Opinion ID: 356151
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the liberty interest question

Text: 7  The requirements of procedural due process apply only to the deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and property. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2705, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Because mere non-renewal of a teacher's contract is not such a blight upon his good name, reputation, honor, or integrity as to constitute a deprivation of liberty, non-tenured teachers  may be discharged for no reason or for any reason not impermissible in itself or as applied. Kaprelian v. Texas Women's University, 509 F.2d 133, 139 (5th Cir. 1975). See also Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 574 n.13, 92 S.Ct. at 2708 n.13; Lake Michigan College Federation of Teachers v. Lake Michigan Community College, 518 F.2d 1091, 1096-97 (6th Cir. 1975), cert. denied,427 U.S. 904, 96 S.Ct. 3189, 49 L.Ed.2d 1197 (1976); Shirk v. Thomas, 486 F.2d 691, 693 (7th Cir. 1973). Nevertheless, as we explained in Kaprelian : 8 A liberty interest arises . . . when one is publicly subjected to a badge of infamy, such as being posted as a drunkard. (Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971).) In plaintiff's context, it arises when an employee is able to demonstrate that the State has made a charge that might seriously damage his standing and associations in his community or that is of such a nature as to impose a stigma or other disability that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities. (Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 573, 92 S.Ct. at 2707.) Such a showing is the employee's voucher of admission into the arena of due process; without it such questions do not arise. Moreover, to raise a liberty interest such charges must be public ones . . . . (I)n (Ferguson v. Thomas, supra,) we recognized a place for the making of private, though damaging, charges against an employee who elects to depart rather than air them. Sims v. Fox, 505 F.2d 857 (5th Cir. 1974) also recognizes, however, that where such public charges are denied and discharge is resisted, they may not be the basis of discharge unless due process has been accorded. 509 F.2d at 137-38 (footnotes omitted). 9 The district court in the instant case relied on Kaprelian in holding that Dennis had been deprived of liberty without due process when members of the school board, in explaining why his teaching contract had not been renewed, publicly charged that he had a drinking problem. S & S argues that this reliance on Kaprelian was misplaced and that under the recent Supreme Court case, Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976), decided after Kaprelian, Dennis failed to demonstrate any liberty interest. 1 We disagree. The principles of law announced in Kaprelian stand unaffected by Paul v. Davis and are controlling in this case. 10 In Paul v. Davis, the Supreme Court held that an individual's charge that the State had defamed him, standing alone and apart from any other governmental action with respect to him , did not state a claim for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment. 424 U.S. at 694, 96 S.Ct. at 1157 (emphasis added). The Court reviewed its earlier due process decisions and found a common thread running through each: 11 In each of these cases, as a result of the state action complained of, a right or status previously recognized by state law was distinctly altered or extinguished. It was this alteration, officially removing the interest from the recognition and protection previously afforded by the State, which we found sufficient to invoke the procedural guarantees contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But the interest in reputation alone which respondent seeks to vindicate in this action in federal court is quite different from the liberty or property recognized in those decisions. 424 U.S. at 711, 96 S.Ct. at 1165. 12 Based on its concern that due process not be invoked to protect reputation alone, we have construed Paul v. Davis as establishing a stigma-plus test: To establish a liberty interest sufficient to implicate fourteenth amendment safeguards, the individual must be not only stigmatized but also stigmatized in connection with a denial of a right or status previously recognized under state law. Moore v. Otero, 557 F.2d 435, 437 (5th Cir. 1977). We see in this test no conflict with the rule stated in Kaprelian : Nor is it doubtful that (a non-tenured teacher) who is subjected to defacing public charges in or as a result of the discharge process is entitled to a due-process hearing at which he can make a fair fight to clear his name. 509 F.2d at 139 (emphasis added). 13 Essentially, S & S argues that because Dennis had no property interest in the renewal of his contract, i. e., that his right to continued employment is not recognized under Texas law, he failed to satisfy the plus of the stigma-plus test. However, the Court in Paul v. Davis anticipated the situation present in the instant case and unambiguously indicated that defamation in the course of declining to rehire a non-tenured employee would satisfy the stigma-plus test. In discussing its earlier holding in Roth, supra, the Court observed: 14 While Roth recognized that governmental action defaming an individual in the course of declining to rehire him could entitle the person to notice and an opportunity to be heard as to the defamation, its language is quite inconsistent with any notion that a defamation perpetrated by a government official but unconnected with any refusal to rehire would be actionable under the Fourteenth Amendment . . . . Thus it was not thought sufficient to establish a claim under § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment that there simply be defamation by a state official; the defamation had to occur in the course of the termination of employment. 424 U.S. at 709-10, 96 S.Ct. at 1164-65. 15 Relying upon this language in Paul v. Davis, the Seventh Circuit has rejected the position now advanced by S & S: 16 In other words, infliction of a stigma to reputation accompanied by a failure to rehire (or, a fortiori, by a discharge) states a claim for deprivation of liberty without due process within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, this combination of stigma plus failure to rehire/discharge states a claim even if the failure to rehire or discharge of itself deprives the plaintiff of no property interest within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. We reach this conclusion because on the facts of Roth itself the Supreme Court found that the plaintiff respondent had no claim of entitlement to, or property interest in his job. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 578, 92 S.Ct. 2701. Since the Court in Paul v. Davis specifically approved the Roth dictum concerning stigma to reputation, it follows that stigma to reputation (not itself a deprivation of liberty as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment) plus failure to rehire or discharge (not necessarily involving deprivation of property as defined in the Fourteenth Amendment) may nevertheless when found in conjunction state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deprivation of a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest without due process. 17 Colaizzi v. Walker, 542 F.2d 969, 973 (7th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 960, 97 S.Ct. 1610, 51 L.Ed.2d 811. See also Austin v. Board of Ed. of Georgetown, 562 F.2d 446 (7th Cir. 1977). 18 We agree with the Seventh Circuit that stigma to reputation in conjunction with a failure to rehire a non-tenured employee states a claim under § 1983 for deprivation of a Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest without due process. Such a conclusion is inescapable in light of the Supreme Court's dictum in Roth, as reaffirmed in Paul and subsequent cases. 2 Additionally, our holding comports with the rationale underlying Paul v. Davis. The Court in Paul expressly rejected the theory that every defamation of a private citizen by the government violates a liberty interest sufficient to invoke the protection of the Due Process Clause. Rather, the Court indicated that the existence of a liberty interest depended upon the presence of a special relationship between the government and the individual in specific contexts. Where, for example, the State has conferred a right upon certain citizens the right of adults to purchase liquor in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971) or the right of licensed drivers to operate a vehicle on state highways in Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 29 L.Ed.2d 90 (1971) it may not alter or extinguish that right without due process. Similarly, when the government employs an individual, it may not terminate the relationship in a manner which might seriously damage his standing and associations in his community or foreclose his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities without affording him a due process hearing at which he can make a fair fight to clear his name. Kaprelian, supra, 509 F.2d at 137-139. It is the individual's status as a government employee and not his property interest in continued employment which furnishes the plus that raises reputation to the level of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Under our holding, of course, the State remains free to terminate or decline to rehire a non-tenured employee for no reason at all or for stigmatizing, even false reasons privately stated. 19 S & S also argues that it did not deprive Dennis of a liberty interest because he was able to secure employment in another school district. In support of this contention, S & S cites Moore v. Otero, supra, in which we held that (w)hen an employee retains his position (or is transferred to another position) even after being defamed by a public official, the only claim of stigma he has derives from the injury to his reputation, an interest that Paul reveals does not rise to the level of a liberty interest. 557 F.2d at 438. Because the employee in Moore continued to work, albeit in a different capacity, for the same employer, that case has little relevance to the instant case. 3 Here, Dennis' employment with S & S was terminated; in no sense did he continue to be an employee of S & S. 4 Only after his ties with S & S were severed did he seek and eventually find employment elsewhere. 20 In urging that we extend Moore to cases in which a terminated employee has been able to secure independent employment, S & S advocates too restrictive an interpretation of Roth. Although the Court in Roth stated that a liberty interest might be implicated where the stigma inflicted upon an employee foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities, 408 U.S. at 573, 92 S.Ct. at 2707, it never intimated that such foreclosure was an indispensable element in demonstrating a liberty interest. Indeed, the Court pointed out that due process would have been required in Roth's case had the charge against him (been one) that might seriously damage his standing and associations in his community . . . for example, that he had been guilty of dishonesty, or immorality. Id. Under this alternate test, the existence of a liberty interest depends upon the nature of the charge used as a ground for termination and not upon the actual consequences of the charge. Stretten v. Wadsworth Veterans Hospital, 537 F.2d 361, 365 (9th Cir. 1976). 21 In this case, two members of the school board stated in public that Dennis' teaching contract was not renewed because he had a drinking problem. Dennis has consistently denied this allegation and the district court found as a fact that it was false in that Dennis did not consume intoxicants to excess. We think it self-evident that the allegation of a drinking problem made in connection with the refusal to renew a teacher's contract is one that might seriously damage his standing and associations in his community, Roth, supra, and which calls into question his good name, reputation, honor, or integrity. Wisconsin v. Constantineau, supra, 400 U.S. at 437, 91 S.Ct. at 510. Furthermore, in their testimony during the trial in this case, several board members and a member of the public present at the March, 1974, meeting admitted that the charge leveled against Dennis was likely to blacken his name in the conservative and closely-knit community of Sadler-Southmayd. T. 245-46 (Monk); T. 401-2, 405 (Patterson); T. 435 (Moore); T. 225-26 (Darrell Williams, spectator at March meeting). Under these circumstances, we find it irrelevant that Dennis was able to secure employment in another community.