Opinion ID: 793749
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of the Interest Asserted in the Due Process Claim

Text: 62 The Due Process Clause protects against deprivations of, inter alia, property, without due process of law. Defendants argue that there could not have been a due process violation because—notwithstanding their initial stance that  [n]o contract for services existed between the Town and New Windsor Volunteer Ambulance Corps (Second Town Letter at 1 (emphasis added))—they now contend that this dispute is a simple contract dispute (Defendants' brief on appeal at 10), rather than a dispute over a property interest that is protected by the Due Process Clause. In support of this contention, defendants cite only S & D Maintenance Co. v. Goldin, 844 F.2d 962 (2d Cir.1988) ( S & D Maintenance ). We find that case inapposite. 63 In S & D Maintenance, the plaintiff (S & D) had entered into contracts with the City of New York to maintain the City's on-street parking meters for two consecutive two-year periods; the City thereafter refused to pay three invoices, submitted by S & D for interim payments, pending the outcome of a criminal investigation into the circumstances under which S & D had obtained the first of the contracts. As a result, S & D informed the City that S & D would suspend performance under the second contract; the City thereafter terminated the second contract. S & D sued the City for denial of due process, contending that both the withheld moneys and the second contract itself were property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. We rejected those contentions. We noted that `[t]o have a property interest in a benefit, a person clearly must have more than an abstract need or desire for it. He must have more than a unilateral expectation of it. He must, instead, have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.' 844 F.2d at 965-66 (quoting Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972)). We upheld the grant of summary judgment dismissing the complaint because S & D had no legitimate claim of entitlement either to the continuation of its contract or to prompt interim payments for past services. 64 The present case bears little resemblance to S & D Maintenance. The Ambulance Corps did not assert, as did S & D, that it had a property right to the continuation of its contractual relationship with the Town. Nor did the Corps suggest that money unpaid for the period January 1 to February 10, 2004, was the subject of its due process claim. Rather, the Corps asserted that it owned the ambulances and other vehicles and equipment that were seized and withheld by the Town. Given the district court's ruling, upheld above, that the Corps owned the seized items, the Town's contention that no protectable property interest was at stake here is meritless. The district court correctly ruled that the tangible physical assets owned by the Corps constituted property within the meaning of the Due Process Clause. 65