Court Opinion

ID: 9461378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:13:08.917491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:01.991916
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Petition for Rehearing and/or Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc
PER CURIAM:
Appellants have filed a petition for rehearing, alleging new grounds for reversal, not previously placed before this court. We pointed out in the opinion that with respect to the Fifth Amendment, appellant employees argued simply and solely that due process required a hearing in advance of their separation. Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S. Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974), came down after the briefing was completed, but on subsequent oral argument appellants did not expand or refine their reasoning to avoid its impact. We said:
We are not required to scrutinize the procedures to search for due process defects in the regulations, or failures to follow them, not specifically pointed out.
Assertion of due process defects not dealt with in the opinion now comes too late, does not require our present consideration, and still less did it require anticipatory consideration in the opinion as filed. The precedential effect of the decision will be thus restricted. It *389is in no way to be taken as holding that the Library of Congress termination and post-termination adverse action and grievance procedures have been examined and are in all respects proof against due process attack.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
Statement of BAZELON, Chief Judge, as to why he voted to deny rehearing en banc:
I vote to deny rehearing en banc because I think the separation procedures as challenged in this action should be sustained under the reasoning of Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974). The non-probationary employees were given a hearing after their termination and there is apparently no serious challenge to these hearing procedures with one exception to be discussed in a moment. The clear import of Arnett and the recent ease of Sampson v. Murray, 415 U.S. 61, 94 S.Ct. 937, 39 L.Ed.2d 166 (1974) is that there is no right to pre-termination constitutional protection. I think this principle is a more than significant erosion of Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970) and, indeed, of Greene v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474, 79 S.Ct. 1400, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1959), but I feel these quite recent Supreme Court opinions leave no alternative. The probationers have no procedural due process rights at all except to the extent any are created by the agency’s own regulations.1 Despite these views, I am baffled by the statement that Arnett “knocks [Bullock’s argument] in the head.” The concurring opinion of Justice Powell in which Justice Blackmun joined clearly indicates that procedural claims by federal employees do have constitutional overtones which must be balanced against a government interest in efficiency.2 I think the panel opinion could be more sensitive to the dictates of this balancing task but do not think the holding forecloses further inquiry and balancing in later cases with different factual situations.
The one procedural objection raised by appellants which requires some comment is the claim that the Library of Congress post-termination hearing procedure was constitutionally defective and that, therefore, a pretermination hearing is required. The constitutional defect alleged is that the Librarian is not an impartial decision-maker, since he both participated in the original decision to summarily separate appellants and is the final authority in the post-termination hearing process. I have no doubt that a constitutionally acceptable hearing process must include an impartial decision-maker. Cf. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972). But appellants’ argument is slightly different: they state that the lack of impartiality, so it is alleged, of the Librarian not only renders the post-termination hearing defective but therefore renders defective the failure to provide a pre-termination hearing. Without particular allegations of bias3 and in light of the proprietary nature of the Library of Congress, I am unwilling to accept this argument as a sufficient distinction of the constitutional balance struck by Justice Powell and Justice Blackmun in Arnett since Arnett itself involved a claim that the decision-maker was not impartial. The constitutionality of the Library’s post-termination hearing procedures must be considered on their own ground and that consideration cannot be effected until the post-termination proceedings are complete, which they are not. The panel opinion does not, by my reading, intimate any opinion on the merits of a possible claim that the post-termination hearing procedures are *390inconsistent with the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.
As to the First Amendment claims of both the probationers and the tenured employees, I think that their actions were conduct properly proscribed and therefore their dismissal is consistent with the First Amendment.4 However, I am concerned with the panel’s rather sweeping language which purports to find, on the basis of affidavits alone, with no fact-finding process, that the appellant’s activity was both constitutionally disruptive in terms of symbolic speech precedent and also a strike within the meaning of 5 U.S.C. § 7311(3) (1970). Recent cases in this Court dealing with First Amendment activity by federal employees have evidenced a concern that any adjudication be based on a complete record so that governmental and individual interests may be properly balanced.5 I think this precedent should create a similar sensitivity in “speech plus” cases such as the case before us here. I do not think the panel opinion here forecloses this approach. The facts of this case prevent it from being a precedent on disruptive symbolic speech.

. See Ring v. Schlesinger, No. 72-3568, 164 U.S.App.D.C. 19, at 22-27, 502 F.2d 479, at 482-487 (1974).

. Compare Pickering v. Board of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968).

. Cf. the analysis of Judge Tamm’s seminal opinion in Cinderella Career & Finishing Schools, Inc. v. FTC, 138 U.S.App.D.C. 152, 425 F.2d 583, 589-592 (3970).

. See Waters v. Peterson, 161 U.S.App.D.C. 265, 495 F.2d 91 (1973).

. See Tygrett v. Washington, No. 72-1876 (D.C.Cir. Oct. 23, 1974) ; Ring v. Schlesinger, No. 72-1568, 164 U.S.App.D.C. 19, 502 F.2d 479 (1974) ; Waters v. Peterson, 161 U.S.App.D.C. 265, 495 F.2d 91 (1973).