Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—11th Cir.: Miami city commissioners were not immune in former police chief’s whistleblower action, (Aug 27, 2026)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

After the police chief was fired, a city commissioner, whose alleged vendetta against a local business owner the chief had resisted, played the theme music from The Godfather.

Three commissioners for the City of Miami were not entitled to legislative or qualified immunity against Section 1983 claims brought by a former police chief who was fired after he wrote and sent a “whistle-blowing memorandum” concerning certain commissioners’ allegedly improper personal involvement in an internal police department investigation to the mayor, the city manager, a state attorney’s office, and the FBI, the Eleventh Circuit held. Legislative immunity did not apply to the commissioners because “employment and personnel decisions are administrative in nature.” Qualified immunity did not apply to them because they allegedly impermissibly retaliated against the chief for his protected speech, there was no evidence, based on the complaint, on their side of the Pickering balance, the chief’s interest in exposing corruption outweighed whatever hypothetical and unproven effect his memo had on the city’s ability to function, and his rights were clearly established. The court found that the city manager, however, who merely suspended the chief with pay pending action by the commissioners, was entitled to qualified immunity in the absence of Eleventh Circuit precedent clearly establishing an adverse action (Acevedo v. City of Miami, No. 24-12650 (11th Cir. Aug. 26, 2026)).

Resolution No. R-20-0034. The dispute, according to the court, began in early 2020, when the Miami City Commission passed Resolution No. R-20-0034. The resolution instructed the city commission or the city manager to direct most criminal investigations of city elected officials to Florida state law enforcement or the FBI. The city commission ostensibly adopted the resolution to prevent the appearance of corruption.

Police chief. The Miami mayor and city manager later recruited the plaintiff to serve as the Miami Chief of Police. They recruited him due to his reputation as a “reformist,” according to the court, given that there was a “need to reform” the Miami Police Department “and [to] change the culture of the department.”

Internal police investigation. Shortly after he assumed his position, however, three commissioners allegedly improperly involved themselves in an internal police investigation. The chief had ordered an investigation into an alleged breach of operational security committed by a police officer. Based on the investigation, the chief relieved the officer of duty.

Summoned. The city commission then summoned the chief before them. At the ensuing public meeting, the three commissioners berated the chief for allegedly suspending the officer without due process.

“I carry a hell of a big stick.” One of the commissioners said: “[w]hile I have been walking very softly, I carry a hell of a big stick, and it don’t matter what time of the year it is, whether it is election time, or not election time.”

Even after the meeting, the three commissioners allegedly continued pressuring the chief in private, with one offering to support the chief for Sheriff of Miami-Dade County if he just did “the right thing on [the officer] and g[o]t him back.”

Personal feuds. The chief also allegedly witnessed certain city commissioners using the police force to settle personal, political feuds. Several city officials warned him that one of the three commissioners had a vendetta against a local business owner for backing his political opponent. The city manager, another of the commissioners, and the mayor all told the chief to avoid patronizing the business, and the city manager directed him to investigate any potential wrongdoing by the business owner’s businesses, suggesting that this order came at the behest of the commissioner with the vendetta.

Investigation of business. When the Division of Alcohol, Beverages, and Tobacco, along with the Miami Police Department, eventually investigated one of the business owner’s businesses, the police report stated that the business had received a written warning of liquor law violations. The statement was inaccurate, and when the business owner’s associates read the report, they alerted the chief of the error. The chief directed one of his officers to investigate the error, but he later learned that the officer defied his order and did not follow up regarding either the error or the investigation into the business owner’s businesses.

Inspections and dropped charges. Later, the Miami Police Department conducted two more unannounced inspections of the businesses. During one, the police arrested the general manager for allegedly operating an illegal nightclub. The State Attorney’s Office ultimately dropped the charges. Throughout this time, moreover, the commissioner continued to pressure the chief to investigate the businesses aggressively, alleging that the business owner was bribing code enforcement officials and police officers. Neither the chief nor key Internal Affairs officers, however, ever saw any evidence to support his claim.

Targeting specific businesses. The commission summoned the chief to another public meeting at which two of the commissioners named specific bars and establishments that they wanted the chief to investigate. One of the commissioners later emailed the chief to reiterate which businesses the police should target. At no time, however, did the commissioner suggest that the city had received complaints about these businesses, nor did he provide the chief with any evidence that the businesses violated the law.

“[J]ust the way things worked in Miami.” During and after these events, the chief warned the mayor and the city manager of the improprieties he had witnessed. He emphasized that he was alarmed by the commissioners’ involvement with the internal police department investigation and that he was concerned that the commissioners were acting beyond their authority. He also alerted them that the three commissioners were attempting to intimidate him and to use the police department to advance personal agendas. The mayor and city manager told the chief that this was “just the way things worked in Miami,” according to the court.

“Whistle-blowing memorandum.” Alarmed, the chief wrote and circulated a “whistle-blowing memorandum.” He sent it to the mayor, the city manager, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. The memo described how certain commissioners had “attempted to weaponize the [Police Department], interfered with [Police Department] internal and external investigations, and impeded reform at the [Department].” And the memo leaked to the media.

“[B]etter be sure you have a kill shot.” Upon receiving the memo, the city manager called the chief and said, “So you’ve gone after [the defendant Commissioners], and [you’d] better be sure you have a kill shot because if you don’t, you better not take it. Maybe it’s because you’re an outsider it’s easier for you. Trust me, I came from my last job where I had a hell of a lot more autonomy than I have here, but I realize and accept my limitations.”

Special meeting, “Elvis” video. The commission then held a special meeting. The three defendant commissioners launched into a series of heated attacks on the chief and his performance. The one who had a vendetta against the business owner even raised false allegations about the chief that stemmed from before his time as chief, according to the court. The commissioners also played video of the chief in an Elvis costume, noting his tight pants, and they compared him to a former chief of police who was a convicted felon. At the end of the meeting, the commission passed a resolution to investigate the wrongdoing alleged in the chief’s memo.

“[N]ot a Cuban-American from Miami.” The commission then held another special meeting to discuss the chief. At that meeting, they continued their attacks on him, arguing that he was “no reformer” and noting that he was “not a Cuban-American from Miami.” They then voted to eliminate funding for high-ranking positions within the Miami Police Department.

Suspended by city manager. The city manager then suspended the chief with pay pending a termination hearing. He provided the chief with a memo that outlined the reasons for his suspension. He told the chief that he had “gone too far” and that he, the city manager, needed to “stop the bleeding” by suspending him. The city manager scheduled his termination hearing for just a few days later, on a day when the chief’s primary lawyers were unavailable, and when the chief asked if the hearing could be pushed back a few days so that his lawyers could be present, the city manager refused.

Termination. At the ensuing termination hearing, the city manager called four witnesses, and as the city manager and chief were questioning them, the commissioners “repeatedly inveighed against [the chief] and badgered the witnesses,” according to the court. At the conclusion of the meeting, the commissioners fired him.

Theme music from The Godfather. After the chief was fired, the same officer who had earlier defied his instruction to investigate the error in the police report on the business owner’s business was appointed interim chief. And when the officer was sworn in as such, at a ceremony attended by the three defendant commissioners and the city manager, the commissioner who allegedly had the vendetta against the business owner played the theme music from The Godfather.

Lawsuit, decision below and appeal. The chief sued the three commissioners and the city manager for retaliation in violation of his First Amendment rights, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and all four defendants moved to dismiss based on qualified immunity. Two of the commissioners also moved to dismiss based on legislative immunity.

After a hearing, the district court denied all motions to dismiss, and the individual defendants timely filed notices of appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.

Legislative immunity. Affirming in part, the federal appeals court first held that legislative immunity did not apply to the commissioners because “employment and personnel decisions are administrative in nature.”

Qualified immunity for commissioners. Qualified immunity also did not apply to them, the court ultimately determined. The commissioners, the court found, allegedly impermissibly retaliated against the chief for his protected speech. Because his whistleblower memo, in turn, was not, based on the facts in the complaint, “ordinarily within the scope of [[his]] duties,” it was also the speech of a private citizen. And it addressed a matter of public concern by listing “several instances in which the defendant Commissioners attempted to weaponize the police department in pursuit of their personal vendettas.”

Because the chief’s memo was the speech of a private citizen on a matter of public importance, the court turned to the balancing test enunciated in Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563 (1968). Here, the court noted that the chief’s interests, as a citizen, were weighty. “[A] core concern of the [F]irst [A]mendment is the protection of the ‘whistle-blower’ attempting to expose government corruption,” the Eleventh Circuit noted, citing its own precedent in Bryson v. City of Waycross, 888 F.2d 1562, 1566 (11th Cir. 1989). Because his complaint alleged that his memo did not affect the government’s interest in efficiently performing its duties, in turn, the Pickering balancing tipped in his favor. Finally, the court noted that the chief’s speech also “arguably furthered the City’s interests by exposing alleged corruption and misconduct,” and his own interests outweighed whatever hypothetical and unproven effect his memo had on the city’s ability to function.

Clearly established. The chief’s rights were also clearly established, according to the appeals court. Eleventh Circuit precedent addressed a similar situation concerning police officers, found a constitutional violation, and denied qualified immunity. See Oladeinde v. City of Birmingham (Oladeinde I), 963 F.2d 1481, 1487 (11th Cir. 1992), overruled on other grounds by Leatherman v. Tarrant Cnty. Narcotics Intel. & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163 (1993).

The commissioners were thus not entitled to qualified immunity.

City manager and qualified immunity. Turning to the city manager, however, the Eleventh Circuit found that qualified immunity did apply. The city manager did not terminate the chief, the appeals court noted, nor was he responsible for humiliating him at the Miami City Commission meetings. Instead, he merely suspended the chief with pay pending a hearing. Here, finding no Eleventh Circuit precedent clearly establishing that such a suspension was an adverse action, the court concluded that the city manager did not have “fair warning that [his] conduct was unconstitutional.”

The judgment of the district court was thus affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case remanded.

The case is No. 24-12650.

Judge: Brasher, A.

Attorneys: Marcos Daniel Jimenez (Leon Cosgrove Jimenez) for Hubert Arturo Acevedo. Thomas A. Tucker Ronzetti, III (Law Offices of Thomas A. Tucker Ronzetti, III) for Alex Díaz de la Portilla. Frank Quintero (Law Offices of Frank Quintero, Jr.) for Manuel Reyes. Mason Pertnoy (Krinzman, Huss & Lubetsky) for Arthur Noriega. Benedict P. Kuehne (Kuehne Davis) for Joe Carollo.

Companies: City of Miami, Florida

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