## Facts

- The County of Los Angeles Fire Department adopted a sexual-harassment policy that prohibited certain “sexual material,” including “sexually-oriented magazines” with nude pictures such as Playboy, in “all work locations,” including dormitories, rest rooms, and lockers.
- Captain Steven W. Johnson privately possessed and read Playboy at the fire station and sometimes shared it consensually with other firefighters.
- Johnson’s reading and sharing occurred during off-duty or non-work periods in station living areas (including dormitory-type spaces), not as part of job duties.
- There was no showing that Johnson used Playboy to harass anyone, displayed it to unwilling viewers, or targeted women employees with it.
- The County justified the ban as a means to prevent a sexually hostile work environment and reduce exposure to Title VII hostile-environment liability.
- Johnson brought a § 1983 action seeking a declaration and permanent injunction that the policy was unconstitutional as applied to his private possession, reading, and consensual sharing of Playboy at the station.

## Issues

1. Whether the First Amendment (through the Fourteenth Amendment) protects a firefighter’s private possession, reading, and consensual sharing of a non-obscene magazine in fire-station living areas.
2. Whether the County’s interest in preventing sexual harassment and avoiding Title VII liability justifies enforcing a blanket workplace ban on such material against private, non-coercive use in a quasi-residential station setting.

## Decision

- The court held that Johnson’s private possession, reading, and consensual sharing of Playboy at the fire station constituted protected expression under the First Amendment.
- The court ruled the policy invalid as applied to Johnson’s specific conduct.
- The court granted declaratory relief and a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the policy against Johnson’s private, non-coercive use in station living areas.
- The court left intact the County’s authority to regulate and discipline actual sexual harassment and non-consensual exposure to sexual materials.

## Legal Principles

- Non-obscene, sexually oriented publications are protected speech; restrictions based on sexual content trigger constitutional scrutiny.
- When the government acts as employer, it may regulate workplace conduct, but limits on employee expression must be justified by legitimate workplace interests and cannot sweep in protected, private expression without adequate justification.
- A workplace harassment objective does not, by itself, authorize censorship of protected expression that is not used in a harassing, targeted, or coercive manner.
- Policies aimed at preventing hostile environments must be tailored to the conduct that creates unwelcome conditions (e.g., forced exposure or targeted harassment), particularly where the workplace includes living quarters with home-like features.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the Fire Department’s ban on Playboy could not be enforced against a firefighter’s private, off-duty reading and voluntary sharing in station living areas absent evidence of harassment or non-consensual display, and it enjoined enforcement only to that limited extent.


Johnson v. Cnty. of L.A. Fire Dep’t, 865 F. Supp. 1430 (C.D. Cal. 1994)