Graber v. Clarke

Dist. Ct. did not err in finding after bench trial that plaintiff failed to establish necessary causal connection between adverse act and plaintiff’s protected speech in plaintiff’s section 1983 action alleging that his suspension and severe verbal counseling violated his First Amendment rights because they were imposed due to fact that he had previously spoken out on behalf of his fellow union members concerning their complaints about forced overtime. While plaintiff’s protests constituted protected speech because they were made in his role as union vice-president, plaintiff failed to show that his suspension was related to said protests since record showed that suspension was based upon unrelated incident involving plaintiff’s use of Dept. memo book. Moreover, verbal counseling was related to separate incident in which plaintiff was deemed to be insubordinate to his supervisor.