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Colleen M. Bradley v. West Chester University of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, et al.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, No. 17-1588 · judgment January 26, 2018


Certiorari denied · October 1, 2018
Pre-decision estimate: 5% cert probability (95% interval 3%–9%)

Before the decision, modestly above the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a Third Circuit decision below, counsel with five or more prior petitions here, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition).

Questions presented

  1. Is petitioner’s speech exposing her public employer’s false, illegal and corrupt accounting practices, conduct unrelated to her ordinary job duties or her job description, protected as First Amendment citizen speech under Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S.___; 134 S. Ct. 2369 (2014) and Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006)?

  2. Has the conflict among the analyses employed by the courts of appeals to determine whether a public employee spoke as a citizen or as an employee on a matter of public concern become so pronounced that it impermissibly chills valuable speech identifying government corruption by whistleblowers like petitioner, invoking this Court’s power to further clarify the analysis for future decisionmaking?

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Dennis P. Derrick

For respondent
John Bartley DeLone
Attorney General's Office

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Amicus briefs
1 cert-stage

Proceedings

  1. Oct 01 2018
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Jul 18 2018
    Brief amici curiae of Working Faculty and Coaches filed. (Distributed)
  3. Jul 11 2018
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/24/2018.
  4. Jul 09 2018
    Blanket Consent filed by petitioner Colleen M. Bradley
  5. Jul 03 2018
    Waiver of right of respondents West Chester University, et al. to respond filed.
  6. May 29 2018
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due July 19, 2018)