| O'Connor v. Ortega | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued October 16, 1986 Decided March 31, 1987 | |
| Full case name | Magno J. Ortega, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dennis M. O'Connor, Executive Director, Napa State Hospital; Richard Friday, Business Manager, Napa State Hospital, Dorothy Owen, Personnel Officer, Napa State Hospital; Stefan Donoviel, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Citations | 480 U.S. 709 (more) 107 S. Ct. 1492; 94 L. Ed. 2d 714 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Summary judgement for petitioners rev'd, 764 F.2d 703 (9th Cir. 1985) |
| Subsequent | Rev'd and remanded to district court, 817 F.2d 1408 (9th Cir. 1987), directed verdict rev'd and remanded 50 F.3d 778 (9th Cir. 1995), verdict for respondent aff'd, 146 F.3d 1149 (9th Cir. 1998). |
| Holding | |
| Fourth Amendment protections apply to public employees under investigation for violations of employer policy but only reasonable suspicion is necessary for search to be conducted; courts must consider operational realities of public workplaces when violations of Fourth Amendment are alleged. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Plurality | O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, White, Powell |
| Concurrence | Scalia (in judgment) |
| Dissent | Blackmun, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. IV | |
O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709 (1987), is a United States Supreme Court decision on the Fourth Amendment rights of government employees with regard to administrative searches in the workplace, during investigations by supervisors for violations of employee policy rather than by law enforcement for criminal offenses. It was brought by Magno Ortega, a doctor at a California state hospital after his supervisors found allegedly inculpatory evidence in his office while he was on administrative leave pending an investigation of alleged misconduct. Some of what they uncovered was later used to impeach a witness who testified on his behalf at the hearing where he unsuccessfully appealed his dismissal.
Although lower courts had considered the issue, it was the first time the Supreme Court had. By a 5-4 margin, the Court ruled that public employees retain their Fourth Amendment rights. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's plurality opinion established an "operating realities" test for future courts to consider when public employees challenged searches during investigations, reflecting the lower reasonable suspicion standard the government had to meet as an employer. That did not establish binding precedent, since Antonin Scalia argued in a separate concurring opinion that her standard was too vague, and that the same searches which would be reasonable for a private employer were proper when conducted by their public counterparts. Harry Blackmun wrote for four dissenting justices that the search was clearly an investigatory one and thus a breach of the doctor's privacy.
Since it could not decide how to apply that standard to Ortega's case as the record at that time did not establish whether the entry into Ortega's office had been for search purposes or not, the majority remanded the case to the district court. Eleven more years of litigation followed. At some points during it Ortega had to represent himself, and the Court itself had taken the unusual step of inviting Joel Klein to argue Ortega's case before them. It went back and forth between the district and appellate courts twice. Ortega finally prevailed after a jury trial in the late 1990s, and the Ninth Circuit denied Ortega's superiors their appeal.
Despite the two different standards resulting from the split five-justice majority, lower courts have generally followed O'Connor's "operational realities" test in future cases involving actual searches. Observers thought the justices might resolve the conflict the next time a similar case of public employees alleging a search violated their Fourth Amendment rights came before it. When it did, in 2010's Ontario v. Quon, they declined to do so, leaving the matter open for yet another future Court.