More than a decade ago, Julie Pucci, the deputy administrator of a Michigan district court, was fired after reporting one of the judges for being too pushy about his Christian faith. Last week, Pucci finally got a measure of justice when a three-judge panel of the federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an award of over $730,000 in damages for this blatantly unjust firing.
Read the 6th Circuit’s ruling here. Pucci had worked for the 19th District Court in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, since 1991, eventually rising to deputy court administrator. In 2004, the clerk for Mark Somers, one of three judges on the court, came to Pucci with a complaint–her boss had sent a letter to a potential juror on letterhead containing a Biblical passage. Pucci reported it to the State Court Administrative Office, which oversees Michigan’s 98 district courts. She also reported at least one other incident where Somers inappropriately discussed religion in open court. The relationship between Pucci and Somers got noticeably frostier over time. A year later, Somers was appointed chief judge of the three-judge court, and in October 2006 he effectively fired Somers by eliminating her post.
Pucci filed a federal wrongful termination suit against Somers, claiming that her firing was in retaliation for her complaints about Somers’ behavior on the bench. In 2011, a federal jury awarded Pucci over $530,000 in actual damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. Somers appealed, arguing that when Pucci complained to the SCAO about his behavior, she was doing so in her official capacity and not as a private citizen. This was important, since under current precedent the First Amendment does not protect public employees from being disciplined if they speak “pursuant to their official duties.” He also argued that he was well within his rights to ensure the court functioned efficiently–and to his mind, that meant staffing the court with people with whom he was comfortable.
The panel found that Pucci was well within her rights to file her complaint, citing evidence at trial that showed Pucci filed her complaint as a citizen. Writing for the panel, circuit judge Julia Smith Gibbons pointed out that Pucci’s duties were merely administrative, and that she had no authority over the judges. It found that Pucci had “a strong interest–as a citizen” in reporting Somers’ conduct to the SCAO since she wanted to ensure that the court was being “operated in accordance with the law.” This interest trumped Somers’ interest in ensuring the court’s efficient operation by a city mile.
I have to admit, I expected the religious right to make Somers its latest cause c?l?bre. After all, he’s being “persecuted” for simply not being shy about his faith, right? But you know what I found when searching for any religious right figures decrying this ruling? Nada. Zip. Zero. Bupkis. Looks to me like the religious right knows that even its warped interpretation of the First Amendment doesn’t protect Somers’ behavior.
Pucci described the decision as “a good day for the ‘little guy.'” That’s an understatement. Thanks to her, federal, state, and city employees no longer have to worry that they’re putting their jobs on the line by complaining about Bible-thumping bosses.
