# Patricia Spurlin v. Floyd County, Georgia

> Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · November 7, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11199844

## Case

- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- **Decided:** November 7, 2025
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Nature of suit:** NEW
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11199844

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- discussing this understanding of freedom of association
- discussing this understanding of freedom of association
- noting that the qualified immunity defense “do[es] not belong to the governmental entity” (quotation omitted)
- recognizing the Heffernan rule but noting it could not defeat qualified immunity because it was decided after the challenged conduct took place

## Opinion text

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 25-11242
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________

PATRICIA SPURLIN,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus

FLOYD COUNTY, GEORGIA,
AKYN BECK,
in her individual capacity,
COUNTY MANAGER, FLOYD COUNTY GEORGIA,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 4:24-cv-00072-WMR
____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, BRANCH, and ABUDU, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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2 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

Patricia Spurlin brought this lawsuit, alleging that Akyn
Beck terminated Spurlin from her job at the Floyd County
Elections Office in retaliation for an anonymous complaint about a
coworker who was related to Beck. Spurlin had not sent the
complaint, but about a week after Beck learned of the complaint,
she ended Spurlin’s employment. Spurlin’s resulting lawsuit
against Beck, county manager Jamie McCord, and Floyd County
alleged unlawful retaliation under the First Amendment and the
Georgia Whistleblower Act. The district court dismissed Spurlin’s
First Amendment claims, finding that Beck should receive qualified
immunity and that Spurlin failed to adequately allege a claim
against McCord in his official capacity. On both counts, the district
court determined that Spurlin had not shown a clearly established
constitutional violation because she had not alleged any actual
words or actions on her part that led to her termination. The court
then dismissed the Georgia law claim without prejudice.
After careful review, we vacate the dismissal of Spurlin’s
complaint and remand for further proceedings.
I. Background 1
According to the complaint, Patricia Spurlin began working
as an Election Clerk for the Floyd County Board of Elections and
Registration in May 2020. Although she was a temporary worker

1 At the motion to dismiss stage, we “accept[] the complaint’s factual
allegations as true and constru[e] them in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff[].” Otto Candies, LLC v. Citigroup Inc., 137 F.4th 1158, 1177 (11th Cir.
2025).
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25-11242 Opinion of the Court 3

placed in that position by Express Employment Services, Spurlin
worked full time for the Board of Elections for almost three years,
during which time the Board of Elections was completely
responsible for her supervision. Express Employment issued
Spurlin’s paychecks, but the Board of Elections handled everything
else: it “supervised and oversaw all of her work product; controlled
the means and manner of her work; provided her worksite,
materials, equipment, and supplies”; signed off on her timecards;
and ultimately made the decision to terminate her employment.
Akyn Beck became the Elections Supervisor for the Board of
Elections in September 2022. As such, she supervised Spurlin’s
work and reviewed and signed off on her timecards. Beck seemed
happy with Spurlin’s work; in fact, shortly after Beck entered the
role, she proposed that Spurlin consider a permanent position with
the Board of Elections and promised Spurlin “she would work on
it.”
A couple of months later, Beck—through Express
Employment—hired her fiancé’s brother, Isaiah Beck, as an
equipment technician. 2 Spurlin soon noticed that Isaiah didn’t
seem to keep to the normal office hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. He
would “routinely” come in late and leave early, and some days he
did not show up at all. Spurlin and her other coworkers would
often have to “go to the front window” of the office “to address
visitors and citizens” because Isaiah was not at his post there. And

2 At the time of these events, it appears that Beck was unmarried and went by

her maiden name Akyn Bailey.
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4 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

once, he used several hours to get a new tattoo “while billing the
County for his time.”
As far as Spurlin could tell, Beck was aware of Isaiah’s
behavior. On some occasions, “Isaiah and Beck [left] the office at
the same time” and then “return[ed] to the office at the same time
hours later—and sometimes, neither one returned to the office at
all.”
Despite Isaiah’s frequent tardiness and absenteeism, he
continued to report full 45-hour weeks on his Express Employment
timecards, which Beck approved. Spurlin was in a position to
know, because both Beck and Beck’s predecessor often asked
Spurlin to deliver all the approved timecards to Express
Employment. But Spurlin’s coworkers were also aware of the
situation, and “they were all concerned that [Isaiah] was
fraudulently claiming—and getting paid by the County for—hours
that he did not work.”
Sometime around March 14, 2023, another county
employee warned Spurlin to “watch [her] back[] because Beck was
livid about an anonymous complaint sent to the County.” Spurlin
had not sent the complaint, although she was aware that someone
was considering making an anonymous complaint about Isaiah to
the county’s human resources director. But on March 17, Beck
called Spurlin to a meeting with Beck and the assistant to the
county manager. Beck told Spurlin “she had been doing a great job
and appreciated all her hard work but . . . they did not need her
anymore and they were letting her go.”
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25-11242 Opinion of the Court 5

Spurlin called the owner of Express Employment that same
day, who was “shocked that she was fired.” A short time later, after
speaking to the county’s human resources director, the Express
Employment owner asked Spurlin “if she wrote the anonymous
complaint and told her that Beck was livid about it.” He also let
Spurlin know that the anonymous complaint had been handed up
the chain to the county manager, Jamie McCord.
Spurlin sued Beck in her individual capacity, McCord in his
official capacity, and Floyd County, Georgia, bringing three claims:
(1) First Amendment retaliation pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as to
Beck, (2) First Amendment retaliation pursuant to § 1983 as to
McCord, and (3) retaliation under the Georgia Whistleblower Act
as to Floyd County. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint
for failure to state a claim, and the district court granted their
motion.
On the First Amendment claim against Beck, the district
court concluded that qualified immunity was appropriate because
Spurlin had not alleged a clearly established constitutional
violation. The court determined existing law clearly established
that an employer’s retaliation based on a mistaken belief her
employee had engaged in protected activity was a constitutional
violation only when the employee had engaged in some affirmative
conduct leading to the mistake. Since Spurlin had not said or done
anything to give rise to Beck’s alleged mistake, the court concluded
she did not have a clearly established right against retaliation.
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The court similarly concluded that because Spurlin had not
demonstrated a violation of a “clearly established constitutional
right,” the First Amendment claim against McCord failed. The
court then dismissed the remaining state law claim without
prejudice because there was no remaining basis for federal subject
matter jurisdiction. Spurlin timely appealed.
II. Standard of Review
“We review a dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo,
accepting the complaint’s factual allegations as true and construing
them in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.” Otto Candies,
LLC v. Citigroup Inc., 137 F.4th 1158, 1177 (11th Cir. 2025). “To
prevent dismissal under [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 12(b)(6),
the plaintiff must allege sufficient facts to state a claim for relief that
is ‘plausible on its face.’” Moore v. Cecil, 109 F.4th 1352, 1365 (11th
Cir. 2024) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007)).
III. Discussion
Spurlin challenges each of the district court’s conclusions.
First, she argues that her allegations against Beck, if true, would
constitute a clearly established First Amendment violation, so
qualified immunity is not appropriate. Second, Spurlin argues that
because she alleged a constitutional violation along with the other
elements needed prove a claim against a county official in his
official capacity, the district court erred in dismissing her claim
against McCord.
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Defendants respond that the court was correct to dismiss
Spurlin’s claim against Beck because any possible constitutional
violation was not clearly established. They further contend that
Beck’s alleged actions did not, in any event, violate the First
Amendment. As to McCord, Defendants argue that Spurlin’s claim
fails because there was no constitutional violation and because
Spurlin’s other allegations would fail to plausibly make McCord
liable in his official capacity.
The threshold question in both claims is whether a
government official violates the First Amendment when she
retaliates against an employee based on a mistaken belief that the
employee engaged in protected speech, even when the employee
took no affirmative action to cause the mistaken belief. We
conclude the answer is yes, and that principle has been clearly
established. We thus refrain from reaching the remaining
questions and instead remand for the district court to consider
them in the first instance.
A. The retaliation claim against Beck
Spurlin argues that Beck is not entitled to qualified
immunity because it is clearly established that a government
employer may not retaliate against an employee for protected
speech. Spurlin contends that although she did not in fact engage
in protected speech here, it is enough that Beck believed she had
and that belief motivated Beck’s decision to terminate her. Spurlin
further argues that the speech Beck believed Spurlin engaged in
was protected speech under the Pickering framework, which allows
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8 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

the government leeway to regulate employee speech in some
instances. See Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968). Beck
responds that there was no clearly established law sufficiently
particularized to the facts of this case to put Beck on notice that her
alleged actions violated the First Amendment. We agree with
Spurlin that she can bring a First Amendment retaliation claim
even if she did not actually send the anonymous complaint that
allegedly led to her termination and took no action that caused
Beck to think she did. We remand for consideration of whether
that complaint was protected speech.
“Qualified immunity shields public officials from liability for
civil damages when their conduct does not violate a constitutional
right that was clearly established at the time of the challenged
action.” Jarrard v. Sheriff of Polk Cnty., 115 F.4th 1306, 1323 (11th
Cir. 2024) (quotation omitted). If a government official was acting
in the scope of her discretionary authority when the alleged
conduct occurred, the plaintiff must show “(1) that the official
violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right
was clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct.” Id.
(quotation omitted). A plaintiff may prove that a law was “clearly
established” by (1) offering a “materially similar case [that] has
already been decided,” (2) “point[ing] to a broader, clearly
established principle that should control the novel facts of the
situation,” or (3) demonstrating that “the conduct involved in the
case . . . so obviously violate[s] the constitution that prior case law
is unnecessary.” Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d 1203, 1209 (11th Cir.
2017) (quotation omitted).
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The parties do not dispute that Beck acted within her
discretionary authority when she fired Spurlin. They disagree,
however, whether Beck’s alleged conduct clearly constituted
unlawful retaliation under the First Amendment.
A First Amendment retaliation claim requires a plaintiff to
show that “(1) her speech was constitutionally protected; (2) she
suffered adverse conduct that would likely deter a person of
ordinary firmness from engaging in such speech; and (3) there was
a causal relationship between the adverse conduct and the
protected speech.” Brannon v. Finkelstein, 754 F.3d 1269, 1274 (11th
Cir. 2014).
In the past, courts disputed whether a plaintiff could bring a
claim based on her “perceived” rather than “actual” exercise of
constitutional rights. Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 578 U.S. 266, 270
(2016) (emphasis in original) (quotation omitted). But in Heffernan
v. City of Paterson, the Supreme Court resolved that question,
concluding that
[w]hen an employer demotes an employee out of a
desire to prevent the employee from engaging in
political activity that the First Amendment protects,
the employee is entitled to challenge that unlawful
action under the First Amendment and 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983—even if . . . the employer makes a factual
mistake about the employee’s behavior.
Id. at 273.
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In Heffernan, the Supreme Court considered a police officer’s
claim that he had been demoted for engaging in protected political
activity. Id. at 268. During a mayoral election season, members of
the police force saw Heffernan picking up a campaign sign and
interacting with campaign staff for a candidate whom his
supervisors opposed. Id. at 269. Unbeknownst to the supervisors,
Heffernan was not actually involved in the campaign and had been
picking up the sign at his mother’s request. Id. But based on the
supervisors’ mistaken belief that Heffernan was “overt[ly]
involve[d]” in the campaign, they demoted him from detective to
a “walking post.” Id. Heffernan sued them, claiming his
supervisors “demoted him because he had engaged in conduct that
(on their mistaken view of the facts) constituted protected speech.”
Id.
The Supreme Court determined that “the government’s
reason for demoting Heffernan is what counts.” Id. at 273. The
First Amendment prohibits any law “abridging the freedom of
speech,” id. (quoting U.S. Const. amend. I), and retaliatory action
such as this would “discourag[e] employees—both the employee
discharged . . . and his or her colleagues—from engaging in
protected activities,” id. Consequently, “a discharge or demotion
based upon an employer’s belief that the employee has engaged in
protected activity can cause the same kind, and degree, of
constitutional harm whether that belief does or does not rest upon
a factual mistake.” Id. at 274.
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Heffernan controls our decision here. In 2016, before the
events Spurlin recounts, the Supreme Court clearly established that
an employee can bring a First Amendment retaliation claim even if
the employer was mistaken about whether the employee actually
engaged in protected activity: the employer’s motive is what
matters. Thus, Beck’s alleged decision to fire Spurlin because of
Spurlin’s perceived speech violates the First Amendment (if that
speech is protected speech)—even if Beck was mistaken and
Spurlin never spoke at all.
Beck argues that there are factors distinguishing this case
from Heffernan such that Heffernan does not control this set of facts
or, at a minimum, does not clearly establish that Beck’s alleged
actions violated the Constitution. Beck contends that “the law
announced in Heffernan is not sufficiently particularized to the facts
of this case to clearly establish the law.”
First, Beck highlights that “the employee in Heffernan
actually engaged in conduct which was misperceived as protected
activity, whereas Spurlin engaged in no protected conduct
whatsoever.” This was the argument the district court relied on,
reasoning that “it appears [from Heffernan] that the employee must
actually do something that the employer misperceives as a
protected activity.” The court relied on the following statement
from Heffernan: “In a case like this one, the employee . . . will have
to point to more than his own conduct to show an employer’s intent
to discharge or to demote him for engaging in what the employer
(mistakenly) believes to have been different (and protected)
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activities.” 3 Heffernan, 578 U.S. at 274 (emphasis added by the
district court). On the district court’s reading, the Heffernan Court
“held that it was the employer’s motive that mattered, but the
motive in that case was based on the employer’s misperception of
the employee’s actual conduct, thereby implicating the employee’s
own First Amendment rights.” So, the district court concluded,
because Spurlin “made no statements at all,” Heffernan’s “factual
scenario is not present in this case.”
To the contrary, the Heffernan Court’s holding did not turn
on whether the employee had engaged in actual conduct but on
“improper employer motive.” Id. The language the district court
relies on did not limit or qualify Heffernan’s holding. Instead, it
comes from the Court’s explanation that employees might
sometimes find it more difficult to prove unlawful retaliation in
cases involving an employer’s mistake. See id. In a normal case, a
plaintiff can rely on evidence of her own actions to show protected
First Amendment activities, but in a case involving mistake, she
will have to offer “more than [her] own conduct” to prove
improper motive. Id.
Neither Beck nor the district court has identified a single
court that has understood Heffernan the way they propose. A
survey of the various federal appellate court decisions discussing

3 The district court’s opinion purports to continue the Heffernan quote as

follows: “. . . based on an employer’s misperception of the employee’s conduct.”
Heffernan, however, does not contain this language, nor did it originate in the
parties’ briefing below.
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and applying Heffernan demonstrates that there is no confusion:
Heffernan applies to facts like these. Two of our sister circuits have
squarely addressed cases with parallel facts and have
unquestioningly applied Heffernan. 4 And other courts have cited
Heffernan’s rule in passing without raising any similar caveats. See,
e.g., Molina v. City of St. Louis, 59 F.4th 334, 342–43 (8th Cir. 2023)
(recognizing the Heffernan rule but noting it could not defeat
qualified immunity because it was decided after the challenged
conduct took place); Stilwell v. City of Williams, 831 F.3d 1234, 1240
(9th Cir. 2016) (describing Heffernan as “holding that whether the
protected speech was actually engaged in by the employee is not
determinative because it is the perception of the employer as to

4 The Sixth Circuit considered a qualified immunity case where a plaintiff

alleged he had faced negative employment outcomes because his supervisors
believed he had leaked certain information to the media, although he was not
actually the leaker. DeCrane v. Eckart, 12 F.4th 586, 591–92 (6th Cir. 2021). The
court recognized that the Supreme Court had answered “yes” to the question
of whether “public employees have a right not to be disciplined for perceived
speech that they do not engage in.” Id. at 594 (emphasis in original). Similarly,
in Bird v. West Valley City, the Tenth Circuit asserted, “Heffernan clearly
governs Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim, for Plaintiff was a public
employee who claims her municipal employer discharged her based on its
belief that she engaged in constitutionally protected activity.” 832 F.3d 1188,
1212 (10th Cir. 2016). The court noted that the plaintiff’s superiors “actually
believed [she] leaked statements to the press,” so “as long as [they] fired [her]
based on this belief, then [her] denial that she was the source of these leaks is
not fatal to her claim.” Id.
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14 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

whether that protected activity occurred that matters to a First
Amendment retaliation claim”).5
Second, Beck argues that “Heffernan was decided in the
context of the First Amendment’s protection of the right to political
affiliation,” while this case deals with protected speech. Again,
though, the Court’s decision was clearly not cabined to the political
association context. While political campaigning was the
potentially protected activity at issue in Heffernan, Heffernan
brought a “free-speech retaliation claim,” Heffernan, 578 U.S. at 270
(quotation omitted), and the Court’s discussion centered on cases
dealing with “protected speech,” id. at 271–72. 6 In reaching its
ultimate conclusion, the Court invoked the “freedom of speech.”
Heffernan, 578 U.S. at 273. 7

5 The district court cites a string of cases for the proposition that “a plaintiff

cannot maintain a First Amendment retaliation claim based on misperception
if the plaintiff did not make the misperceived speech at issue.” But, as the
district court notes, all were decided before Heffernan.
6 Beck’s suggestion that the Heffernan Court disclaimed application of its rule

to public-employee speech cases is misguided. The Heffernan Court “set aside”
Pickering and its progeny in its analysis only in that it determined they did not
directly speak to the factual mistake issue. See Heffernan, 578 U.S. at 271.
7 The Supreme Court’s discussion of speech and political association together

tracks the Court’s fundamental understanding of the “freedom of [expressive]
association . . . as an indispensable means of preserving other individual
liberties,” namely, “those activities protected by the First Amendment,”
including “speech.” Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 618 (1984); see
O’Laughlin v. Palm Beach County, 30 F.4th 1045, 1053 (11th Cir. 2022) (discussing
this understanding of freedom of association).
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Spurlin has “point[ed] to a broad[], clearly established
principle that . . . control[s] the novel facts of [this] situation.”
Gaines, 871 F.3d at 1208 (quotation omitted). “[I]dentical facts [are]
not essential for the law to be clearly established”; “[a]uthoritative
judicial decisions may establish broad principles of law that are
clearly applicable to the conduct at issue.” Gates v. Khokar, 884 F.3d
1290, 1298 (11th Cir. 2018) (quotations omitted). The Heffernan
Court clearly decided that the constitutional concerns related to
First Amendment retaliation were the same “whether [the plaintiff]
did or did not in fact engage in [protected] activity.” 578 U.S. at

Beck points to a statement from an unpublished Third Circuit
decision, Falco v. Zimmer, 767 F. App’x 288, 314 (3d Cir. 2019), for the
proposition that Heffernan does not apply to free speech cases. But that
interpretation misreads the Third Circuit’s analysis. Falco did not raise any
issue related to perceived versus actual speech. See generally id. Instead, the
plaintiff “attempt[ed] to undermine the ordinary firmness standard used in
determining whether a public employee’s protected activity was a substantial
or motivating factor in the employer’s retaliation” by pointing to language
from Heffernan that unlawful retaliatory actions need not actually coerce the
employee into changing his political affiliation. Id. at 314 (citing Heffernan, 578
U.S. at 273). The Third Circuit declined to relax the “ordinary firmness”
standard based on language pulled from “a factually similar case” (in that both
Falco and Heffernan dealt with First Amendment retaliation) “that turns on an
entirely separate legal question.” Id. at 315.
Beck also relies on Avant v. Doke, an unpublished Tenth Circuit
decision, reading it to mean that without that circuit’s previously decided Bird
decision (discussed above), Heffernan’s application to free speech cases would
be unclear. No. 21-7031, 2022 WL 2255699, at *6–7 (10th Cir. June 23, 2022).
To the contrary, the Tenth Circuit discussed Heffernan fully and concluded that
“Heffernan recognized a public employee’s First Amendment protection from
retaliation for perceived speech,” all before it ever addressed Bird. Id. at *7.
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16 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

273. We thus conclude that the fact that Spurlin did not engage in
the expressive activity for which she alleges she was fired does not
defeat her First Amendment claim.
This conclusion does not end the qualified immunity
analysis. Under the Pickering framework, government employers
have some leeway in regulating the speech of their employees
because “the State has interests as an employer in regulating the
speech of its employees that differ significantly from those it
possesses in connection with regulation of the speech of the
citizenry in general.” Jarrard, 115 F.4th at 1316 (quoting Pickering,
391 U.S. at 568). Spurlin must demonstrate that the perceived
speech—the anonymous complaint—was protected speech. We
remand to the district court to determine whether, under the
Pickering framework, Spurlin’s speech would have been
constitutionally protected if she had sent the anonymous
complaint.
B. The retaliation claim against McCord
Spurlin argues that because Beck’s alleged actions
constituted unlawful First Amendment retaliation, the claim
against McCord should survive as well. McCord responds that
even if Spurlin establishes a constitutional violation, her claim
against McCord fails because she has not sufficiently alleged
municipal liability for Beck’s actions.
“Claims against individuals in their official capacities” are “to
be treated as a suit against the entity” of which the “officer is an
agent.” Rodemaker v. City of Valdosta Bd. of Educ., 110 F.4th 1318,
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1328 (11th Cir. 2024) (quotations omitted). “[T]o impose § 1983
liability on a municipality, a plaintiff must show: (1) that [her]
constitutional rights were violated; (2) that the municipality had a
custom or policy that constituted deliberate indifference to that
constitutional right; and (3) that the policy or custom caused the
violation.” McDowell v. Brown, 392 F.3d 1283, 1289 (11th Cir. 2004).
The district court determined that Spurlin failed the first prong and
thus did not reach the second two prongs of the analysis. 8 Because
we find that Spurlin has alleged that Beck violated her
constitutional rights, the first prong is met. We remand to the
district court to assess whether Spurlin plausibly alleged the
remaining two prongs.
IV. Conclusion
For these reasons, we vacate the district court’s dismissal of
Spurlin’s claims and remand for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.9

8 The district court concluded that the claim against McCord failed because

“Spurlin has failed to show a violation of a clearly established right under the
First Amendment.” “[A] municipality is not entitled to the shield of qualified
immunity from liability under § 1983,” Brandon v. Holt, 469 U.S. 464, 473
(1985), so the question here is whether Spurlin has alleged a constitutional
violation, not whether that violation has been clearly established. See also
Kimberly Regenesis, LLC v. Lee County, 64 F.4th 1253, 1259 (11th Cir. 2023)
(noting that the qualified immunity defense “do[es] not belong to the
governmental entity” (quotation omitted)).
9 The district court should also reconsider jurisdiction over the state law

whistleblower claim in light of its resulting conclusions.
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18 Opinion of the Court 25-11242

VACATED AND REMANDED.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11199844. Public record. Not legal advice.