The Court (Brennan/Scudder/St. Eve, with Scudder writing) reversed SJ against a prisoner on a retaliation claim. The Court nicely lays out the elements for a retaliation claim (including evidence suggesting that the First Amendment activity was a motivating factor of the retaliatory action), and notes that it would not be sufficient to infer retaliatory motive from the plaintiff’s filing of grievances alone. But in Jones, there was also evidence that the defendant said “[y]ou can’t sue me now,” slip op. at 6, among other comments. That was enough for a reasonable jury to infer that the defendant’s actions were motivated by Jones’s protected speech. The Court affirms SJ on a retaliation claim against another official who wasn’t involved in those statements finding the evidence too speculative to make the inference on motive. The Court also dismisses an access-to-courts claim.