Judy Martin v. Shelby Cnty., Tenn. ( 2024 )

NOT RECOMMENDED FO PUBLICATION
File Name: 24a0289n.06
Case No. 24-5044
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
FILED
Jul 02, 2024
)
JUDY MARTIN, KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
v. ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
) THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF
SHELBY COUNTY, TENNESSEE, ) TENNESSEE
Defendant-Appellee. )
) OPINION
Before: KETHLEDGE, THAPAR, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
THAPAR, Circuit Judge. After Judy Martin misreported Shelby County’s COVID vaccine
inventory, the County forced her out of her job and publicly critiqued her performance. Martin
claims this criticism violated her constitutional rights. We disagree and affirm the district court’s
grant of summary judgment.
I.
Judy Martin oversaw Shelby County’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. While inventorying
vaccines, Martin discovered expired doses. She reported to the County Health Director that around
1,000 doses had expired.
That report prompted action. Even more doses were about to go bad, so the County raced
to use them. Martin administered many of the doses at a vaccination event for teachers. And she
planned to administer the rest to prisoners later that day. But a major winter storm blasted the
No. 24-5044, Martin v. Shelby County
Memphis area, and Martin arrived at the prison after the inmates had gone to bed. So she put the
approximately 700 now-expired doses in her car and told nobody.
Meanwhile, the Health Director reported the around 1,000 expired vaccines to state health
officials. Since Martin didn’t tell anyone about the 700 expired doses in her car, those weren’t
included in the report.
Eventually, however, news broke that Shelby County had allowed more vaccine doses to
expire than it previously reported. When it became obvious that Martin was to blame, she retired
to avoid being fired. Soon after, Mayor Lee Harris tweeted an update:
I learned that the information regarding the level of vaccine that expired in Shelby County
was not accurate. . . . [W]e have terminated the site manager who managed the relationship
with the pharmacy and allegedly provided the initial false information.
Martin landed on her feet. After the tweet, she received multiple uplifting phone calls from
others. She didn’t receive any threats, angry phone calls, or personal attacks after the tweet. And,
without applying, Martin was approached and offered a job with a local nonprofit, which she
accepted.
But Martin was unsatisfied. Stung by what she perceived as the County’s defamatory
tweet, Martin requested a name-clearing hearing, which the County denied. So she sued Shelby
County. She alleged Mayor Harris’s tweet stigmatized her by accusing her of intentionally
providing false information. And she claimed that the County’s refusal to give her a name-clearing
hearing violated her procedural-due-process rights. The district court granted summary judgment
to the County.
II.
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees procedural protections
before a state actor can limit someone’s property or liberty interests. Bd. of Regents of State Colls.
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v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569–70 (1972). At first blush, being fired and criticized doesn’t implicate
either “property” or “liberty.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV. After all, in Tennessee, at-will employees
typically have no property interest in continued employment. Gregory v. Hunt, 24 F.3d 781, 785
(6th Cir. 1994). And reputational injury alone isn’t an actionable liberty interest. Mertik v.
Blalock, 983 F.2d 1353, 1362 (6th Cir. 1993). So it’s hard to see how the two of them together
could work an injury of constitutional magnitude.
But the Supreme Court has explained that, in some narrow contexts, the Due Process
Clause prevents a state from firing an employee and criticizing her in the process. See Paul v.
Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 710 (1976). This peculiar (and infrequently utilized) “right” has been dubbed
a “stigma-plus” claim, and the remedy is a “name clearing hearing.” Doe v. Mich. Dep’t of State
Police, 490 F.3d 491, 501 (6th Cir. 2007); Quinn v. Shirey, 293 F.3d 315, 320 (6th Cir. 2002). To
prevail, the plaintiff must show, among other things, that the government made a stigmatizing
statement in conjunction with her termination. Ludwig v. Bd. of Trs. of Ferris State Univ., 123
F.3d 404, 410 (6th Cir. 1997).
Here, Martin has failed to prove the County’s statement was stigmatizing. A statement
about a fired employee isn’t sufficiently stigmatizing unless it is so extreme that it causes “moral
stigma.” Id. at 410. For instance, we have found that wrongly classifying someone as a sex
offender rises to the level of moral stigma. Hart v. Hillsdale Cnty., 973 F.3d 627, 644 (6th Cir.
2020). On the other hand, merely rendering an employee less favorable to future employers won’t
do. Knowledge that a potential employee is incompetent or neglected a duty, for example, doesn’t
trigger “moral stigma.” Ludwig, 123 F.3d at 410. Instead, the defamatory statement must either
“seriously damage” the plaintiff’s standing in the community or “foreclose” her ability to get
another job. Id.; see Roth, 408 U.S. at 573. Neither occurred here.
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A.
Martin alleges the mayor’s statement maligned her truthfulness and harmed her reputation,
damaging her standing in the community. But the undisputed evidence doesn’t bear that out.
Start with the declarations from Martin’s friends, William Adkins and Yvonne Madlock.
Adkins interpreted the tweet as accusing Martin of acting in a “nefarious, dishonest, or improper”
way. R. 43-2, Pg. ID 308. But one phone call with Martin was enough to clear any stain from her
character. At the end of the call, he was assured Martin hadn’t acted dishonestly. Id. Similarly,
Madlock admitted that even though she interpreted the tweet as accusing Martin of intentionally
lying, she never believed it. Like Adkins, Madlock resolved any discrepancies over a conversation
with Martin. At most, then, these statements show that community members easily overcame any
temporary doubts about Martin’s character.
Next, Martin notes that she received phone calls and messages from other members of the
public. This can’t help her because Martin admits all the calls were supportive. Martin
understandably resents that her departure from the health department was broadcast for the world
to watch, but a community rallying around her does little to show stigma.
Finally, Martin points to the language of the tweet itself. She says it accuses her of
intentional misconduct—not mere oversight. That’s so, she says, because the word “false” in the
tweet could suggest she intentionally misled the County. But even if that’s how people could
interpret the tweet, Martin hasn’t shown that the tweet “seriously damage[d]” her standing in the
community. See Ludwig, 123 F.3d at 410. She didn’t receive any angry emails or voicemails from
concerned citizens. Nor were any letters mailed to her house. Or signs posted outside. In fact,
she can muster up only two negative reactions: a colleague criticized the “site manager” in a
conversation with Martin, and Martin’s son-in-law had a barbershop conversation with someone
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in the community who angrily blamed officials for allowing vaccines to expire. But these just
show anger at the County’s mishandling of the vaccines. There’s no evidence those people accused
the site manager of being a liar. Nor that she was of poor moral character. Or even that they knew
Martin was the site manager. Thus, their complaints about wasted vaccines don’t amount to moral
stigma directed at Martin. See Chilingirian v. Boris, 882 F.2d 200, 205 n. 8 (6th Cir. 1989).
In sum, the tweet didn’t provoke any community opprobrium of Martin’s character. At
best, the public was supportive, and, at worst, it merely criticized her poor job performance.
B.
Martin also can’t show that the tweet foreclosed her ability to get a job. See Roth, 408 U.S.
at 573. She hasn’t even attempted to show as much,1 and for good reason: the undisputed evidence
points the opposite way. After her separation, Martin didn’t apply to any other job. Instead, an
employer approached her and offered her a job.
Nor were there other professional consequences. The nursing board took no disciplinary
action against her. No potential employer told her they wouldn’t hire her because of the incident.
And she was able to take a job in the same location while receiving retirement benefits from Shelby
County. Martin thus continues to have the same opportunities she had before.
* * *
Getting fired is unpleasant. And having that termination broadcast is even more so. But
the Constitution of the United States says little about lost jobs, and nothing about this one. Because
Martin can’t show the mayor’s tweet exposed her to moral stigma, we affirm.
1
The most Martin can muster on this point is that the tweet made her subjectively apprehensive about applying for
new jobs. But that is quite different from the objective harm of being denied a job opportunity—which Martin
concedes didn’t occur. Cf. Crosby v. Univ. of Ky., 863 F.3d 545, 556–57 (6th Cir. 2017).
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