,
Because Lambert’s remarks were so clearly protected, Richard and Ream were not entitled to qualified immunity. When the law is clearly established, public officials are immune only when they objectively could have believed that their conduct was lawful. Act Up/Portland v. Bagley,
CONCLUSION
The district court correctly determined that Lambert’s remarks tо the City Council addressed a matter of public concern. Therefore, the court properly granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the issue оf section 1983 liability. Because reasonable public officials in Richard’s and Ream’s positions would have recognized that Richard’s conduct was unlawful, the district court did not err in granting the plaintiffs’ motiоn for summary judgment denying qualified immunity to the individual defendants.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. The district court dismissed the state law claims.
. We reject the appellants’ argument that even if parts of Lambert's speech touched on matters of public concern, she was reprimanded not for these but for other parts of her speech that were merely character assassination, as permitted by Waters, - U.S. at -,
. The defendants contend that the forum in which the statement is made can be considered only in the second half of the Pickering test, i.e., whether the employee's interest in free expression is outweighed by the employer's interest in work place efficiency. However, this argument was rejected by the Connick majority. Connick,