Opinion ID: 2541976
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Procedural Due Process Claims

Text: Because professional licenses are considered to be property for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, procedural due process is required before the government may deprive anyone of his or her professional license. See Stone v. Missouri Dept. of Health and Senior Serv., 350 S.W.3d 14, 27 (Mo. banc 2011). On the other hand, because no one has a property interest in a mere unilateral expectation, see Daniels v. Bd. of Curators of Lincoln Univ., 51 S.W.3d 1, 6 (Mo.App. 2001), due process generally is not required before the denial of a new application for professional licensure. Gurley's case raises a somewhat different issue: When the state initially enacts a licensing requirement for a given profession, is procedural due process required before denial if the applicant already has been practicing in the profession, already owns a well-established business and already possesses a professional license issued by a municipal government? Gurley admits that, because the AHC ordered the board to issue him a license and the board has complied, his procedural due process claims are moot. Nevertheless, Gurley argues that the Court has discretion to entertain those claims because the public interest exception to the mootness doctrine applies here. The public interest exception to mootness applies whenever a case presents an issue that (1) is of general public interest and importance, (2) will recur and (3) will evade appellate review in future live controversies. City of Manchester v. Ryan, 180 S.W.3d 19, 22 (Mo.App.2005). Here, the Court does not have discretion to entertain Gurley's procedural due process claims because the issue presented fails the second prong of the test. Any assertion that the precise situation in which Gurley found himself will recur is purely speculative. Regulations implementing the statewide private investigator licensure statute became effective in early 2010, and it is now early 2012. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone engaged in the private investigator business prior to 2010 and who wished to become licensed by the state of Missouri has yet to work his or her way through the licensure process. The public interest exception to the mootness doctrine therefore is inapplicable here, and the Court declines to entertain Gurley's procedural due process claims.