Lane v. Franks

Summary

Central Alabama Community College fired a staff member after a federal court subpoenaed him to testify in a lawsuit concerning fraud by a state legislator. The college claimed that the staff member was speaking as an employee at the trial, and because he did not say what the college wanted him to say, it fired him. The employee, Edward Lane, contended that he was speaking truthfully outside of the workplace on a matter of public concern. Lane was the director of the college’s after-school program for at-risk youth when he discovered that the senator was drawing a salary from the program but wasn’t doing any work.