“defendant’s assertion of good faith immunity raises precisely the same issue of motive and intent as does plaintiff’s First Amendment claim”
How later courts described this case
- “defendant’s assertion of good faith immunity raises precisely the same issue of motive and intent as does plaintiff’s First Amendment claim”
- even though an F.B.I. agent has neither a liberty nor a property right to continued assignment, his transfer and dismissal, if carried out in retaliation for the exercise of his first amendment rights, would violate the Constitution
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DUMBAULD, Senior District Judge,
dissenting.
It seems plain to me that appropriate action taken for the effective administration of the Indianapolis office of the FBI is not forbidden simply because an eccentric agent seeks to clothe his peculiar behavior in the garb of the First Amendment. There is no indication in the record that the Bureau was “covering up” for Agent Naum or failing to give appropriate attention to Agent Egger’s complaints against Naum. Egger had fully exercised his freedom of speech without interference. Any unpleasant consequences suffered by him were not the result of such exercise of constitutional rights but of his injudicious actions.
The distinction between speech and speech “brigaded with action” is clearly recognized in First Amendment jurisprudence * and does not require the Bureau to keep in a particular post an agent whose behavior has terminated his usefulness there.
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 456 , 89 S.Ct. 1827, 1834 , 23 L.Ed.2d 430 (1969).