Opinion ID: 169583
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What interest did Darr have in a pre-termination hearing?

Text: Darr argues that Telluride violated his Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process right by revising its employee manual to eliminate his property interest in a pre-termination hearing without providing adequate notice. Darr says in his opening brief at 35 that Telluride did not directly communicate to the employees, including Darr, that they were being stripped of their rights of due process by the enactment of the new policies. Id. at 35. Darr also asserts that whether an employee has a property interest in continued employment is a question of fact for the jury. Aplt. Br. at 32. Darr's attempt to manufacture a disputed issue of fact is unpersuasive. Telluride does not argue that Darr had no right to sufficient notice of the revised policies. Defendant-Appellee's Answer Brief at 13. Telluride appears to concede Darr's right to sufficient notice and says only that Darr received more than sufficient notice of the revised policies. Id. at 13. The unpublished decision in Perrin v. Egger, which Darr relies upon in his briefs, reviewed the same 1990 Telluride policy and held that [t]he limitation on [the Town Manager's] power of dismissal is that she can make that decision only after providing the employee with the hearing required by . . . the manual. Thus, the plaintiff was entitled to a hearing and to that extent, he had an entitlement deserving some degree of protection, i.e., the opportunity to present his case at a non-public hearing. Aplt. Br. at Appx. B, p. 4. Regardless, Darr's argumentthat the jury must decide as a factual question whether an employee has a property interest in a pre-termination hearingwrongly implies that summary judgment is never appropriate when an employee brings a procedural due process claim. The facts here are clear and uncontested. We assume, because it is not contested, and we do not address, whether Darr had a property interest in a pre-termination hearing. [1] Moreover it is unnecessary to decide this point because we conclude that Darr did not have a constitutionally protected interest in continued employment. We now turn to the question whether Telluride's old or new policies created a constitutionally-protected interest in Darr for continued employment.