IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 96-31002
(Summary Calendar)
LEON A. PUISSEGUR, JR.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE,
Marvin T. Runyon, Jr., Postmaster
General,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
(95-CV-3752-L)
February 19, 1997
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, WIENER and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
In this multi-faceted discrimination and constitutional rights
deprivation case, Plaintiff-Appellant Leon A. Puissegur, Jr.
appeals from the district court’s dismissal of his claims against
*
Pursuant to Local Rule 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in Local Rule 47.5.4.
Defendant-Appellee, United States Postal Service, Marvin T. Runyon,
Jr., Postmaster General (the Postal Service), pursuant to Fed. R.
Civ. P. 12(b) and 56. Agreeing with the district court’s adoption
of the Report and Recommendation of the magistrate judge that
Puissegur’s claims for racial discrimination, unlawful retaliation,
and violations of his rights under the First, Fourth, and Fifth
Amendments should be dismissed, we affirm the judgment of dismissal
rendered by the district court.
I
Puissegur’s broadside attack on the Postal Service1 stemmed
from a single, job-related incident, which is described in his
complaint, as follows:
On December 7, 1994, at approximately 5:30
a.m., MDO Watson and MDO Parks told plaintiff
his hat offended someone. MDO Watson asked
plaintiff to remove his hat. Plaintiff told
Watson that he would not remove his hat.
Watson then escorted Plaintiff off the
workroom floor segregated him to a maintenance
supervisor and instructed the supervisor to
keep plaintiff off the workroom floor until
Plaintiff removed his hat.
At the time of that incident, Puissegur, a white male, was
wearing the hat that sparked the controversy; it bore the legend,
“I Can’t Be Fired, Slaves Have to Be Sold.” Puissegur
characterizes the incident as an adverse employment action and, by
vague implication from allegations that black employees were
1
Puissegur originally sued four individual employees of the
Postal Service as well, but voluntarily dismissed those defendants
early in the course of the instant litigation.
2
allowed to wear shirts and hats depicting Malcolm X and black
power, suggests the presence of racial overtones behind the
controversy over his hat.
II
We resist the temptation to dispose of this appeal by
dismissing it as frivolous on the gross inadequacy of Puissegur’s
appellate brief: Its identification of interested persons is
incomplete; it cites but a single court case, and even that one is
from another circuit,2 plus five statutes,3 and two Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure;4 it lists four conclusionary issues or errors
ascribed to the district court; and it otherwise consists of but
four and one-half pages of “substance”: two pages containing the
Statement of the Case, one-half page containing the Conclusion, and
the remaining two pages containing the entire Summary of Argument
and Argument. Moreover, even these two pages consist of nothing
more than the conclusionary statement that removal of Puissegur
from the workroom floor until he removed his cap violated several
of his constitutional and statutory rights, coupled with a third
regurgitation of the scant facts concerning the hat, its legend,
his removal from the workroom floor, and the caps and shirts worn
2
APWU v. U. S. Postal Service, 830 F.2d 294 (D.C. Cir.
1987).
3
28 U.S.C. § 1291; 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 1985; and
42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq.
4
Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b) and 56.
3
by black employees of the Postal Service.5
This skeletal filing on behalf of Puissegur is entirely
worthless from the standpoint of advancing his appeal or assisting
this court in its deliberations. In addition to taking the title
“Brief” to new extremes as to both form and substance, this
document fails to meet the spirit if not the letter of the Federal
Rules of Appellate Procedure and the Local Rules of this court
regarding the content of a brief, its purpose and function in the
appellate process, and the results —— waiver and abandonment —— of
failure to meet the requirements.
Rather than dismissing this appeal on grounds of waiver or
abandonment through failure adequately to brief the party’s
arguments and support them with meaningful authorities, however, we
chose to affirm the judgment of the district court for the reasons
cogently and thoroughly set forth in the Report and Recommendation
of the magistrate judge. In contrast to Puissegur’s appellate
brief, the Report and Recommendation of the magistrate judge is a
well-crafted legal writing that systematically addresses each of
Puissegur’s contentions and the law applicable to each, seriatim,
until each and every claim is shown to be unmeritorious. For us to
write further on this case would be a waste of judicial resources,
so instead we adopt the Report and Recommendation of the magistrate
5
These facts appear first in Puissegur’s STATEMENT REGARDING
ORAL ARGUMENT, second in his Statement of the Facts, and third in
the first of his three paragraphs that constitute his entire
ARGUMENT.
4
judge as though fully written herein, and affirm the judgment of
the district court based thereon, dismissing Puissegur’s action.6
III
In closing we caution Puissegur and his counsel that baseless
and therefore frivolous suits and equally frivolous appeals can and
do subject parties and their lawyers to sanctions. The instant
case could well serve as an illustration of sanctionable
litigation; but as the Postal Service has not urged the imposition
of sanctions, we shall refrain from doing so on our own motion.
AFFIRMED.
6
As one small exception to refraining from writing further,
we note ever so briefly that we recognize, as a matter of law, that
legends, symbols, logos, pins, and other verbal and non-verbal
accoutrement on articles of clothing can and frequently do
constitute “speech” and some even rise to the level of
constitutionally protected speech. Here, though, we can discern no
intended meaning from the cryptic statement on Puissegur’s hat;
neither has he favored us with any explanation of the meaning of
the phrase or how it can garner First Amendment protection.
Clearly not all speech is public, protected speech, and neither the
subject statement nor anything in Puissegur’s pleadings or
appellate brief shed light on this issue.
5