Mastagni Holstedt is Proud to Fly the Thin Blue Line Flag

Mastagni Holstedt is proud to display a Thin Blue Line Flag outside its Sacramento headquarters. The Thin Blue Line Flag is displayed under the American flag on a custom built 30-foot flag pole at the corner of 19th Street and I Street in Sacramento.

"The Thin Blue Line Flag represents our appreciation of and commitment to protecting law enforcement officers statewide," says David P. Mastagni.  "Law enforcement officers face new and unprecedented threats to their personal safety and we are proud to stand in solidarity with them, as we have for more than 40 years," he said.  Mastagni Holstedt is the largest law firm in California specializing in representing public safety professionals and their labor associations, with offices in Sacramento, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Inland Empire.

Police Department Social Media Policy Found Unconstitutional

Liverman v. City of Petersburg (2016) 844 F.3d 400, involved two police officers who were disciplined based on two posts they made on Facebook. The two officers made posts that were critical of the administration’s practice of promoting inexperienced police officers into management positions. The City’s policy prohibited employees from: 1) making comments that would reflect poorly upon the Department or the City and 2) making negative comments about the operations of the Department. The first policy attempted to qualify itself by essentially stating that the First Amendment would still be observed and officers could comment on issues of general or public concern so long as those comments did not interfere with working relationships, efficient work flow, or undermine public confidence in the Officers.

The comments were purportedly divisive within the department and some patrol officers sought transfers away from the two officers. The two officers were given an oral reprimand and six months probation, but were told that the discipline would not affect their eligibility for promotion. However, several weeks later, a department chief changed the qualifications for promotion such that officers on probation were prohibited from promoting. When the two officers sent notice of their intent to challenge the disciplinary action, they were immediately subjected to several additional investigations which would have resulted in termination. One of the officers retired before he could be terminated.

The two officers contested the social media policy in civil court arguing that the policy violated the First Amendment, and thus, their discipline and the subsequent retaliation should be overturned. The Court recited First Amendment law stating that public employees generally do not lose their rights to speak on matters of public concern, but the speech must be balanced against the interest of the state in promoting the efficiency of the public services it provides. The Court found that the social media policy at issue explicitly restricted speech criticizing the department. 

The Court found it significant that the officers chose Facebook as their forum of choice which the court compared to writing into a newspaper's opinion section. By choosing Facebook, they were clearly showing an intention to communicate their concerns to the public, outside of the employment context. The Department did not establish a significant enough reason other than general concerns of divisiveness as to why such speech should be restricted. The “negative comments” policy did not contain the qualification which would permit comment on matters of public concern and was thus, unconstitutionally overbroad. Accordingly, the discipline against the employees was overturned and the Chief who imposed the discipline was denied qualified immunity because the law in this area was well-established.

Third Appellate District Upholds Elimination of Pension Pick Ups

In San Joaquin County Correctional Officers' Association v. County of San Joaquin the Court of Appeal upheld a County’s ability to force employees to pay a portion of cost of living (“COLA”) adjustments to their retirement program. This case involved two laws governing public employee retirement, the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (“CERL”) and the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 (“PEPRA”).

Prior to PEPRA’s passage, the default retirement program arrangement was that counties and county employees shared the cost of COLA contributions to retirement programs. However, as an option, CERL permitted counties to pay all of the cost of COLA contributions of its employees if it chose to do so. This was known as a “pickup.” This pick up was a common strategy employed by Counties to provide a benefit that was less expensive than a salary adjustment.  In 1975, San Joaquin was one of the counties that agreed to pay the employee share of COLA contributions as part of some of its MOUs.

PEPRA was passed in 2013 to reduce unfunded liabilities in public employee retirement systems. One of PEPRA’s provisions seeks to eliminates the pickups of the employee share of COLA contributions, but does not take effect until 2018.

In 2012, the County negotiated a new MOU with the San Joaquin County Correctional Officers’ Association which eliminated the pickup. The membership voted the MOU down and impasse procedures were engaged. Once impasse was reached, the County unilaterally imposed the elimination of its pick up as part of last best and final offer. The Association challenged the imposition arguing that PEPRA shielded them from such a change until 2018.

Rejecting the Association's challenge, the Court found counties have always had the power to eliminate or reduce pickup under CERL. The CERL permitted the pick up employee costs of COLA contributions, but did not require the pickups nor restrict the employers ability to modify or eliminate them. The court concluded, “In short, the County always has had the power to eliminate the COLA pickup, subject to labor laws, and those laws permitted the county to do so in the event of a bargaining impasse, which occurred. Nothing in PEPRA limited the County’s power in this regard.”

Interestingly, the court cited Marin Assn. of Public Employees v. Marin County Employees’ Retirement Assn. (2016) 2 Cal. App. 5th 674, 681, review granted Nov. 22, 2016, (MAPE) in explaining "the historical backdrop animating recent pension reform legislation in California", but "express[ed] no view" over MAPE's "interpretation of precedent regarding the validity of changes to retirement benefits."

First Appellate District Challenges Vested Rights Doctrine in Upholding Elimination of Airtime Credit

In Cal Fire Local 2881 v. California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the Division Three of the First District Court of Appeal upheld the elimination of the “airtime credit” benefit in Public Employment Retirement Systems (“PERS”). Airtime credit was a benefit available to CalPERS and some other PERS programs that allowed members who had already earned five years of service credit, to purchase another five years of “nonqualified retirement service credit.” The record reflected that PERS had been under charging for the benefit.  In 2013, the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 (“PEPRA”) was passed in what was billed as an effort to reign in unfunded pension liabilities. One of the provisions of PEPRA eliminated the ability to purchase airtime credit.

The court considered whether the ability to purchase airtime credit was a “vested benefit.” The court started its analysis with a general presumption against the granting of a vested benefit, unless its text or legislative history evidence an intent to be bound. Applying the reasoning in Employees Assn. of Orange County, Inc. v. County of Orange (2011) 52 Cal.4th 1171, the court held “there is nothing in either the text of the statute, or its legislative history, that unambiguously states an intent by the Legislature to create a vested pension benefit. This demonstration of intent, as we explained above, is required by California law.” The court found no such intent with respect to airtime.

Further, the court held no right was destroyed, noting PEPRA provided members with a seven month window to purchase the service credit, and that such applications would be honored if they were submitted prior to December 31, 2012. "Thus, nothing in the revised statutory scheme immediately destroyed plaintiffs’ right to purchase the airtime service credit ... To the extent plaintiffs lost out on the opportunity to purchase the airtime service credit, such loss was, accordingly, a product of their own doing."

The court also held that the elimination of airtime did not destroy any benefit because the cost of airtime was always intended to be borne entirely by the employee.  Because the benefit was established as cost neutral to the employer, "the employees, not the state, paid for this benefit" and therefore the court held "this simply is not a case where the state provided a retirement benefit to its employees in exchange for their work performance, and then took the benefit away."

Most significantly, the court endorsed Division Two of the First District's holdings in Marin Association of Public Employees v. Marin County Employees’ Retirement Association (MAPE) regarding the authority of the Legislature to reduce retirement benefits s long as they do not destroy the pension.  This superfluous basis for upholding the elimination of airtime is striking given that the Supreme Court had granted Review of MAPE.

MAPE broke with a half century of precedent holding that any modification of a pension resulting in a detriment must include an offsetting advantage.  On November 22, 2016, the California Supreme Court issued an order granting review of MAPE, holding, "The petition for review is granted. Further action in this matter is deferred pending the decision of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, in Alameda County Deputy Sheriff's Association et al. v. Alameda County Employees' Retirement Association et al., A141913
 
Although the elimination of airtime is not particularly significant, the court's unnecessary adoption of the MAPE reasoning in the face of Supreme Court review could affect broader legal principles involving the California vested rights doctrine.  Our office currently is representing two law enforcement associations in two separate pension related appeals in the First Appellate District, including the Alameda Deputy Sheriff's Association.  2017 is shaping up to be an important year for determination pension rights.

U.S. Supreme Court Bolsters Qualified Immunity

In White v. Pauly, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous per curiam (unauthored) opinion overturning a lower court's denial of qualified immunity to a police officer in an excessive force case. Law enforcement officers are frequently sued for money damages where they are alleged to have violated a person's constitutional rights in the performance of their duties. Qualified immunity protects officers from such lawsuits where the law they violated isn't "clearly established."

Officer White arrived late to an ongoing police action outside the home of Daniel and Samuel Pauly. Upon approaching the house already surrounded by two other officers, Officer White heard Daniel and Samuel Pauly yelling “we have guns,” followed by shots being fired from the house. Shortly after, Samuel opened the front window and pointed a handgun in Officer White’s direction. After another officer fired several shots at Samuel and missed, Officer White shot and killed Samuel.

Relying on the language of Tennessee v. Garner as clearly establishing the law that officers must give a warning where feasible, the Tenth Circuit denied Officer White qualified immunity reasoning that a reasonable officer in White's position would have known he should have given a warning before shooting despite the seriousness of the threat.   The appellate court  “concluded that a reasonable officer in White’s position would have known that, since the Paulys could not have shot him unless he moved from his position behind a stone wall, he could not have used deadly force without first warning Samuel Pauly to drop his weapon.’

The Supreme Court reversed, finding no no clearly established law in this case. "Clearly established federal law does not prohibit a reasonable officer who arrives late to an ongoing police action in circumstances like this from assuming that proper procedures, such as officer identification, have already been followed. No settled Fourth Amendment principle requires that officer to second-guess the earlier steps already taken by his or her fellow officers in instances like the one White confronted here."  The appellate court failed to identify a case where an officer acting under similar circumstances was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment.

This ruling represents a significant win for law enforcement. In denying qualified immunity to officers, trial courts must consider the particularities of the case rather than relying on general legal principles as providing officers with clear notice their actions are unconstitutional. The Court explained, "[t]oday, it is again necessary to reiterate the longstanding principle that 'clearly established law' should not be defined 'at a high level of generality.'" Otherwise, qualified immunity would be converted "into a rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging violation of extremely abstract rights.”