Molina

MEMORANDUM **

Phillip Molina, the discharged financial manager of the City of Oxnard, brought this civil action for damages. Molina contended that the defendant City and the defendant city manager, Edmund Sotelo, (“defendants”) fired him in violation of his First Amendment rights because Molina had criticized the City’s financial undertakings and had stated these views to the local newspaper. The defendants claimed Molina was a poor employee and was fired for his incompetency in his job.

After an eight-day trial, the jury returned a special verdict with certain inconsistencies among the answers. The district court resolved the case in favor of the defendants, granting a dismissal of the action, and determining that the inconsistencies—verdict answers which award damages to Molina—were superfluous. Molina appeals.

We determine that the jury returned inconsistent answers to the special verdict questions that cannot be resolved in favor of either party. We reverse and remand for a new trial on Molina’s First Amendment claim.

*579 I. BACKGROUND

The district court instructed the jury that to prevail on his First Amendment claim, Molina needed to show that his statements on the…