PER CURIAM.
The defendant, Sheriff Tommy Robinson, appeals from the district court judgment in favor of James Woody McNeely and Charles Collins on their race discrimination claims brought under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq., and in favor of Collins on his action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his first amendment right to free speech and his fourteenth amendment right to due process. See Collins v. Robinson, 568 F.Supp. 1464 (E.D.Ark.1983). We affirm.
Sheriff Robinson fired Collins after he wrote a memorandum to his superiors describing the inappropriate conduct of a superior officer. On the evening of November 10, 1981, Collins, who is black, was the ranking officer at the Pulaski County Jail. While at a meeting of the local legislative body, the sheriff heard a rumor that the personnel at the jail were planning a walkout. He dispatched his second in command, Major Mark Bowman, to the jail to investigate. When Bowman arrived at the jail, he threatened and cursed Collins in front of other jail personnel. Collins submitted a memorandum to his superiors protesting the incident. The memorandum was also widely distributed among jail personnel, although the district court specifically found Collins was not responsible for distribution of the memorandum outside the chain of command. Sheriff Robinson subsequently fired Collins without a pretermination hearing. Collins filed a grievance with the Pulaski County Grievance Board. After a hearing, the Board recommended Collins be given reinstatement with full back pay and an apology. Sheriff Robinson refused the Board’s recommendation. Collins filed an EEOC charge and, after receiving a right-to-sue letter, he commenced this action on May 17, 1982.
McNeely joined the sheriff’s department in 1977. He left the department for a short time to work as an investigator for the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, but returned in September, 1980. In June, 1981, McNeely’s platoon leader recommended McNeely and two white deputies for promotion to corporal. In April, 1982, McNeely was the only black on a list of five persons recommended for such a promotion. A group of superiors interviewed each of the five candidates and ranked them in the recommended order of promotion. Although McNeely was ranked third, the white candidate who had been ranked fifth was promoted ahead of him. McNeely filed an EEOC charge on August 10, 1982. Thereafter, he received a right-to-sue letter and the district court gave him permission to intervene in Collins’ suit on April 7, 1983.
The district court held that Collins’ memorandum to his superiors was speech protected by the first amendment. The court then submitted to the jury the question of whether the memorandum was a substantial or motivating factor in Collins’ discharge. The jury found in the affirmative and awarded Collins $5,927 in damages, the back pay Collins lost between his discharge and the verdict date. The court also held Collins’ discharge without a pretermination hearing violated due process. Finally, the district court held that Collins had established a prima facie case of race discrimination and had shown Robinson’s articulated reasons for discharging him were pretextual, thus proving his Title VII claim.
The court also found Robinson’s articulated reasons for not promoting McNeely were pretextual. The court ordered McNeely promoted and paid damages consisting of the difference between a deputy’s pay and a corporal’s pay from May 15, 1982.
On appeal, Robinson contends: (1) that Collins’ memorandum is not protected speech; (2) that Collins had no protected property interest in continued employment; (3) that both Collins and McNeely failed to establish their discrimination claims; and (4) that in the event this Court reverses the district court’s determination on the merits, the award of attorneys’ fees should also be set aside. After reviewing the decision below, the record, and the briefs on appeal, we are convinced the court committed no error of law or fact. We therefore affirm on the basis of the well-reasoned opinion of the district court. See 8th Cir.R. 14.
What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Your task is to identify the state of the first listed state or local government agency that is an appellant.