Opinion ID: 591432
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 13 Listenbee claims that the City of Milwaukee's decision to suspend her for ten days without a pre- or post-termination hearing deprived her of her constitutional right to due process of law. As the Supreme Court stated in Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494, a court confronting a procedural due process question must make two separate inquiries. First, the court determines whether the plaintiff possesses a protected life, liberty or property interest as a matter of substantive law. If that first inquiry yields an affirmative response, the court proceeds with a second inquiry--what process is due before the plaintiff can be deprived of that protected entitlement? Thus we first determine the nature of Listenbee's interest.
14 The existence of a substantive property interest in state employment is ordinarily a question of state law. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548. 1 When called upon to decide the question whether an employee possesses a state law property interest in employment, Wisconsin courts have generally resolved the matter by providing a simple yes or no answer based on whether the employment is at-will or for cause. For example, in Vorwald v. School Dist. of River Falls, 167 Wis.2d 549, 482 N.W.2d 93 (1992), the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that because a school custodian was an at-will employee, he had no property interest in his continued employment. The Vorwald court stated that [a]bsent civil service regulations or laws    a municipal employee is an employee at will and has no property interest in employment. Castelaz v. Milwaukee, 94 Wis.2d 513, 520, 289 N.W.2d 259 (1980); Adamczyk v. Caledonia, 52 Wis.2d 270, 273-274, 190 N.W.2d 137 (1971); accord Amendola v. Schliewe, 732 F.2d 79, 83 (7th Cir.1984); compare Hough v. Dane County, 157 Wis.2d 32, 40-42, 458 N.W.2d 543 (Ct.App.1990). Accordingly, Wisconsin courts have also held that [t]he rights of an employee terminable only for cause are considered property rights. Dane County v. McCartney, 166 Wis.2d 956, 480 N.W.2d 830 (Ct.App.1992); see also Hanson v. Madison Service Corp., 150 Wis.2d 828, 443 N.W.2d 315, 317 (Ct.App.1989). 15 It is clear, then, that under Wisconsin law an employee terminable only for cause has a protected property interest in her employment. See, e.g., Vorwald, 482 N.W.2d at 96; Oddsen v. Board of Fire and Police Com'rs, 108 Wis.2d 143, 321 N.W.2d 161 (1982). What is not clear is the scope of that property interest. As a member of the classified civil service of the City of Milwaukee, Listenbee's property interest is defined by Wis.Stat. § 63.43, which reads in relevant part: 16 63.43 Removals for just cause only; reasons to be furnished in writing; hearings; decisions. (1) No person or employe holding an office or position classified and graded under ss. 63.18 to 63.53 shall be removed, discharged or reduced, except for just cause which shall not be political or religious    (2)    Nothing in ss. 63.18 to 63.53 shall limit the power of an officer to suspend a subordinate for a reasonable period not exceeding 15 days. In case an employe is again suspended within 6 months for any period whatever, the employe so suspended shall have the right of hearing or investigation by the commission on the second suspension or any subsequent suspension within the period, the same as provided in this section. (Emphasis added.)While both parties agree that the statute provides a property interest in employment, the City argues that the property interest in employment held by Listenbee and other Milwaukee civil service employees is not a right to perfectly continuous employment. According to the City's reading of Wis.Stat. § 63.43, that statute grants a substantive property interest not to be removed, discharged or reduced except for just cause, but permits employees to be suspended for any reason. 17 The plaintiff, on the other hand, asserts that when the statute grants civil service employees a substantive right not to be removed, discharged or reduced except for just cause, the statute implicitly grants the right not to be suspended without cause. Under the plaintiff's theory, the statute accords a substantive entitlement to continuous employment, but then unconstitutionally denies any procedural recourse to employees who have been deprived of their statutory entitlement to employment for less than fifteen days, once in a six-month period. 18 Our analysis begins with the recognition that once a local government grants a substantive property interest, it may not deprive an individual of that interest without due process. Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494. The local government may define the property right, but it may not define the minimum constitutional requirements of due process. While the legislature may elect not to confer a property interest in [public] employment, it may not constitutionally authorize the deprivation of such an interest, once conferred, without appropriate procedural safeguards. Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 541, 105 S.Ct. at 1493. 19 Just as a local government may not define the minimum constitutional requirements of due process, it may not define the scope of a property right by reference to the procedures provided for the right's deprivation. The Supreme Court explicitly rejected this bitter with the sweet approach from Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (plurality opinion). Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 541, 105 S.Ct. at 1493. Accordingly, the procedural portion of Wis.Stat. § 63.43(2), which states that the suspended employee shall have the right of hearing or investigation by the commission only for suspensions of more than fifteen days or for suspensions which occur more than once within a six-month period, cannot limit or define an employee's substantive entitlement. In order to ensure the continued viability of the constitutional right of procedural due process, the Supreme Court has emphatically stated that [t]he categories of substance and procedure are distinct. Id. 2 20 The important question raised in this case, then, is whether the statute, irrespective of its procedural provisions, grants employees a substantive property interest not to be suspended. The district court ultimately accepted the defendant's argument that Section 63.43(2) does not provide a substantive property interest with respect to suspension, but rather permits civil servants to be suspended for any reason. Because Section 63.43 states that a civil servant may be removed, discharged or reduced for cause, but does not state that suspensions must be for cause, the district court concluded that a civil service employee in Wisconsin has no property right to employment free of suspensions. Decision and Order of Judge Reynolds, December 27, 1990, 753 F.Supp. 780, 783. 21 We agree that the district court's logic is persuasive in light of the structure of the statute. The statute does not include suspensions in the list of employment actions requiring cause, and later specifically mentions that nothing shall limit the City's ability to subject employees to short-term suspensions. The district court's rationale is also sensible in light of the common-sense notion that a state might justifiably distinguish between permanent employment actions such as termination, and temporary employment decisions such as suspensions. 22 A state creates protected liberty or property interests by placing substantive limitations on official discretion. Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 1747, 75 L.Ed.2d 813. The portion of Section 63.43(2) at issue states that Nothing in ss. 63.18 to 63.53 shall limit the power of an officer to suspend a subordinate for a reasonable period not exceeding 15 days. The plaintiff has a tenable argument that the statute creates a property interest regarding suspensions. The statute does not state that the employee can be suspended for any reason and the statutory term reasonable appears to provide substantive limits on the City's ability to suspend civil servants. The state's statutory right to suspend employees for a reasonable period could be considered to contain an implicit promise that the employee will only be suspended for reasonable cause since even a one-day suspension is an unreasonable period if the suspension is without cause. Moreover, if an employee's primary property entitlement in employment is an entitlement to a stream of financial payments, a property interest in the whole of an employee's salary may necessarily imply an interest in continuous salary payments. 23 Of course, a Wisconsin state court could interpret this statute in the manner plaintiff suggests to provide a property interest in continuous employment. See Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 539, 105 S.Ct. at 1491; Smith v. Eaton, 910 F.2d 1469, 1471-1472 n. 4 (7th Cir.1990), certiorari denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1587, 113 L.Ed.2d 651; Bailey v. Kirk, 777 F.2d 567, 575 (10th Cir.1985); Best v. Boswell, 696 F.2d 1282, 1289-1290 (11th Cir.1983), certiorari denied, Best v. Eagerton, 464 U.S. 828, 104 S.Ct. 103, 78 L.Ed.2d 107; D'Acquisto v. Washington, 640 F.Supp. 594, 607 (N.D.Ill.1986); Murphy v. Wack, 1991 W.L. 64193 at 6, 11 (S.D.N.Y.1991). In fact, in Muscare v. Quinn, 520 F.2d 1212 (7th Cir.1975), rehearing denied, 520 F.2d at 1216-1217, certiorari dismissed as improvidently granted, 425 U.S. 560, 96 S.Ct. 1752, 48 L.Ed.2d 165 this Circuit reached such a conclusion. In that case, when faced with a nearly identical state statute, this Court concluded that [p]ublic employees facing temporary suspension for less than 30 days have interests qualifying for protection under the due process clause. Id. at 1215. 24 However, recent cases from the Supreme Court and this Circuit counsel that the existence of a property interest depends upon  'explicitly mandatory language,' in connection with the establishment of 'specified substantive predicates' to limit discretion. Kentucky Department of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460-463, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1908-10, 104 L.Ed.2d 506; Wallace v. Robinson, 940 F.2d 243 (7th Cir.1991) (en banc), certiorari denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1563, 118 L.Ed.2d 210. Those cases hold that restrictions such as reasonableness do not qualify as the type of explicitly mandatory language that creates a property interest. In view of these cases, Muscare is no longer dispositive on the issue of property interests. 3 Absent guidance from Wisconsin's state courts, we must follow the current holdings of the Supreme Court and this Circuit when defining the nature of Listenbee's state law entitlement. As such, we conclude that even though Listenbee had a property right in continued employment, she does not possess a property interest in continuous employment. 25 The judgment of the district court is affirmed.