Court Upholds Termination of Chicago Firefighter Over Offensive Social Media Posts

The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has upheld the termination of a Chicago firefighter who was fired in 2021 over a series of offensive social media posts. Sam Inendino challenged his termination arguing that despite being offensive, his posts were protected by the First Amendment.

The court described the posts as follows:

• In October 2019, the Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) received two complaints from members of the public concerning inappropriate and offensive comments Inendino made on someone else’s Facebook post.
• The Facebook post concerned the alleged mistreatment of the Facebook user’s brother by a Chicago police officer.
• Following an exchange on the post between Inendino and others, Inendino commented, “Your comments are all weak… can’t talk I have to go to work to pay for all your scumbag kids that you welfare fucks keep having!!!”
• Inendino further commented, “NOT get all HOOD on me YO… take your ass back over the border where ya belong… gotta go I have a real job.”
• OIG investigated the complaints and discovered multiple Facebook posts and comments from Inendino in 2020 that highlighted race, used derogatory terms towards minorities, and “seemingly advocat[ed] violence against protestors.”
• Inendino posted an image from a Black Lives Matter protest at which Kyle Rittenhouse killed two men and wrote as a caption, “Good for him should aim for the torso!!!”
• Inendino also posted a photograph of Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a restaurant with the caption, “Hope she chokes on something.”
• Inendino posted a meme depicting a car running over pedestrians with the caption, “All Lives Splatter.”
• He commented “Love it” on a post of an image of a protester who appears to have been shot.
• Inendino posted an image of a gun being pointed at an African-American man’s head with the caption, “If black lives really mattered they’d stop shooting each other” and “94 percent of all blacks shot are shot by blacks.”
• Inendino posted a meme of four pregnant African-American women with the caption, “Real Housewives of Public Housing.”
• Inendino posted a photograph of four individuals, primarily African-Americans, entering a store through a broken window with the caption, “Looting[:] When free housing, free food, free education, and free phones just aren[‘]t enough.”  
• Inendino commented on an image referencing the shooting of Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, and the Black Lives Matter movement: “Just another reason for the animals to go get some free shit.”
• Inendino posted a meme with an image of Michelle Obama with the caption, “Fluent in Ghetto.”
• He posted a video of Mayor Lightfoot and wrote, “Like I said you could take one out of the ghetto but can’t take the ghetto out of them… what a dirty hoodrat she is.”
• And Inendino posted a photo of Weija Jiang, an Asian reporter, and wrote the caption, “Haaa… Wang Chung no answers prez back!!”

Inendino argued that his speech is protected under the Pickering Balancing test because he posted as a private citizen on matters of public concern, and his right to free speech outweighted the city’s concerns. The court took issue with whether he spoke as a private citizen, and whether his comments were truly on matters of public concern, but concluded that even if he prevailed on those two points, the city’s concerns outweighed his individual expressive interests. Quoting from the court:

• Inendino took deliberate steps to link himself and his speech with his employer through his decision to “include his occupation and a photo of himself in Department uniform on his publicly accessible Facebook page.”
• Inendino alluded to the importance of his occupation to bolster his antagonistic comments to members of the public, saying, “take your ass back over the border where ya belong. . . gotta go I have a real job.
• This comment that appeared alongside Inendino’s profile picture in which he is adorned in CFD paraphernalia.
• A “speaker-employee cannot deliberately trade on her public employment while claiming the speech is entirely unrelated.”
• The Court is skeptical that Inendino’s speech offers any value to society or to the public at large on any topic.
• Indeed, the Court is hard-pressed to find the value from the comment “aim for the torso!!!” regarding a video from a shooting that left two men dead.
• And it is difficult to see how a photograph of Mayor Lightfoot in a restaurant with the caption, “[h]ope she chokes on something,” concerns anyone other than Inendino and his personal grievances.
• Still, courts have found offensive speech may relate to a matter of public concern if it touches on a political issue, even if only lightly.
• But even if Inendino’s speech relates to matters of public concern, “[a]n employer does not necessarily violate the First Amendment by discharging an employee that speaks out on a matter of public concern.”
• Rather, an employer violates the First Amendment only if its interests are outweighed by the employee’s interests in making the speech.
• The Court therefore proceeds to the Pickering balancing analysis.
• Pickering balancing is a question of law, not a question of fact for a jury.
• Where an employer is concerned about potential disruptiveness of speech, a court gives “substantial weight to [the] employers’ reasonable predictions of disruption.”
• The CFD’s mission is to protect the lives and property of the residents of Chicago, and so that it can carry out this mission, the CFD insists that its employees “promote the confidence of the public and the representative integrity of the department.”
• Inendino does not dispute that he commented, “should aim for the torso!!!” on a video of a shooting that left two men dead, that he posted a meme of a car running over pedestrians with the caption, “All Lives Splatter,” or that he commented “Love it” on a post of an image of a protester who appears to have been shot.
• The CFD reasonably concluded that these statements were contrary to the CFD’s mission of saving lives and was potentially injurious to the CFD’s interest of maintaining the public’s confidence.
• Inendino’s race-based comments posed even a greater risk to the CFD’s mission.
• The engine company where Inendino worked served a predominantly African American neighborhood, yet Inendino repeatedly posted content suggesting African-Americans were looters, abused public assistance, and were “animals.”
• Inendino disputes the interpretation of these statements, arguing that they were not racially charged, but the CFD reasonably concluded that “any minority resident of the City, who was exposed to the content on Inendino’s public Facebook page, could reasonably question whether he would deliver the appropriate level of care were they to need his services as an EMT.”
• The City’s concerns about the potential for future disruption were not speculative, in significant part due to the accessibility of Inendino’s comments speech and the evidence of actual disruption.
• Based on the factual record, Inendino cannot show that defendants violated his rights under the First Amendment.
• This case is dismissed with prejudice.

Here is a copy of the complaint. Concerned about where the line is for Free Speech – or what a fire department policy can and cannot prohibit? Join us November 6th, 2024 for a webinar on Social Media.