State worker’s letter not protected

BOISE – A unanimous Idaho Supreme Court has ruled that a letter to the governor written by a state employee complaining about goings-on in her department wasn’t protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A lower court already had found that there was no evidence the employee, a nurse at the Idaho State Veterans Home, was fired in retaliation for writing the letter. But it also held that the letter wasn’t protected, and the employee, Maureen Karr, appealed.

She claimed she was improperly fired for sending the letter complaining about decisions of an administrator, including bringing two previously suspended nurses back on the job, a move Karr opposed. The letter also complained that the administrator was interfering in clinical decisions in ways that could affect the home’s residents, though it offered no examples.

Karr was suspended pending an investigation, which found that she sent the letter, solicited others to send letters, and had been counseled in the past about inappropriate conduct. She received a reprimand and returned to work, but filed a grievance over the reprimand. She then had several other clashes with a supervisor, and eventually was fired.

“A public employee still enjoys First Amendment protection even if his or her views are expressed privately,” the court wrote in a decision authored by Justice Roger Burdick. “However, speech focused on internal policy and personnel grievances does not implicate the First Amendment.”

The court noted that under both U.S. Supreme Court and Idaho Supreme Court decisions, protected speech under the First Amendment must be “on a matter of public concern.” If it’s just about internal personnel issues, it’s not protected.

“Here, the content of the June letter shows that Karr’s grievance is with the administrators’ personnel decisions,” Burdick wrote. “Although Karr refers to interference with clinical decisions in her June letter, the only examples she gives are actually personnel decisions. … While she is clearly upset about the return of the two nurses, such personal feelings did not involve First Amendment considerations.”

The court did not choose to award attorney fees to either side, noting that the case “was not pursued frivolously or unreasonably.”

Maurice Ellsworth, the attorney who handled the case for the state, said, “In my opinion, all this case says is that no employee can insulate themself forever from being terminated for bad conduct by writing a letter and alleging it’s protected speech.”

Ellsworth said the employee was fired for calling her supervisor a name – not for writing the letter. “That is certainly terminable conduct under the state employment rules,” he said.

He said the case shouldn’t affect whistle-blowers or other cases involving state employees, because the legal test of which speech is protected is well established.

John C. Lynn, the attorney for Karr, has moved to Mexico and wasn’t available for comment on the court’s decision.