Opinion ID: 201433
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Clearly Established Right and Reasonableness

Text: 27 It is beyond debate that, as a general matter, the constitutional right to due process claimed by Whalen was clearly established at the time he was laid off. As we have discussed, the law was unequivocal in 2002 that an employee with a property interest in his employment was entitled to pre-termination notice of the reasons for his performance-based discharge and an opportunity to respond. 28 But the inquiry into whether a right is clearly established `must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition,' Mihos, 358 F.3d at 109 (quoting Suboh, 298 F.3d at 93 (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001))); see also Brosseau v. Haugen, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 596, 599, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2004); Riverdale Mills Corp., 392 F.3d at 65-66, and this is not a standard performance-based dismissal case. At the threshold level, the motivation behind Whalen's termination was budgetary. It is undisputed that, without the fiscal crisis, Whalen would not have been targeted for dismissal, and, indeed, once the crisis passed he was reinstated. As the defendants have pointed out, this was not a termination intended to sever an employment relationship but a layoff accompanied by recall rights in the event fiscal conditions improved. In these circumstances, there is at least some merit to the defendants' argument that the procedural protections outlined in section 8 (of chapter 211B) for a removal for cause are inapplicable. Indeed, before it dismissed the case as moot, the district court certified that issue to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. 8 29 Although the applicability of the procedural protections specified in section 8 does not determine Whalen's federal due process rights, the uncertainty reflected by the certification is relevant to our inquiry. The statute, in conjunction with ch. 218, § 10, appears to confer procedural protections on the same group of assistant clerks who possess a federal constitutional right to due process, i.e., those who have held their jobs for at least three years. If we cannot say with assurance that the statutory procedures are intended to apply in Whalen's circumstances — and, like the district court, we cannot — it would be a stretch to conclude that Whalen had a clearly established right to the notice and hearing afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment. The differences we have noted between the circumstances here and the typical termination-for-cause complicate matters in both settings. 30 But whether or not we proclaim the right clearly established in the specific context of this case, the outcome of our immunity inquiry would be the same because defendants inevitably would prevail at the third step of the analysis. 9 We believe an objectively reasonable Massachusetts official could have drawn the conclusion — albeit incorrectly — that a budget-driven layoff effectuated by reference to performance is nonetheless a budget-driven layoff, and thus exempt from the procedural requirements applicable to terminations for cause. Although we have now clarified that due process requires that an employee who holds a property right in his job be given notice and opportunity to respond whenever he is terminated in a person-directed rather than position-directed personnel action[], Hartman, 636 F.Supp. at 1412, a reasonable official could have taken into account the possibly (and ultimately) temporary nature of Whalen's termination and the financial crisis that triggered it to conclude that the Loudermill line of cases was not implicated. 31 Certainly, in terms of future employment, a budgetary layoff is likely to have less drastic consequences than a classic termination-for-cause; an official focusing on the layoff label and the nature of the harm, against the backdrop of the reorganization exception, reasonably may have miscalculated in weighing the competing interests. See Gilbert, 520 U.S. at 932, 117 S.Ct. 1807 ([W]hile our opinions have recognized the severity of depriving someone of the means of his livelihood, ... they have also emphasized that in determining what process is due, account must be taken of `the length ' and ` finality of the deprivation.') (citations omitted). In sum, because we believe an objectively reasonable official in the defendants' position would not necessarily have understood that his action violated the plaintiff's rights, we hold that the district court properly granted qualified immunity to the individual defendants. 10