which Coffey quoted in relevant part. "Cheryl Churchill's actions fall far short of the actions of an insubordinate or problem employee", he wrote. "[Her] interest in fulfilling her duties and obligations as an ethical, responsible professional ... clearly outweighs the hospital's interests in interfering and ultimately preventing her from speaking out on important matters of public concern." Further, the animosity between Churchill and her superiors was, upon further examination, "nothing but a one sided demonstration of hostility toward Churchill." The next argument Coffey considered was due process. The Mt. Healthy defense raised by the hospital was that Churchill had not demonstrated that her speech was why she was fired. In response she had argued that the hospital violated her due process rights by not investigating the actual content of her speech. "We disagree" wrote Coffey, "that it is necessary to create a First Amendment due process right in order to protect the rights of public employees to speak out on matters of public concern, for we believe that Mt. Healthy provides adequate safeguards regardless of whether the employer actually knew the precise content of the statements for which it fired the employee." The hospital believed it had overcome Mt. Healthy, since it claimed Churchill was fired for her general pattern of complaining rather than the conversation with Perkins-Graham. Coffey said that was a misreading of that holding, which was meant to protect conduct. Lastly, he dismissed the defendants' claim to qualified immunity, under which officials who engage in conduct which may later be found illegal are immune from prosecution or suit if they can demonstrate a lack of settled law on it at the time, for the same underlying reasons. "[I]n 1987 the law was clear that the speech of public employees while at work was protected under the First Amendment if it was about matters of public concern in connection with their workplace," Coffey wrote. "[W]e hold that ignorance of the nature of the employee's speech (in particular in light of the record before us) is inadequate to insulate officials from a § 1983 action." The court amended its decision the day after handing it down. Two months later a motion for rehearing was denied. The appellees then petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari. In order to resolve a conflict the case had created with similar cases in other appellate circuits where qualified immunity was at issue, the Court