Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—D.C. Cir.: Qualified immunity applied in case concerning former corrections officer’s disclosure of emails, (Jul 27, 2026)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

The government’s interest in enforcing its confidentiality policies outweighed the officer’s interest in sharing the confidential matters she disclosed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reversing in part a district court’s finding that qualified immunity did not apply to government officials against the First Amendment claims brought forth by a former corrections officer, the D.C. Circuit determined that the defendants did not violate the officer’s First Amendment rights if the decision to terminate her employment was based on her disclosure of confidential emails to her union. However, the court found that the officer may yet be able to show that the department’s deputy director violated her First Amendment rights following an interview with a local news station, which represented a “paradigmatic case” of a government employee speaking out on an issue that she was uniquely qualified to address (Johnson v. District of Columbia, No. 24-7140 (D.C. Cir. July 24, 2026)).

The plaintiff in this case worked at the D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) from 1992 to 2020. At the time of her termination, she was serving as lead correctional officer in the D.C. jail. She was also an elected leader of the correctional officers’ union.

COVID response. As the COVID pandemic surged, the officer grew critical of what she believed were serious lapses in the DOC’s responses. She began forwarding DOC emails on the topic from her official account to union attorneys. The attorneys used that information in an amicus brief challenging prison conditions.

Investigation. On April 22, 2020, inmates staged a protest over the jail’s conditions. The officer forwarded an email with the subject line “Planned use of force” to the union. Union attorneys forwarded the email to a local reporter. When the reporter asked officials for comment, the matter was brought to DOC’s deputy director, leading to an investigation into the officer’s email usage since the start of the pandemic.

Interview. An attorney for the union notified the DOC on April 28 that the officer had agreed to be interviewed by a local news station. That interview, criticizing the DOC’s response to the pandemic, was published on May 1.

Termination. Two weeks later, the DOC completed its investigation, concluding that the officer violated DOC policies and HIPPA in forwarding the emails. A hearing officer recommended that the officer be suspended. The DOC director reviewed the recommendation and “remanded the case” to the hearing officer, asking for a reevaluation and a conclusion that the officer had violated DOC policies.

Although the hearing officer found no violation of HIPPA, she nevertheless agreed that the officer had violated DOC policies and the decision to terminate her employment was “supported” and “reasonable.”

Lawsuit. Subsequently, the officer filed this lawsuit, alleging the DOC director and deputy director violated her First Amendment rights. The district court denied the defendants’ motions for summary judgment, holding that the officer raised triable issues of material fact and that the individual defendants lacked qualified immunity, which led to this appeal.

Qualified immunity. In addressing the issue of qualified immunity, the court applied the Pickering test, explaining that if a jury were to find that the defendants had fired her because the forwarded emails violated DOC confidentiality policies, then the defendants had not violated any clearly established First Amendment right.

The emails contained information about the COVID status of individual inmates, observed the court, and while the officer was free to discuss her concerns publicly, she acknowledged that she could have raised the same safety concerns without naming the affected individuals. Thus, the government’s interest in enforcing its confidentiality policies outweighed the officer’s interest in sharing the confidential information she had disclosed. Accordingly, the court held that the defendants did not violate the officer’s First Amendment rights if they fired her based on the disclosure of the confidential emails to the union, and reversed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity as to this claim.

That said, the court explained that the officer may yet be able to show that the deputy director violated her First Amendment rights by firing her because of her interview with the local news station.

Motivations. Having determined that the officer satisfied the first two Pickering factors as a matter of law with regard to the news interview, the appellate court was also satisfied with the district court’s divergent conclusions about the motivations of the director and the deputy director. The district court had concluded that no reasonable jury could find the director took retaliatory actions against the officer when there was no evidence that he was ever aware of the news interview.

In contrast, the district court had found that a reasonable jury could find that the news interview was a motivating factor in the deputy director’s decision to fire her. The court had noted that the deputy director received an email informing her of the interview on April 28 and that the station published an article critical of the DOC on May 1.

Although the deputy director stated that she reached the decision to fire the officer sometime between April 23 and April 27, the district court determined that a jury could choose to disbelieve that narrative. The district court’s conclusions resolved the appellate court’s analysis of the third Pickering factor, and the officer’s claim against the DOC director failed while her claim against the deputy director may proceed.

As to the fourth Pickering factor—whether the officer could disprove the deputy director’s assertion that she would have reached the same decision in the absence of the protected speech—the court noted that she had pointed to some evidence of pretext, including the hearing officer’s initial statements that she believed the proposal for the officer’s removal was “retaliatory in nature.” Because the district court never specifically addressed whether a reasonable jury could find that the news interview made the difference in the deputy director’s decision to fire the officer, it left that question for the court to resolve on remand.

Clearly established right? Having determined that the officer may be able to demonstrate that the deputy director violated her First Amendment right to speak without retaliation, the court turned to the second prong of its qualified immunity inquiry—whether the officer’s right was clearly established at the time the deputy director acted.

Answering this question in the affirmative, the court noted that the defendants acknowledged that the officer spoke on a matter of public concern in her interview, and identified no state interest weighing against her right to give such an interview. Thus, the deputy director lacked qualified immunity if she indeed fired the officer based on the interview, and the officer will bear the burden to persuade the jury of a retaliatory motive, concluded the court.

The case is No. 24-7140.

Judge: Pillard, C.

Attorneys: Daniel S. Crowley (Crowley So) for Jannease Johnson. Caroline S. Van Zile, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, for District of Columbia.

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