San Francisco DA whistleblower moves retaliation claim forward

A former investigator's lawsuit against San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins still survives after several years of proceedings.OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge denied San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ push to toss a retaliation claim against an investigator over his termination related to a 2017 officer-involved shooting investigation.In a mixed-bag ruling on summary judgment, Senior U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White denied the district attorney’s motion for judgment on former district attorney investigator Jack Arne Friedman’s retaliation claim.“With regard to the reasons for the adverse employment actions taken against plaintiff, the record is replete with disputed issues of fact precluding summary judgment,” the George W. Bush appointee wrote in his seven-page order.“Whether or how much the protected complaints factored into the decisions to investigate plaintiff, place him on administrative leave, and ultimately to terminate him are open factual questions,” he wrote.Friedman filed suit in October 2023, claiming Jenkins violated his First Amendment rights by restricting his ability to speak on matters of great public concern and broke the law by retaliating against him for making protected disclosures to the public.While White didn’t find the district attorney’s arguments against the retaliation claim compelling, he said Jenkins’ reasons for issuing a gag order on Friedman, following Jenkins’ reversal to press charges against San Francisco police officer Christopher Samayoa, were justified.“Plaintiff’s First Amendment claim fails because although arguably plaintiff’s prohibited speech would have been a matter of public concern, the limited speech restrictions were imposed during the pendency of an internal investigation into plaintiff’s conduct in connection with the arrest warrant for officer Samayoa,” White wrote.“In curtailing plaintiff’s speech, Jenkins had legitimate interests in preventing interference with prosecutorial discretion and conducting internal investigations. Public employers have a legitimate interest in instructing their employees not to make statements that would interfere in ‘a workplace misconduct investigation during the pendency of that investigation.’”Friedman’s lawsuit stems from a 2017 shooting by Samayoa, who killed carjacking suspect Keita O’Neil. Samayoa is the first San Francisco officer to ever be charged with criminal homicide for a killing in the line of duty. Under former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Friedman was the investigator who signed the arrest warrant.After assuming office as the new district attorney in 2022, Jenkins decided to revisit the charging decision. Friedman was placed under internal investigation and instructed not to speak about the matter.“We appreciate that the court found the district attorney put appropriate limitations on [Friedman’s] speech and that those limitations did not violate his First Amendment rights. We look forward to presenting our case to the court on the remaining claim," Jen Kwart, communications director with the City Attorney’s Office, said in an email to Courthouse News.At the same time, the longtime investigator claimed he learned members of Jenkins’ staff had directed another investigator, Daniel Lundberg, to write a memorandum of his opinions on the decision to charge Samayoa. He believed this counted as unlawful coercion to provide false testimony and raised the issue multiple times over the next several months.Jenkins dropped the charges against Samayoa in January 2023, claiming Boudin had filed them for political purposes. She also claimed Friedman was improperly pressured by the previous administration to sign the arrest warrant, citing it as one of the main reasons she dropped the case.Friedman contested Jenkins’ characterization, claiming he didn’t speak about the incident for fear of violating his gag order and passed up opportunities to speak to members of the press about the illegal activity he witnessed.Friedman raised the issue again in March 2023 and was fired two months later.Since filing, the suit was dismissed twice.“We look forward to vindicating the rights of this whistleblower in trial,” Friedman’s attorney Sonya Mehta, with Siegel Yee Brunner & Mehta, said in an email to Courthouse News.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads