Court Opinion

ID: 9565809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:28:26.396055+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:54.239565
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority’s treatment of the plaintiff’s claims in parts I and III of the opinion, but reach a different result in examining the plaintiff’s liberty interest claim as expressed in part II.
A mere defamation by a public official is not a deprivation of either a property or a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976). A liberty interest is implicated when a defamation is coupled with action by the State which alters a right or status of a defamed plaintiff. Id. 424 U.S. at 710-712, 96 S.Ct. at 1164-66. A claim under Paul and its progeny is a procedural due process claim. Id. 424 U.S. at 710 n. 5, 96 S.Ct. at 1165 n. 5.1
A person’s liberty interest is altered when a government employer forecloses a future opportunity to government employment in a manner that contravenes Due Process. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Two interests of a governmental employee are present under the liberty interest analysis of Roth: “(1) protection of his good name, reputation, honor and integrity, and (2) freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities.” Walker v. United States, 744 F.2d 67, 69 (10th Cir.1984). See also, Conaway v. Smith, 853 F.2d 789, 794 (10th Cir.1988), and Development in the Law-Public Employ*420ment, 97 Harv.L.Rev. 1611, 1788 (1984). In Roth the Court found that no liberty interest was implicated and distinguished the case from others with the following language:
“Similarly, there is no suggestion that the State, in declining to re-employ the respondent, imposed on him a stigma or other disability that foreclosed his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities. The State, for example, did not invoke any regulations to bar the respondent from all other public employment in state universities. Had it done so, this, again, would be a different case. For ‘[t]o be deprived not only of present government employment but of future opportunity for it certainly is no small injury....’
... The Court has held, for example, that a State, in regulating eligibility for a type of professional employment, cannot forclose a range of opportunities ‘in a manner ... that contravene[s] ... Due Process,’
... and, specifically, in a manner that denies the right to a full prior hearing.” Id. 408 U.S. at 573-574, 92 S.Ct. at 2707-2708. (Citations ommitted).
Thus, a governmental employer may not terminate a person from its employment while attaching a stigma to the employee which denies the employee the opportunity to future government employment without affording that employee an opportunity to refute the stigmatizing allegations. Paul v. Davis, supra, and Board of Regents v. Roth, supra.
The Due Process claim is divided into two parts: 1. Showing the deprivation of a protected liberty or property interest; and 2. Showing the nature of process required. Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 672, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 1413, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977). See also, Easterbrook, Substance and Due Process, 1982, Supreme Court Review, 85, 87 (1982). The plaintiff herein is required to show the three elements of his liberty interest claim: 1. That he was falsely stigmatized; 2. That the stigmatization was in connection with his discharge; and 3. That the charges were made public. Lentsch v. Marshall, 741 F.2d 301 (10th Cir.1984); Graham v. City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 859 F.2d 142, 145 n. 2 (10th Cir.1988).
The second and third elements were treated by the trial judge in overruling the defendant’s request for a directed verdict. The judge pointed out that testimony showed that one of the Commissioners “was the board spokesman, as the chairman on the night of the 18th, whenever he called the reporter” and that the chairman “made certain statements to the press” as to why the plaintiff was fired. (O.R. Vol. Ill at 743). Thus, the charges were made public in connection with the plaintiff’s discharge.
The remaining issue is the first element: Was the plaintiff falsely stigmatized? The majority holds as a matter of law that he was not. I disagree. However, before explaining my disagreement, I am compelled to note an apparent inconsistency with the majority’s treatment of this issue. It finds that the plaintiff’s allegations of fact in the petition are sufficient to show the deprivation of a liberty interest, while holding that the plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to show a deprivation of a liberty interest. I find this approach to be inconsistent because, as I view the record, the plaintiff’s evidence demonstrated the facts that were alleged.
The Tenth Circuit has found that certain communications are stigmatizing. For examples, see Ewers v. Board of County Commissioners of Curry County, 802 F.2d 1242, 1249 (10th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1008, 108 S.Ct. 704, 98 L.Ed.2d 655 (1988), [communication was stigmatizing under the test in Asbill v. Housing Authority of Choctaw Nation, 726 F.2d 1499 (10th Cir.1984)] and Walker v. United States, 744 F.2d 67, 69 (10th Cir.1984), (plaintiff stigmatized by accusation that he lied on a government employment application). The Tenth Circuit has also found that certain communications were not stigmatizing due to the nature of the communication, and examples of such are listed in Conaway v. Smith, 853 F.2d 789, 794 (10th Cir.1988).
*421In the present case the plaintiff attempted to show by expert testimony that the communication had a stigmatizing effect.2 His expert appeared to indicate that the plaintiff had difficulty in finding employment due to the newspaper stories as well as due to the fact that he was fired. Mere termination is insufficient by itself to show a stigmatization. See, Martin v. Unified School Dist. No. 434, Osage County, 728 F.2d 453, 455-456 (10th Cir.1984), wherein the court said that proof that termination, by itself, made the plaintiff less attractive to potential employers was not enough to implicate a liberty interest. However, it would appear to me that with or without the expert witness testimony the communication in this case shows on its face to have stigmatized the plaintiff.
The representative of the Authority, it’s chairman, on the night the plaintiff was fired made an unsolicited phone call to a reporter stating that the plaintiff was fired because his poor judgment included “violating any possible confidence by his taping of telephone conversations with board members without their knowledge and playing them back to staff for entertainment”. The Authority, by its Chairman, also told another reporter that the plaintiff “betrayed the commissioner’s trust when he taped phone conversations without their knowledge and played them back for the entertainment of the staff”.
One author has said that: “Defamation is rather that which tends to injure reputation in the popular sense; to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which the plaintiff is held, or to excite adverse derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him.” Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts, 773 (W. Keeton 5th ed. 1984) (Emphasis added). See also, Kimmerle v. New York Evening Journal, Inc., 262 N.Y. 99, 186 N.E. 217, 218 (1933) wherein the court explained that reputation is injured by words which deprive the plaintiff of the confidence of others.
The allegedly false fact, that the plaintiff was secretly taping his supervisors for the entertainment of the staff must, in the case before us, be sufficient as a matter of law to show that it deprived the plaintiff of the confidence of others. Indeed, the very words of the chairman were that the Authority no longer had confidence in the plaintiff based on the taping. This analysis of general defamation principles is in accord with a “stigmatization” analysis. A stigmatization occurs when the employer “eall[s] into question plaintiff’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity.” Bailey v. Kirk, 777 F.2d 567, 573 (10th Cir.1985). Thus, the Authority’s communication that Blanton secretly taped his supervisors for the amusement of staff calls into question Blanton’s good name, honor, reputation, or integrity. The truthfulness or untruthfulness of that communication was properly in the province of the jury.
In Miller v. City of Mission, Kansas, 705 F.2d 368, 374 (10th Cir.1983), the court said:
“Given the nature of the reasons for Miller’s terminmation, the jury could have reasonably inferred that the widespread public distribution of the allegations injured his standing in the community and severely impeded his ability to find other employment.
... ‘The jury has the exclusive function of appraising credibility, determining the weight to be given to the testimony, drawing inferences from the facts established, resolving conflicts in the evidence, and reaching ultimate conclusions of fact.’ ” Id. 705 F.2d at 374.
Similar reasoning is found in Johnson v. Rogers, 621 F.2d 300 (8th Cir.1980), wherein the court explained that the jury could *422have reasonably concluded that the plaintiff was denied a liberty interest under the facts of the case. See, McGhee v. Draper, 564 F.2d 902, 910 (10th Cir.1977), wherein the court said that under the facts of that case: “We agree that the claim of involvement of a liberty interest could not be rejected by a directed verdict ruling,” See also, McGhee v. Draper, 639 F.2d 639, 643 (10th Cir.1981).
I would hold that the plaintiffs liberty interest claim was properly submitted to the jury. Since improper grounds for recovery were also submitted to the jury, i.e. the property interest claim and the good-faith employment claim, and on the jury’s verdict it is impossible to sever recovery on the proper from recovery on the improper, I would remand this case for retrial on the liberty interest3 issue alone. Guinn v. Church of Christ of Collinsville, 775 P.2d 766 (Okla.1989).
I am authorized to state that Justice ALMA WILSON and Justice KAUGER join in these views.

. In Lindsey v. State ex rel. Dept. of Corrections, 593 P.2d 1088 (Okla.1979), the court explained that "The government as employer is bound by the requirements of substantive due process." Id. 593 P.2d at 1092. See also, Sipes v. United States, 744 F.2d 1418, 1420 n. 3 (10th Cir.1984), and Harris v. Blake, 798 F.2d 419, 424-425 (10th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1033, 107 S.Ct. 882, 93 L.Ed.2d 836 (1987), wherein the court discussed substantive due process claims. No argument with supporting relevant authority is before the court involving a substantive due process claim. Thus, my analysis is limited to plaintiffs claims based on procedural due process as afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment.

. An accusation of employee insubordination not stigmatizing on its face is sufficient to survive a defendant’s motion for summary judgment if the plaintiff can show by evidence that the accusation had a stigmatizing effect. Cona-way v. Smith, 853 F.2d at 794-795. It has, of course, been long recognized that issues of fact are to be determined by a jury under appropriate instructions from the court. Diederich v. American News Co., 128 F.2d 144 (10th Cir.1942). Thus, even if the accusation concerning the taped phone conversations was not stigmatizing as suggested by the majority, the plaintiff's claim is proper for a jury because he introduced evidence of a stigmatizing effect from the communication.

. Because the majority appears to deal only with the issue of whether or not a stigmatization occurred as a matter of law, I do not address the second prong of a liberty interest analysis, i.e., the nature of process that is due. But see, Zinermon v. Burch, — U.S.-, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990).