Michael Arthur Donovan v. Earl Reinbold and Harley Askew, Michael Arthur Donovan v. Earl Reinbold and Harley Askew

Two municipal police officers, Chief Earl Reinbold and Lt. Harley L. Askew of the Santa Monica Police Department, appeal from a judgment awarding $5000 damages to plaintiff Donovan on his civil rights complaint against them. ( 42 U.S.C. § 1983 .) The complaint, inter alia, charged that Reinbold and Askew, acting under color of state law, caused Donovan’s loss of public employment as a lifeguard in retaliation for Donovan’s exercising his First Amendment rights to express himself by authoring newspaper articles concerning activities on the Santa Monica beaches.

Donovan cross-appeals from a judgment dismissing the same coinplaint against two other defendants, Robert G. Cockins and Robert D. Ogle, who were, respectively, City Attorney and Assistant City Attorney of Santa Monica. His complaint charged that Cockins and Ogle contributed to his loss of employment by advising Reinbold and Askew that a decision of the City’s personnel board, holding Donovan’s discharge unjustified, was not binding and further charging that that advice was motivated by Cock-ins’ and Ogle’s desire to punish him for writing the newspaper articles. The district court held, as a matter of law, that Cockins and…