UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ GERALD DEAN MORGAN, │ Plaintiff-Appellant, │ │ v. > No. 22-5200 │ │ BOARD OF PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE │ SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE; SANDRA GARRETT, in │ her individual capacity, │ Defendants-Appellees. │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville. No. 3:21-cv-00274—Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr., District Judge.

Argued: October 19, 2022

Decided and Filed: March 20, 2023

Before: BATCHELDER, BUSH, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL ARGUED: W. Gary Blackburn, THE BLACKBURN FIRM, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. David M. Rudolph, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: W. Gary Blackburn, THE BLACKBURN FIRM, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. David M. Rudolph, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Memphis, Tennessee, for Appellees. _________________

OPINION _________________

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. This case involves a lawyer, Gerald Morgan, whose alleged anti-Muslim tweets led to termination of his employment as Disciplinary Counsel for the No. 22-5200 Morgan v. Bd. of Prof. Responsibility of Page 2 the Supreme Court of Tenn. Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee (the Board). The tweets occurred before Morgan took the job, but they came back to haunt him in that position. In a state-court appeal of a disciplinary order of the Board, a litigant cited the tweets as grounds to disqualify Morgan from appearing as the Board’s counsel in the appeal. Following Morgan’s withdrawal from that appeal, an internal investigation ended with the Board firing him.

Morgan then sued the Board and Sandra Garrett, the Board’s Chief Disciplinary Counsel, for injunctive relief based on alleged violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on alleged wrongful termination. The district court dismissed without prejudice Morgan’s request for injunctive relief against the Board as barred by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity and because part of that request was moot. As for the request for damages, the district court also dismissed based on the Board’s sovereign immunity, as well as a determination that Garrett was entitled to absolute quasi-judicial immunity. For reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Morgan’s claims against the Board. But we REVERSE the district court’s dismissal of Morgan’s request for monetary relief against Garrett based on absolute quasi-judicial immunity and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

On February 1, 2019, Gerald Morgan began employment as Disciplinary Counsel with the Board. His troubles began during the appeal of a disciplinary proceeding involving Brian Manookian, who had been handed a two-year suspension of his law license by a hear