Opinion ID: 789575
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequate Process

Text: 48 Defendants submit that Velez's stigma-plus claim should, nonetheless, be dismissed because Velez has been afforded adequate process in the form of a post-removal hearing. The district court, having found, as we have, that the plaintiff possessed a cognizable liberty interest, agreed with the defendants that the opportunity, which Velez received, to clear her name after the fact was all the process to which she was entitled. 49 In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on Donato, in which we remanded a stigma-plus claim and ordered a name-clearing inquiry. We there wrote: A hearing must be held for the limited purpose of giving a discharged employee an opportunity to clear her name. A name-clearing hearing significantly reduces the risk that an employee will be dismissed with false stigmatizing charges placed in her personnel file. See Donato, 96 F.3d at 633. Pointing to that language, the district court in the instant case observed, [t]he appeals process that the plaintiff took advantage of not only allowed the plaintiff to contest the findings of the investigative report, but also her removal from office, and as a result of this process, the plaintiff was restored to School Board # 1. 274 F.Supp.2d at 453. Since, the court reasoned, Velez concededly received this ex post process, she failed to allege a valid stigma-plus, procedural due process claim. Id. 50 The district court, when it so concluded, did not, however, have the benefit of our recent decision in DiBlasio v. Novello, 344 F.3d 292 (2d Cir.2003). In a context similar to the one before us, DiBlasio reconfirmed the long-standing and well settled proposition that an ex post, as opposed to a pre-removal, hearing is inadequate to satisfy the dictates of due process where the government actor in question is a high-ranking [state] official with `final authority over significant matters.' Id. at 302 (quoting Burtnieks v. City of New York, 716 F.2d 982, 988 (2d Cir.1983)). 51 In DiBlasio, the commissioner of the New York Department of Health issued a press release indicating that he had suspended the license of the plaintiff, a radiologist, based on a finding of incompetence and of criminal[ ] behavior. Id. at 295. The plaintiff sued the commissioner, asserting, among other things, a stigma-plus liberty violation. On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the district court dismissed the due process claim, citing Hellenic Am. Neighborhood Action Comm. v. City of New York, 101 F.3d 877, 880 (2d Cir.1996). ( Hellenic American amplified the Supreme Court's distinction between (a) claims based on established state procedures and (b) claims based on random, unauthorized acts by state employees, id., and emphasized that, because the state is in no position to provide adequate pre-deprivation process in the latter case, post-deprivation review is adequate. Id. But in so holding, it also indicated that where established state procedures are involved, pre-removal hearings will normally be required. Id. ) On its reading of Hellenic American, the district court in DiBlasio concluded that the commissioner's statements required only a post-deprivation proceeding. 52 On appeal we held that the district court had erred in this conclusion. We started from the long accepted premise that due process dictates that persons ordinarily deserve some kind of hearing prior to the deprivation of a liberty interest, 344 F.3d at 302, and that it is only where the state is effectively unable to anticipate and prevent a random deprivation of a liberty interest, [that] post deprivation remedies might satisfy due process. Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 132, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990). For this reason, we held that post-deprivation remedies do not suffice where the government actor in question is a high ranking official with `final authority over significant matters' DiBlasio, 344 F.3d at 302 (quoting Burtnieks v. City of New York, 716 F.2d 982, 988 (2d Cir.1983)); see also Dwyer v. Regan, 777 F.2d 825, 832 (2d Cir.1985). Since the state acts through its high-level officials, the decisions of these officials more closely resemble established state procedures than the haphazard acts of individual state actors that the Hellenic American exception was designed to cover. DiBlasio, 344 F.3d at 303. The health commissioner's actions in DiBlasio could therefore not be deemed to be random or unauthorized, and pre-removal process was required. On that basis, plaintiff's liberty interest claim was reinstated. Id. 14 53 Here, with respect to Chancellor Levy, our reasoning in DiBlasio applies with equal force. Levy is precisely the sort of high ranking official identified by this line of cases. Just as in DiBlasio, where the commissioner had the authority to suspend summarily DiBlasio's license, and had the duty as commissioner to ensure that the department followed the prescribed procedures governing summary suspensions, id. at 304, Levy had the authority to remove Velez, and the duty as Chancellor to follow the governing New York statutes and regulations. And, as in DiBlasio, any abuse of that authority that rose to the level of a due process violation cannot be considered `random and unauthorized.' Id. 15 Accordingly, Velez was entitled to a pre-deprivation hearing before Levy executed the decision to remove her from the board. 16 54 It follows that the plaintiff's allegation that the Chancellor acted without providing an adequate pre -deprivation hearing states a valid claim under the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. 17 We hold otherwise, however, with respect to the plaintiff's procedural due process cause of action against the board members. To begin with, it seems to us likely that the board members' alleged acts — inventing a story of the plaintiff's criminal behavior in an effort to secure her removal from the board — fall within the random and unauthorized exception articulated in Hellenic American. More important, none of the board member defendants had the power to provide process to the plaintiff. They did not undertake or oversee the investigation, and they could order neither pre-removal review nor post-removal remedies. As a consequence they cannot be held legally accountable for the alleged process failure. 55 The same is true as to the investigators, Hyland, DeLeo, and Colon. Velez alleges that the investigators acted in concert with the Chancellor in effecting her removal from office. [JA116] But Velez concedes that the investigators had no legal authority to bring about her ouster, for only Levy was empowered to impose that plus. Accordingly, Velez's complaint does not state a theory under which the investigators can be taken to have deprived Velez of her stigma-plus liberty interest. They are not alleged to have uttered the stigma at issue, and they could not have imposed the plus to which she avers. We therefore affirm the district court's dismissal of Velez's liberty interest claim against the investigators. 56