The Commonwealth Court has ruled that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation should not have fired an employee after she complained on Facebook about the school bus drivers in her area and said she “will gladly smash into a school bus.”
A three-judge panel of the court unanimously reversed a decision by the state Civil Service Commission dismissing plaintiff Rachel Carr’s challenge to PennDOT’s termination of her employment and ordered that she be reinstated to her position. The panel said Carr’s Facebook comments were protected by the First Amendment because she was speaking about a matter of public concern and there was no evidence that the comments would cause tangible harm to PennDOT.
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