Court Opinion

ID: 9551283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:50:45.367928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:26.626530
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, J.,
specially concurring.
The pivotal question raised by the state’s petition for review and Tupper’s cross-petition for review is the validity of the procedures for termination under ORS 240.555, 240.560 and Personnel Rule 81-100, tested by the constitutional requirements of due process. More specifically, the question is whether a pre-termination hearing is required to satisfy due process requirements.1 Both this case and the companion case, Hammer v. Oregon State Penitientiary, decided this day, were briefed and argued solely with reference to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Within the framework it seems probable from Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 US 134, 94 S Ct 1633, 40 L Ed2d 15 (1974), that a post-termination hearing is sufficient to satisfy the federal requirement of due process, at least if certain safeguards such as notice of the charges and an opportunity to respond precede the dismissal. Neither the petitioner nor respondent have sought to determine whether the Oregon Constitution goes beyond this interpretation of the federal constitution, guaranteeing a greater protection in a procedural way to an employee with entitlement. It is important that this inquiry be made because if there is an applicable provision in our constitution which can be construed as requiring a pre-termination hearing, any discussion of the Fourteenth Amendment and its interpretation in the Arnett case is, of course irrelevant.2
Since the applicability of the Oregon Constitution *667was not raised by counsel, the preliminary question is whether this court can raise it sua sponte. This is not the situation, frequently presented, where a constitutional question is not raised at the trial stage and is raised for the first time by counsel on appeal. In the present case it is assumed that a constitutional question of procedural due process under the federal constitution is properly presented; the question is whether this court should, on its own motion, consider the related question of the applicability of Art. I, § 10 of the Oregon Constitution. Since the matter is of substantial public concern, it is our duty to consider it.3
Art. I, § 10 provides:
"No court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered, openly and without purchase, completely and without delay, and every man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury doné him in his person, property, or reputation.”
It has been strongly argued by Professor Hans Linde that the guarantees in Art. I, § 10 are not the precise equivalents of the guarantees found in the Fourteenth Amendment.4 Assuming, without deciding, that this is *668so, it seems clear that the two constitutional provisions are the same insofar as each would prohibit the deprivation of the interests specified in the respective provisions of the federal and Oregon constitutions without fair procedures generally associated with the term "due process.”
In the present case the interest of Tupper is denominated an "entitlement.” Comparable interests of public employees have been classified as "property” interests.5 The inquiry is, therefore, whether the guarantee of Art. I, § 10, of the Oregon Constitution, which prohibits injury to person, property or reputation without due course of law, and guarantees the complete administration of justice, is satisfied by anything short of a pre-termination hearing. In addi*669tion to being a "property” interest, job tenure is also a "reputation” interest. The stigma which an employee suffers upon being discharged from his job, even if only temporarily, can be regarded as an injury to his "reputation,” thus qualifying as a protected interest under Art. I, § 10.6
Beginning, then, with the recognition of a constitutionally protected interest in the petitioner, the court is faced with the question posed above — is a pretermination hearing necessary to meet the minimum standards of due process? In answering this question, it must be recognized that the procedural requisites for a due process hearing vary depending upon the importance of the interests involved. On one hand are the interests of the government in expeditiously removing an unsatisfactory employee; on the other hand are the interests of the employee in retaining his job. In the Arnett case Justice Powell, in a specially concurring opinion, concluded that the interest of the government as employer outweighed the interest of the employee in balancing the need for a pre-termination hearing. He stated:
«* * * Prolonged retention of a disruptive or otherwise unsatisfactory employee can adversely affect discipline and morale in the work place, foster disharmony, and ultimately impair the efficiency of an office or agency.”
He added that
"* * * [A] requirement of a prior evidentiary hearing would impose additional administrative costs, create delay, and deter warranted discharges.” 40 L Ed2d at 41.
*670It is difficult to understand how Mr. Justice Powell could have recited the foregoing as the reasons for his conclusion in the face of the very thorough study of Professor Merrill marshalling facts which point to a contrary conclusion.7 As to "additional administrative costs,” "delay” and the alleged deterrence of warranted discharges, Merrill points out that "The data * * * show that in 1970 agencies that provided hearings in advance generally processed cases faster than those that made a hearing available only on appeal.” He adds that "available data clearly do not show that conducting the hearing afterwards helps shorten the process.”
The contention that the retention of an unsatisfactory employee pending a hearing might be disruptive loses most of its force when it is revealed that the law and regulations existing at the time Arnett was decided required that an employee be given at least thirty days’ notice of a proposed adverse action so that, as pointed out by Merrill, "agency personnel even now must function for at least a month with the threatened employee in their midst.”8 There is no reason to assume that a hearing could not be scheduled and held within that thirty-day period.9 There are other data and factors which could be recited to prove that it is not necessary in the interest of office efficiency to postpone the termination hearing.10 In fact, a pretermination hearing should enhance efficiency by giving the agency an incentive to expedite disposition *671of the matter, allowing it to get on with its primary functions. 11
The conclusion is, then, that the government as employer has no interests which outweigh those of the employee calling for the postponement of the hearing until after termination has been effected. There being no identifiable governmental interests deserving special protection, the hearing requirements necessary to satisfy due process are the same in preserving the interests of an employee whose job is threatened as they are where an owner’s property is sought to be taken or where a person’s liberty is at stake.12
I am satisfied that due process requires a prior hearing before property can be taken.13 On the same facts, I would regard Art. I, § 10 as requiring the same pre-taking procedure. Since I regard an entitlement as a species of property within the meaning of Art. I, § 10, an employee having such an interest is entitled to have a hearing before that interest is taken from him.

 Although the constitutional question might have been avoided by interpreting ORS 240.555 and 240.560 as requiring a pre-termination hearing, Personnel Rule 81-100, adopted pursuant to the authority vested in the Public Employe Relations Board under ORS 240.555(1) to establish termination procedures, provides for a post-termination hearing.

 See, Linde, Without "Due Process, ” 49 Or L Rev 125, 133 (1970).

 Inasmuch as the right to a pre-termination hearing is the principal question involved and since this question of the timing of the hearing would involve a similar policy analysis under both the federal and state constitutions (assuming the latter is applicable), there would be no reason to call for supplemental briefs.

 Linde, Without "DueProcess, ”49 Or L Rev 125 (1970). Professor Linde interprets Art. I, § 10 as a "remedies clause” merely guaranteeing a legal remedy for private wrongs derived from Chapter 40 of the Magna Carta ("To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny, or delay right or justice”), and is not a "due process” clause providing guarantees against official deprivations "except by the law of the land” — clauses derived from Chapter 39 of the Magna Carta ("NO free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land”). When the Magna Carta was re-issued under Henry HI, the two clauses were combined under Chapter 29, which eventually was enacted as a statute by Parliament in 1797. Art. I, § 10 and its predecessors say more than Chapter 40 does, and it is possible that the constitutional draftsmen intended to embody the two ideas expressed in Chapter 29 of Magna Carta. In any event, in the states which have provisions similar to Art. I, § 10 the courts, including this court, have *668regarded the provisions as the equivalent of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, (interpreting Indiana Constitution, Art. I, § 12) Hale v. State, 248 Ind 630, 230 NE2d 432, 435 (1967); Sweet v. State, 233 Ind 160, 117 NE2d 745, 746-47 (1954); Hamm v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Div., 132 Ind App 318, 177 NE2d 337, 338 (1961); Freeman v. Pierce, 179 Ind 445, 101 NE 478, 479 (1913), and (interpreting Ohio Constitution, Art. I, § 16) Ex Parte Martin, 139 Ohio St 609, 41 NE2d 702, 706 (1942); State ex rel Smilack v. Bushong, 159 Ohio St 259, 111 NE2d 918, 922 (1953), and (Oregon) State v. Bouse, 199 Or 676, 686, 264 P2d 800 (1953). Cf., School Dist. No. 7 v. Weissenfluh, 236 Or 165, 173, 387 P2d 567 (1963) and Columbus Packing Co. v. State, 106 Ohio St 469, 140 NE 376, 378 (1922).
Even if Art. I, § 10 is interpreted as not including a substantive due process provision, it does require procedural due process in the sense of requiring a remedy for injuries to person, property or reputation. If an entitlement is "property”, the employee is entitled to a "remedy by due course of law” to retain it. That remedy must be provided by the state. It is for us to say whether it is a remedy "by due course of law” if the employee is given a hearing only after he has been discharged.

 See, e.g., Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 US 134, 94 S Ct 1633, 40 L Ed2d 15 (1974) (the separate opinions reveal a consensus that such an "entitlement” is a property interest); Perry v. Sindermann, 408 US 593, 92 S Ct 2694, 33 L Ed2d 570 (1972); Comment, 10 Harv Civil Rights L. Rev 472, 473 (1975). Cf., Reich, The New Property, 73 Yale L J 733 (1964).
The recent cases of Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 US 600, 94 S Ct 1895, 40 L Ed2d 406 (1974) and North Georgia Finishing v. Di-Chem., 419 US 601, 95 S Ct 719, 42 L Ed2d 751 (1975) have created uncertainty in this area. See opinions of Stewart, J. in Mitchell and North Georgia Finishing. Regardless of the direction finally taken by the U. S. Supreme Court, I believe that plaintiff in the present case has a property interest protected by the justice and remedies clause of the Oregon Constitution.

 Discharge from a government job often seriously injures the employee’s business and professional reputation. There is a widely held impression that it is difficult to fire government workers, and this contributes to the belief that anyone fired by the government is probably unemployable. See, Merrill, Procedures for Adverse Actions Against Federal Employees, 59 Va L Rev 196, 204 (1973); and Due Process and Public Employment in Perspective: Arbitrary Dismissals of non-Civil Service Employees, 19 UCLA L Rev 1052, 1065 (1972). Discharge from a job often damages the employee’s personal reputation, too, since status in our society is so closely related to an individual’s source of livelihood. See, Reich, The New Property, supra note 5.

 The substance of the report is contained in an article entitled Procedures for Adverse Actions Against Federal Employees, supra note 6. On the basis of Merrill’s report, the Administrative Conference of the United States strongly recommended that evidentiary hearings be held prior to discharge.

 Merrill, supra 59 Va L Rev at 241.

"[T]here seems little reason why a hearing could not be held during that 30-day period.” Marshall, J., dissenting, 416 US at 225.

 E.g., see Marshall, J.’s dissent in Arnett; Merrill, supra 59 Va L Rev 196 at 238-246; Fear of Firing: Arnett v. Kennedy and the Protection of Federal Career Employees, 10 Harv Civil Rights L Rev 472 (1975).

 See, 59 Va L Rev at 245.

 Cf., Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 US 67, 92 S Ct 1983, 32 L Ed2d 556 (1972), where it was held that due process requires a prior hearing before property can be taken through the use of state law replevin procedures to repossess chattels; and Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 US 471, 92 S Ct 2593, 33 L Ed2d 484 (1972), where it was held that due process requires a prior hearing before a person can be deprived of liberty through state parole revocation.

 See, Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 US 67, supra note 12; Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 US 337, 89 S Ct 1820, 23 L Ed2d 349 (1969).