Opinion ID: 3001728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Posttermination Hearing Claim

Text: Michalowicz does not allege any inadequacy in the procedures of section 1-18-8 of the Village’s municipal code, see BEDFORD PARK, ILL., CODE § 1-18-8, which governed his posttermination hearing.1 Rather, he claims he was denied due process because the Village allowed the Board of Trustees—which he maintains was biased against him—to conduct his hearing instead of an independent 1 As discussed in greater length in Part II-B, Michalowicz questions whether section 1-18-8 should have governed his termination due to his status as a union member. However, there is no dispute that the Village has continuously considered Michalowicz entitled to its protections. No. 06-3857 7 employee relations committee as required by section 1-18- 8. See id. (an employee relations committee member may “[n]ot be a full time regular employee, part time employee, or an elected or appointed official of the village”). This species of due-process claim is a challenge to the “random and unauthorized” actions of the state officials in question, i.e., to their unforeseeable misconduct in failing to follow the requirements of existing law. See Strasburger v. Bd. of Educ., Hardin County Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 1, 143 F.3d 351, 358 (7th Cir. 1998) (citing Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 540 (1981)); see also Easter House v. Felder, 910 F.2d 1387, 1396-98 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc) (discussing Parratt in light of Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984), and Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113 (1990)). Because such misconduct is inherently unpredictable, the state’s obligation under the Due Process Clause is to provide sufficient remedies after its occurrence, rather than to prevent it from happening. See Doherty, 75 F.3d at 323 (“Where state law remedies [to random and unauthorized conduct] exist, a plaintiff must either avail herself of the remedies guaranteed by state law or demonstrate that the available remedies are inadequate.”). Accordingly, Michalowicz’s claim can stand only if Illinois law provides insufficient remedies for the violation he alleges. “[W]e should not reject [a state-law remedy as inadequate] unless the remedy . . . can readily be characterized as inadequate to the point that it is meaningless or nonexistent and, thus, in no way can be said to provide the due process relief guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment.” Easter House, 910 F.2d at 1406. The state-law remedy in question is the Illinois Administrative Review Act (“the Act”), 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/3-101 et seq., which estab- 8 No. 06-3857 lishes procedures for seeking state-court review of a final administrative ruling. Michalowicz maintains the Act fails to meet the low threshold for adequacy because it provides that “[t]he findings and conclusions of the administrative agency on questions of fact shall be held to be prima facie true and correct.” 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/3-110; see also Birdsell v. Bd. of Fire & Police Comm’rs of Litchfield, 854 F.2d 204, 209 (7th Cir. 1988) (stating that § 5/3-110 prevents employees from “challeng[ing] the factual bases for administrative decisions in post-termination judicial proceedings”). Because the Act does not permit courts to take new evidence outside the administrative record, Michalowicz asserts, it provides no opportunity for a de novo hearing before a new decision-maker should he prevail on his claim that the Village Board was unauthorized or too biased to preside over his posttermination hearing. Michalowicz’s focus on his inability to introduce additional evidence on state-court judicial review under the Act is unclear. His argument is not that his ability to develop the factual record at his posttermination hearing was circumscribed, but rather that the Village Board was biased against him and therefore made inappropriate credibility determinations and manifestly erroneous conclusions despite the fully developed factual record. This sort of error may be remedied by state-court review of Michalowicz’s legal and factual challenges to the Village Board’s action against him. Such review is the essence of the Act, which permits review of “all questions of law and fact presented by the entire record,” 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/3-110; charges courts with “determin[ing] if the conclusion is against the manifest weight of the evidence,” Comito v. Police Bd. of Chi., 739 N.E.2d 942, 948 (Ill. App. Ct. No. 06-3857 9 2000); and provides authority to reverse if so, see 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/3-111(a)(5) (“The Circuit Court has power to affirm or reverse the decision in whole or in part.”). Illinois courts have recognized that the factual findings of administrative bodies may be challenged by a claim of bias or prejudice such as the one Michalowicz alleges. See, e.g., Comito, 739 N.E.2d at 948 (“deferential standard [of review of factual record] is not controlling where the Board is prejudiced or biased against the claimant and incapable of giving him a fair hearing”); A.R.F. Landfill, Inc. v. Pollution Control Bd., 528 N.E.2d 390, 394 (Ill. App. Ct. 1988) (“Where . . . the administrative agency is engaged in an adjudicatory capacity, bias or prejudice may be shown if a disinterested observer might conclude that the administrative body, or its members, had in some measure adjudged the facts as well as the law of the case in advance of hearing it.”). Moreover, while it is true, as we recognized in Birdsell, that the Act does not permit the reviewing court to engage in independent fact-finding, it does permit the court to remand for additional factfinding if necessary, see 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/3-111(a)(7) (reviewing court may “remand for the purpose of taking additional evidence when from the state of the record of the administrative agency or otherwise it shall appear that such action is just”), and “to give such other instructions as may be proper” on remand, id. § 5/3-111(a)(6). If the reviewing court were to find bias or procedural impropriety on the part of the Village Board, a remand for a de novo posttermination hearing in front of an unbiased adjudicator would fit comfortably within these broad powers. Thus, the relief Michalowicz seeks—an independent review of whether the evidence supports his termination 10 No. 06-3857 and whether the Village Board was biased or failed to follow the prescribed procedure in connection with his termination—falls squarely within the ambit of the Act, both through the state court’s own review of the administrative record and through its authority to remand for rehearing. Cf. Stachowski v. Town of Cicero, 425 F.3d 1075, 1078 (7th Cir. 2005) (“Illinois law afforded [the plaintiff] all the process he was due . . . [through] administrative review of the Board’s final decision under the Illinois Administrative Review Act.”). Because the Act provides adequate remedies for the alleged violation of existing procedural requirements, Michalowicz has not stated a due-process claim arising from his posttermination hearing. See Schacht v. Wis. Dep’t of Corr., 175 F.3d 497, 503 (7th Cir. 1999) (no procedural due-process violation results if “[t]he availability of administrative remedies at the hands of an unbiased decisionmaker” still exists), overruled on other grounds by Higgins v. Mississippi, 217 F.3d 951 (7th Cir. 2000).