Opinion ID: 417809
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Falsity and Caselaw

Text: 13 The district court's decision below relied principally upon the Supreme Court's holding in, and several lower courts' interpretation of, Codd v. Velger, 429 U.S. 624, 97 S.Ct. 882, 51 L.Ed.2d 92 (1977) (per curiam). I believe that the district court and the majority have misread the holding of Codd. I read Codd as holding that a publicly stigmatized employee who has been dismissed need only allege falsity or deny the substantial truth of the historical facts underlying the stigmatizing information in order to establish a right to a hearing. 14 To understand the Codd decision, one must first understand that there is a marked difference between proving consequential damages caused by that deprivation. In Carey v. Phiphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266-67, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 1053-57, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978), the Supreme Court held that damages for deprivations of constitutional rights cannot be inferred. All damages, except nominal damages, must be proved separately from the fact that the deprivation has occurred. But, by the same token, Carey also stands for the proposition that a plaintiff may recover nominal damages for the constitutional deprivation in and of itself. In the context of a public employee discharge case, Carey requires a discharged public employee who is seeking reinstatement or backpay to prove that she would not have been discharged if she had been given a due process hearing. Ordinarily, this would require proving that the stigmatizing information is false. Yet, as Pollock points out in her brief, her failure of proof on the matter of consequential damages has nothing to do with establishing that her right to due process has been breached. The deprivation, and the nature of the damages that flow from the deprivation, must be considered as separate and distinct elements of a procedural due process cause of action. See Bishop v. Tice, 622 F.2d 349, 357-58 & n. 17 (8th Cir.1980). 15 In Codd, the plaintiff was a policeman for the Penn-Central Railroad who at one time had been a police officer trainee for the City of New York. Penn-Central dismissed the plaintiff when the City of New York released information to Penn-Central concerning an incident in which the plaintiff had put a revolver to his head in an apparent suicide attempt. 429 U.S. at 626, 97 S.Ct. at 883. 1 The plaintiff never denied the truth of this information. After he was fired, the plaintiff sued New York City solely for backpay and damages rather than for a hearing. Id. at 625 & n. 1, 97 S.Ct. at 883 & N. 1. In assessing the merits of the plaintiff's claim for backpay and other consequential damages caused by the alleged denial of due process, the Supreme Court said: 16 Assuming all of the other elements necessary to make out a claim of stigmatization under [Board of Regents v.] Roth [408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) ] and Bishop [v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976) ], the remedy mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is an opportunity to refute the charge. 408 U.S., at 573 [92 S.Ct. at 2707]. The purpose of such notice and hearing is to provide the person an opportunity to clear his name, id., at 573 n. 12 [92 S.Ct. at 2707 n. 12]. But if the hearing mandated by the Due Process Clause is to serve any useful purpose, there must be some factual dispute between an employer and a discharged employee which has some significant bearing on the employee's reputation. Nowhere in his pleadings or elsewhere has respondent affirmatively asserted that the report of the apparent suicide attempt was substantially false. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals made any such finding. When we consider the nature of the interest sought to be protected, we believe the absence of any such allegation or finding is fatal to respondent's claim under the Due Process Clause that he should have been given a hearing. 17 429 U.S. at 627, 97 S.Ct. at 883 (emphasis added). 18 The Court then went on to hold that because the plaintiff had not raised an issue about the substantial accuracy of the stigmatizing information, he made out no claim under the Fourteenth Amendment that he was harmed by the denial of a hearing. Id. at 628, 97 S.Ct. at 884 (emphasis added). 2 But because the plaintiff only prayed for consequential damages and did not seek a relayed Roth hearing, the Supreme Court expressly noted that it had no occasion to consider the burden of pleading and proof of the necessary issues as between the federal forum and the administrative hearing where such relief is sought. Id. 429 U.S. at 625 n. 1, 97 S.Ct. at 883 n. 1. Thus, in the Codd per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court did not address or answer the question of what proof is required to establish a right to a due process hearing. The Court's subsequent decision in Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. at 266, 98 S.Ct. at 1053, however, did answer the question. There the Court ruled: 19 It is enough to invoke the procedural safeguards of the Fourteenth Amendment that a significant property interest is at stake, whatever the ultimate outcome of a hearing.... 3 .... Because the right to procedural due process is absolute in the sense that it does not depend upon the merits of a claimant's substantive assertions, and because of the importance to organized society that procedural due process be observed, we believe that the denial of procedural due process should be actionable for nominal damages without proof of actual injury. 20 435 U.S. at 266, 98 S.Ct. at 1053 (citations omitted, footnote omitted). 4 The Court then remanded the case with instructions that even if the trier of fact determined that the suspensions were justified, the plaintiff was still entitled to nominal damages because he was not given a due process hearing. 21 The district court also relied upon Seal v. Pryor, 670 F.2d 96, 99 (8th Cir.1982), for the proposition that a discharged public employee must show that the stigmatizing information is false in order to prevail. But the holding in Seal, an opinion I authored for the court, is specifically premised upon the fact that the public employee did not deny the substantial truth of the charges that led to his dismissal. Id. at 99. 22 It is clear to me, therefore, that neither Supreme Court nor our own precedent requires a discharged public employee to prove the falsity of the government's stigmatizing charges before she can establish a liberty interest in her reputation. All a plaintiff need do is deny the substantial truth of the stigmatizing information released by the government in conjunction with a change in her legal status. 5 III. Legal Status 23 In Paul v. Davis, the Supreme Court held that the deprivation of a person's interest in her reputation alone is insufficient to invoke the procedural guarantees contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 424 U.S. at 711, 96 S.Ct. at 1165. A stigmatized public employee must show something more--she must show that some right or status previously recognized by state law was distinctly altered or extinguished. Id. The Fifth Circuit has characterized this requirement as stigma-plus. Dennis v. S & S Consolidated Rural High School District, 577 F.2d 338, 341 (5th Cir.1978). In my opinion, Pollock has demonstrated that plus because the stigma arose in conjunction with her termination from government employment. 24 The Paul v. Davis concept of legal status is rather ethereal. The parameters of the concept were developed by the Paul v. Davis majority in its re-synthesis of prior Supreme Court precedent. See 424 U.S. at 701-11, 96 S.Ct. at 1160-65. These precedents had been thought to hold that a person's interest in his or her reputation was a protectable liberty interest. But the Paul v. David majority found in each case some legal status that was effected by the government imposed stigma, such as the right to purchase alcohol, permanent foreclosure form all future government employment, loss of tax exemptions, revocation of a driver's license, termination from government employment, and suspension from public school. Id. From these examples of legal status the First Circuit concluded that when a state holds out a right to citizens to engage in an activity on equal terms with others, a state recognized status exists. Medina v. Rudman, 545 F.2d 244, 250 (1st Cir.1976). 25 Pollock alleges that she was denied employment with a private nursing home because of the stigmatizing information released by the county-owned nursing home. Beyond a tort law action for damages, Arkansas law does not protect Pollock's right to private employment. Thus, no alteration of a previously recognized right, as envisioned by Paul v. Davis, has occurred because the private nursing home refused to hire her. See Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. at 711-12, 96 S.Ct. at 1165. Of course in certain situations the nature of the information released by the government about a former employee, and the manner in which it is released, will work a de facto revocation of the former employee's right to engage in his or her chosen profession. See, e.g., United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 314, 316, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 1078, 1079, 90 L.Ed. 1252 (1946); Mervin v. FTC, 591 F.2d 821, 828 (D.C.Cir.1978); Christhilf v. Annapolis Emergency Hospital Ass'n, 496 F.2d 174, 178 (4th Cir.1974); Adams v. Walker, 492 F.2d 1003, 1008-09 (7th Cir.1974). In such situations the former employee should be afforded due process protection. The record in this case, however, does not show a deprivation of this magnitude. The government released the stigmatizing information to only one potential employer and did so at Pollock's request. Thus, the only change in Pollock's legal status disclosed by the record is Pollock's termination from government employment. See Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. at 702-06, 709-10, 96 S.Ct. at 1161-63, 1164-65. The question in this case then is whether the stigmatizing information was published in conjunction with that change of legal status. See Dennis v. S & S Consolidated Rural High School District, 577 F.2d at 341; Drummond v. Fulton City Department of Family & Children Services, 563 F.2d 1200, 1207-08 (9th Cir.1977). 26 This court has stated on several occasions that when stigmatizing reasons for the employee's discharge are incorporated into a record which is made available to prospective employers, or is actually disclosed to prospective employers, the stigmatized former employee is entitled to notice and a hearing. See Clark v. Mann, 562 F.2d 1104, 1116 (8th Cir.1977); Churchwell v. United States, 545 F.2d 59, 62 (8th Cir.1976); Greenhill v. Bailey, 519 F.2d 5, 8 (8th Cir.1975); Buhr v. Buffalo Public School District No. 38, 509 F.2d 1196, 1199 (8th Cir.1974). 6 Our holding in Churchwell v. United States is equally applicable to this case. 27 The circumstances surrounding Churchwell's dismissal present this court with a case of actual disclosure of stigmatizing information. Churchwell, a registered nurse, was charged with misusing drugs on patients and possibly with lying to cover up her own drug misuse. The affidavit of one prospective employer indicates that but for the information obtained from her previous employer   to the effect that she had been terminated as a registered nurse for alleged 'drug errors' while on duty he would have hired Churchwell. There can be no question that the effect of disclosing such allegations has stigmatized and jeopardized Churchwell's continued employment in the medical profession. As noted in the district court opinion, this is precisely the stigma which Roth held to be intolerable without a hearing. 28 545 F.2d at 62-63. 29 The fact that Pollock authorized the release of the information by signing a mandatory application form does not require a different result. As a practical matter, a job applicant has no choice but to sign the application's authorization form. In contracts of adhesion, the non-drafting party is held not to have voluntarily consented to be bound by all of the contract's terms. Likewise, Pollock should not be held to have voluntarily aired the stigmatizing information in her file simply because she signed the required authorization form. See Velger v. Cawley, 525 F.2d 334, 336 (2d Cir.1975), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Codd v. Velger, 429 U.S. 624, 96 S.Ct. 3188, 49 L.Ed.2d 1197 (1977) (per curiam). The county-owned nursing home could have responded to the request for information by stating Pollock had been terminated, without indicating the stigmatizing reason for her dismissal. Or it could have provided Pollock with a due process hearing before releasing the stigmatizing information. For at the time the county-owned nursing home released the information, it could not know whether or not the charges were true unless it had made that determination after a due process hearing in which Pollock received prior notice and an opportunity to be heard. A determination of the truth of the charges made by a trier of fact after the publication of the stigma cannot be used post hoc to justify the county's actions. See Love v. Sessions, 568 F.2d 357, 360 n. 6 (5th Cir.1978). Due process requires the government to base decisions that may deprive an individual of important liberty interests upon information from both sides of the controversy, not just upon the government's conception of the truth. 7 Secrecy is not congenial to truth-seeking and self-righteousness gives too slender an assurance of the rightness. No better instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and an opportunity to meet it. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 171-72, 71 S.Ct. 624, 648-49, 95 L.Ed. 817 (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Under these circumstances, responsibility for the dissemination of the stigmatizing information should not be shifted to the former employee. I would therefore follow our previous decision in Churchwell v. United States and hold that Pollock has been deprived of liberty. 8