Richard Haverda v. Hays County

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that when defendants provide an explanation that they would not have hired a plaintiff regardless of his protected conduct, plaintiff must present some evidence that defendants’ explanation is merely pretextual
• concluding that circumstantial evidence was sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact on whether sheriff demoted corrections officer because of a letter criticizing him, despite the sheriff stating that he did not know who wrote it
• finding pretext when the plaintiff had a history of positive performance reviews and other employees believed he did not deserve termination
• prima facie case of First Amendment retaliation requires showing that speech motivated adverse employment decision
• “[T]here is no doubt that Haverda had a clearly established constitutional right not to be fired for engaging in protected speech.”
• “[S]imply disputing the underlying facts of an employer’s decision is not sufficient to create a fact issue.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).