Comsys Incorporated v. Frank Pacetti

Summary

Seventh Circuit held that defendants (city officials) were entitled to qualified immunity on First Amendment retaliation and Fourth Amendment claims by a private IT contractor. Applying Garcetti v. Ceballos, the court ruled that a contractor’s speech concerning contract administration is not protected under the First Amendment, and that the right to report a crime was not clearly established in the context of a public contract relationship. Additionally, the Fourth Amendment claim failed because the law on when a private search becomes governmental action was unclear under multifactor balancing, precluding damages under § 1983 for official immunity.

Holdings

1. McAuliffe's letter to the Common Council was not protected by the First Amendment because it was speech made as part of her role as a contractor, analogous to employee speech under Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006).
2. The law is not clearly established that McAuliffe's reports to law enforcement (the interview with the detective and the criminal complaint) are protected speech, because the application of Garcetti to such reports by a contractor is unclear, and existing precedent (Trigillo v. Snyder, 547 F.3d 826 (7th Cir. 2008)) suggests they may not be protected.
3. The Fourth Amendment claim fails because there is no clearly established law that a private search becomes a governmental search based on a friendship or potential future employment relationship, and because Comsys had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data stored on the City's servers without a contractual guarantee.

Questions Presented

1. Whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on the First Amendment retaliation claim concerning McAuliffe's letter to the Common Council and her reports to law enforcement.
2. Whether defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claim regarding Pacetti's request for information from Kerkman.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded