Friedman v. Jenkins

Background

Jack Arne Friedman alleged that Brooke Jenkins violated his First Amendment right to free speech through 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statute that allows claims against state officials for constitutional violations. Friedman had worked as an investigator in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Independent Investigations Bureau and had prepared an affidavit supporting an arrest warrant for Officer Samayoa after a police shooting.

After Jenkins became district attorney, she and members of her staff decided to drop the charges against Samayoa and asserted that the warrant was legally deficient and resulted from misconduct. Friedman told Jenkins several times that he believed the efforts to undermine the warrant were improper and that an investigator was being unlawfully coerced. Jenkins placed Friedman on administrative leave, ordered him not to speak about the decision to drop the charges or the actions taken against him, and terminated his employment in May 2023.

Friedman’s amended complaint alleged that Jenkins restricted his speech about the decision to drop the charges and Jenkins’ public accusations against Friedman and others. Jenkins moved to dismiss the amended complaint and to strike Friedman’s request for punitive damages.

Motion to Dismiss

The court applied the rule that a complaint must contain enough factual allegations to state a plausible claim for relief. It held that the amended complaint cured two defects identified in the court’s earlier order.

First, the court found that Friedman sufficiently alleged that his intended speech involved a matter of public concern. The allegations described the first San Francisco police officer charged with homicide and an alleged effort to discourage investigators from pursuing charges against police officers. The court therefore treated the speech as potentially involving broader concerns about police misconduct and systemic practices, rather than only Friedman’s personal employment dispute.

Second, the court found, by a narrow margin, that Friedman sufficiently alleged he would have spoken as a private citizen rather than as a public employee. The court considered that his intended audience included the media and public, which were outside his chain of command, and that Jenkins had ordered him not to speak. The court also noted that the subject involved his employment duties and the Samayoa investigation, so that factor pointed in both directions.

The court nevertheless held that Jenkins was justified in treating Friedman differently from a member of the general public under the balancing test for public-employee speech. It found that Jenkins had persuasive interests in preventing public statements that could undermine ongoing charging decisions and in limiting speech by the subject of an internal investigation. The court concluded that Friedman had not plausibly alleged that he should have been treated like a member of the general public.

The court dismissed the amended complaint on that basis, with leave to amend. It stated that Jenkins may be entitled to qualified immunity, which can protect an official when the relevant constitutional right was not clearly established, but deferred ruling on that issue because Friedman was allowed to amend.

Motion to Strike

Jenkins also moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f) to strike Friedman’s request for punitive damages. The court again found Friedman’s allegations of malice and oppression conclusory and implausible. Because the court granted Friedman an opportunity to amend, it denied the motion to strike as moot. The court cautioned that any renewed punitive-damages request would require more than conclusory allegations.

Disposition

The court granted Jenkins’ motion to dismiss. Friedman may file an amended complaint within 21 days of the order. The court denied Jenkins’ motion to strike as moot and deferred ruling on qualified immunity.