Opinion ID: 770490
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Pre-termination Claim Regarding Tenure Transfer

Text: 64 Alvin's last claim is that he was denied constitutionally mandated notice and a hearing before his transfer of tenure from SPharm to the School of Dental Medicine. This is distinct from his other claims, in which his quarrel with the University concerns the adequacy of their post -termination procedures.
65 Alvin submits that he did not receive any notice or hearing prior to being transferred, and the Constitution requires that he have these pre-deprivation procedures. 5 Unlike the other claims, a complete constitutional violation has (allegedly) already occurred; if the Constitution requires pre-termination procedures, the most thorough and fair post-termination hearing cannot undo the failure to provide such procedures. See Stana v. School Dist. of Pittsburgh, 775 F.2d 122, 129 (3d Cir. 1985) (indicating that following Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985), there can be no requirement to pursue post-deprivation remedies when pre-deprivation notice or hearing is required for due process). To determine whether and what sort of pre-deprivation hearing is required, we examine, and balance, three factors: 66 First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government's interest. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). While, under this test, a public employee is generally entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard prior to being deprived of his or her property interest in employment, see, e.g., McDaniels v. Flick, 59 F.3d 446, 456 (3d Cir. 1995), this rule is not absolute, see Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924, 929 (1997). The pre-termination hearing must be examined in light of the the last factor in the Mathews balancing... the risk of erroneous deprivation and the likely value of any additional procedures. Id. at 933. In Codd v. Velgar, 429 U.S. 624 (1977), the Court concluded that a pre-termination hearing was not required when there was no underlying factual dispute to be hashed out in the hearing: [I]f 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. Id. at 627-28 (emphasis added). As in Codd, there was simply no factual dispute that a pre-deprivation notice or hearing could have addressed. Alvin's transfer was as part of a large and undifferentiated group--all the SPharm faculty were transferred--and there were no factual disputes that could have been resolved at a hearing. 67 Even Alvin's letters and complaint acknowledge that the argument about the transfer is an argument about University-wide policy--not a disagreement about accusations against Alvin. Therefore, the risk of error, as it were, was nonexistent. In sum, while Alvin may be able to make out a breach of contract claim for the transfer, we find that the absence of pre-deprivation notice or a hearing did not, in itself, violate his due process rights.