Court Opinion

ID: 9428021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:35.502495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.200809
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
Although the Court reaches the result I reach, I find its analysis simplistic and unsatisfactory. I write separately to explain why and to set forth the approach I feel should be followed.
The patients rest their due process claim on two distinct foundations. First, they assert a property interest in continued residence at their home. Second, they claim life and liberty interests tied to their physical and psychological well-being. According to the patients, because each of these interests is threatened directly by decertification, they are constitutionally entitled to a hearing on the propriety of that action. Unlike the Court, I find it necessary to treat these distinct arguments separately.
*791I
In my view, the Court deals far too casually with § 1902 (a) (23) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1396 (a) (23) (1976 ed., Supp. II), in rejecting the patients’ "property” elaim.1 That provision guarantees that a patient may receive nursing home care “from any institution . . . qualified to perform the . . . services . . . who undertakes to provide him such services.” The statute thus vests each patient with a broad right to resist governmental removal, which can be disrupted only when the Government establishes the home’s noneompliance with program participation requirements. Given this fact and our precedents, one can easily understand why seven judges of the Court of Appeals adopted the patients’ argument. It would seem that, because the Government has generated a “justifiable expectation that [the patients] would not be transferred except for misbehavior or upon the occurrence of other specified events,” Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 489 (1980), they are “entitled ... to the benefits of appropriate procedures in connection with determining the conditions that warranted [their] transfer.” Id., *792at 490. Especially since the patients assert an interest in a home,2 I believe their claim to property has substantial force.
I agree with Judge Adams of the Court of Appeals that it “begs the question,” Town Court Nursing Center, Inc. v. Beal, 586 F. 2d 280, 287 (1978) (concurring opinion), to counter this argument with the observation that § 1396 (a) (23) expressly gives the patients only a right to stay in qualified facilities. See ante, at 785. We have repeatedly rejected as too facile an approach that looks no further than the face of the statute to define the scope of protected expectancies. See Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S., at 490-491, and n. 6, citing Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974) (concurring and dissenting opinions); The Supreme Court, 1975 Term, 90 Harv. L. Rev. 56, 99 (1976) (“six Justices in Arnett must have looked outside the statute to consider the impact of government action on citizen expectations and reliance”). Here, as in numerous cases in which we have recognized protected interests, disqualification of the home is the very condition that alone permits disruption of the status quo and that the patients wish to contest. See Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 1, 11-12 (1978) (“Because petitioners may terminate service only ‘for cause/ respondents assert a ‘legitimate claim of entitlement’ within the protection of the Due Process Clause”) (footnote omitted).
Perhaps aware that its treatment of § 1396 (a) (23) is in some tension with our precedents, the Court launches another *793line of analysis. It reasons that “decertification ... is not the same for purposes of due process analysis as a decision to transfer a particular patient.” Ante, at 786. I am left wondering why. Certainly, the “real world” effect of the two actions is the same. Thus the Court’s assertion will come as cold comfort to patients forced to relocate because of this decision. I also wonder why this analytical differentiation matters in determining whether the patients possess a constitutionally protected interest. Certainly decertification results in the loss of exactly the same interest — the ability to stay in one’s home — that a patient subject to an individual transfer suffers. The Court does not explain to my satisfaction why in the latter case, but not in the former, a constitutionally protected interest is affected.
I have no quarrel with the Court’s observation that the Due Process Clause generally is unconcerned with “indirect” losses. I fear, however, that such platitudes often submerge analytical complexities in particular cases. Cf. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 404 (1963); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 607 (1961) (plurality opinion); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 461 (1958); American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 402 (1950). I also question whether that generalization has relevance here.3 Even assuming it does, the Court’s treatment of it *794leaves me unimpressed. To say that the decertification decision directly affects the home is not to say that it “indirectly” affects the patients. Transfer is not only the “in-evitabl[e],” ante, at 786, clearly foreseeable consequences of decertification; a basic purpose of decertification is to force patients to relocate. Thus, not surprisingly, § 1396 (a) (23) specifically ties the patients’ right to continued residence in a home to qualification of the facility. Under these circumstances, I have great difficulty concluding that the patients’ loss of their home should be characterized as “indirect and incidental,” ante, at 787, “consequential,” Meyer v. Richmond, 172 U. S. 82, 94 (1898); “collateral,” see Hannah v. Larche, 363 U. S. 420, 443 (1960); or “remote and indeterminate,” Goodrich v. Detroit, 184 U. S. 432, 437 (1902).4 To be sure, decertification-induced transfers are designed to benefit patients. See ante, at 787. But so are a wide range of other governmental acts that invoke due process protections for the intended beneficiary. See, e. g., Vitek v. Jones, supra; Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S. 584 (1979). See also In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1 (1967). Indeed a basic purpose of affording a hearing in such cases is to test the Government’s judgment that its action will in fact prove to be beneficial.
*795In my view, there exists a more principled and sensible analysis of the patients’ “property” claim. Given § 1396 (a) (23), I am forced to concede that the patients have some form of property interest in continued residence at Town Court. And past decisions compel me to observe that where, as here, a substantial restriction inhibits governmental removal of a presently enjoyed benefit, a property interest normally will be recognized.5 To state a general rule, however, is not to decide a specific case. The Court never has held that any substantive restriction upon removal of any governmental benefit gives rise to a generalized property interest in its continued enjoyment. Indeed, a majority of the Justices of this Court are already on record as concluding that the term “property” sometimes incorporates limiting characterizations of statutorily bestowed interests. See Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974) (plurality opinion) ; Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 586-587, and n. 4 (1975) (dissenting opinion). See also Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U. S. 816, 856, 860-861 (1977) (opinion concurring in judgment). See generally Van Alstyne, Cracks in *796“The New Property” Adjudicative Due Process in the Administrative State, 62 Cornell L. Rev. 445, 460-466 (1977). Common sense and sound policy support this recognition of some measure of flexibility in defining “new property” expectancies. Public benefits are not held in fee simple. And even if we analogize the patients’ claim to “continued residence” to holdings more familiar to the law of private property — even to interests in homes, such as life tenancies — we would find that those interests are regularly subject to easements, conditions subsequent, possibilities of reverter, and other similar limitations. In short, it does not suffice to say that a litigant holds property. The inquiry also must focus on the dimensions of that interest. See Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972).
The determinative question is whether the litigant holds such a legitimate “claim of entitlement” that the Constitution, rather than the political branches, must define the procedures attending its removal. Id., at 578. Claims of entitlement spring from expectations that are “justifiable,” Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S., at 489; “protectible,” Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1, 7 (1979); “sufficient,” Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 344 (1976); or “proper,” id., at 362 (dissenting opinion). In contrast, the Constitution does not recognize expectancies that are “unilateral,” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S., at 577, or “too ephemeral and insubstantial.” Meachum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 228 (1976).
To mouth these labels does not advance analysis far. We must look further to determine which set of labels applies to particular constellations of fact. Whether protected entitlements exist and how far they extend, although dependent on subconstitutional rules, see, e. g., Bishop v. Wood, supra, are ultimately questions of constitutional law. See Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S., at 9; Monaghan, Of “Liberty” and “Property,” 62 Cornell L. Rev. 405, 435-436 (1977). Application of that law will seldom pose difficulties *797when the Government has exercised its option to bestow a benefit wholly at will, see Bishop v. Wood, supra, or the litigant has identified a “for cause” condition resembling those held to be property-creating in past cases. Cases, however, will not always fit neatly into these categories. And when such cases arise, some new analysis is needed. In my view, that inquiry should be broad-gauged. Reason and shared perceptions should be consulted to define the scope of the claimant’s “justifiable” expectations. Nor should constitutional policy be ignored in deciding whether constitutional protections attach. This approach not only permits sensible application of due process protections; it reflects the unremarkable reality that reasonable legal rules themselves comport with reasonable expectations.
In applying this analysis to this case, four distinct considerations convince me that — even though the statutes place a significant substantive restriction on transferring patients— their expectancy in remaining in their home is conditioned upon its status as a qualified provider.
(1) The lengthy process of deciding the disqualification question has intimately involved Town Court. The home has been afforded substantial procedural protections, and, throughout the process, has shared with the patients who wish to stay there an intense interest in keeping the facility certified. These facts are functionally important. Procedural due process seeks to ensure the accurate determination of decisional facts, and informed, unbiased exercises of official discretion. See, e. g., Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67, 81 (1972); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 480 (1972). To the extent procedural safeguards achieve these ends, they reduce the likelihood that persons will forfeit important interests without sufficient justification. In this case, since the home had the opportunity and incentive to make the very arguments the patients might make, their due process interest in accurate and informed decisionmaking already, in large measure, was satisfied. This point embodies more than *798an abstract argument of policy. “[T]he rights of parties are habitually protected in court by those who act in a representative capacity.” Voeller v. Neilston Warehouse Co., 311 U. S. 531, 537 (1941). See also New Orleans Debenture Redemption Co. v. Louisiana, 180 U. S. 320 (1901); Bernheimer v. Converse, 206 U. S. 516, 532 (1907). Thus, not surprisingly the Court heretofore has recognized that where known rules provide procedures through which we may expect others to protect a property holder’s less directly threatened interests, that fact favors viewing compliance with those procedures as defining the outer limits of the property holder’s expectancy. See Kersh Lake Dist. v. Johnson, 309 U. S. 485 (1940); McCaughey v. Lyall, 224 U. S. 558 (1912).
(2) Town Court is more than a de facto representative of the patients’ interests; it is the underlying source of the benefit they seek to retain. Again, this fact is important, for the property of a recipient of public benefits must be limited, as a general rule, by the governmental power to remove, through prescribed procedures, the underlying source of those benefits. The Constitution would not have entitled John Kelly to a fair hearing if New York had chosen to disband its public assistance programs rather than to cut off his particular award. See Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970). Nor would Texas have had to afford process to Professor Sindermann had it decided for budgetary reasons to close Odessa Junior College. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593 (1972). And we would be surprised to learn that Dwight Lopez had a constitutional right to procedures before the Ohio Department of Education suspended classes at Columbus High School for 10 days due to the discovery of faulty electrical wiring requiring that much time for repair work. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975). These observations comport with common understanding and shared expectations. A farmer may sue for conversion if his upstream neighbor improperly diverts his water. But both can *799only grumble if the spring rains cease and the river runs dry.6
(3) That the asserted deprivation of property extends in a nondiscriminatory fashion to some 180 patients also figures in my calculus. See Bent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114, 124 (1889) (legislation comports with due process if, among other things, “it be general in its operation upon the subjects to which it relates”). “Where a rule of conduct applies to more than a few people it is impracticable that every one should have a direct voice in its adoption. The Constitution does not require all public acts to be done in town meet*800ing or an assembly of the whole.” Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board, 239 U. S. 441, 445 (1915). See Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503, 519-520 (1944); Goodrich v. Detroit, 184 U. S., at 438. When governmental action affects more than a few individuals, concerns beyond economy, efficiency, and expedition tip the balance against finding that due process attaches.7 We may expect that as the sweep of governmental action broadens, so too does the power of the affected group to protect its interests outside rigid constitutionally imposed procedures.8 Moreover, “the case for due *801process protection grows stronger as the identity of the persons affected by a government choice becomes clearer; and the case becomes stronger still as the precise nature of the effect on each individual comes more determinated within the deci-sionmaker’s purview. For when government acts in a way that singles out identifiable individuals — in a way that is likely to be premised on suppositions about specific persons— it activates the special concern about being personally talked to about the decision rather than simply being dealt with.” L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 10-7, pp. 503-504 (1978) (emphasis in original). I agree with this general statement and find its “flipside” informative here.
(4) Finally, I find it important that the patients’ interest has been jeopardized not at all because of alleged shortcomings on their part. Frequently, significant interests are subjected to adverse action upon a contested finding of fault, impropriety, or incompetence. In these contexts the Court has seldom hesitated to require that a hearing be afforded the “accused.” See, e. g., Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S. 105, 112-113 (1977); Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539 (1974); Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974). This tendency reflects due process values extending beyond the need for accurate determinations. Affording procedural protections also aims at “ ‘generating the feeling, so important to a popular government, that justice has been done.’ ” Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U. S. 238, 242 (1980), quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 172 (1951) (concurring opinion). It may be that patients’ participation in the decertification decision would vaguely heighten their and others’ sense of the decision’s legitimacy, even though the decision follows *802extensive government inspections undertaken with the very object of protecting the patients’ interests. Even so, that interest is far less discernible in this context than when a stigmatizing determination of wrongdoing or fault supplements removal of a presently enjoyed benefit. See, e. g., Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S., at 574-575. See also Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980).
For these reasons, I am willing to recognize in this case that “the very legislation which ‘defines’ the ‘dimension’ of the [patient’s] entitlement, while providing a right to [remain in a home] generally, does not establish this right free of {disqualification of the home] in accord with [federal statutory] law.” Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S., at 586-587 (dissenting opinion).9
II
Citing articles and empirical studies, the patients argue that the trauma of transfer so substantially exacerbates mortality rates, disease, and psychological decline that decertifi-cation deprives them of life and liberty.10 Although the *803Court assumes that “transfer trauma” exists, see ante, at 784, and n. 16, it goes on to reject this argument. By focusing solely on the “indirectness” of resulting physical and psychological trauma, the Court implies that regardless of the degree of the demonstrated risk that widespread illness or even death attends decertification-induced transfers, it is of no moment. I cannot join such a heartless holding. Earlier this Term, the Court recognized that a liberty interest emanates even from the likelihood that added stigma or harmful treatment might attend transfer from a prison to a mental hospital. Vitek v. Jones, supra; see also Parham v. J. R., 442 U. S., at 601. For me it follows easily that a governmental decision that imposes a high risk of death or serious illness on identifiable patients must be deemed to have an impact on their liberty.11 Nor am I soothed by the palliative that this harm is “indirect”; in my view, where such drastic consequences attend governmental action, their foreseeability, at least generally, must suffice to require input by those who must endure them. See Brede v. Director for Dept. of Health for Hawaii, 616 F. 2d 407, 412 (CA9 1980).12
*804The fact of the matter, however, is that the patients cannot establish that transfer trauma is so substantial a danger as to justify the conclusion that transfers deprive them of life or liberty. Substantial evidence suggests that “transfer trauma” does not exist, and many informed researchers have concluded at least that this danger is unproved.13 Recognition of a constitutional right plainly cannot rest on such an inconclusive body of research and opinion. It is for this reason, and not for that stated by the Court, that I would reject the patients’ claim of a deprivation of life and liberty.
Ill
Few statements are more familiar to judges than Holmes’ pithy observation that “hard cases make bad law.” I fear that the Court’s approach to this case may manifest the perhaps equally valid proposition that easy cases make bad law. Sometimes, I suspect, the intuitively sensed obviousness of a case induces a rush to judgment, in which a convenient rationale is too readily embraced without full consideration of its internal coherence or future ramifications. With re*805spect, I express my concern that that path has been followed here.
I concur in the judgment.

 1 agree with the Court that 45 CFR § 205.10 (a) (5) (1979) does not help the patients. Even assuming that provision might otherwise be relevant, it merely prescribes procedures that must attend removal of a benefit. Thus, it has no bearing on whether a property interest exists. See Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 345, 347 (1976); Monaghan, Of “Liberty” and “Property,” 62 Cornell L. Rev. 405, 442-443, n. 232 (1977). I am less comfortable with the Court’s treatment of 42 CFR § 442.311 (c) (1979), restated from 45 CFR § 249.12 (a)(1)(ii)(B)(4) (1976), which limits transfers by the home. After all, “[i]t is a purpose of the ancient institution of property to protect those claims upon which people rely in their daily lives, reliance that must not be arbitrarily undermined.” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972). Since reliance can be generated by inhibitions on private, as well as governmental, alteration of the status quo, I am inclined to think that this provision, if applicable to Town Court, furnishes some support to the patients’ claim of a protected expectancy. Accord, Brede v. Director for Dept. of Health for Hawaii, 616 F. 2d 407, 410-411 (CA9 1980).

 It is well recognized that the Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution grew out of the “law of the land” provision of Magna Carta and its later manifestations in English statutory law. That the home was at the center of those property interests historically sought to be protected by due process is underscored by the fact the phrase “due process of law” first appeared in the following codification: “No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.” 28 Edw. III, ch. 3 (1354) (emphasis added), as quoted in The Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and Interpretation 1138 (Cong. Research Serv. 1973).

 It seems to me that the indirect character of a harm at least normally has to do with whether state action has “deprived” a person of a protected interest, not with whether a protected interest exists. Thus, in Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277 (1980), a case relied on by the Court, there was no question that the interest destroyed, a woman’s life, was constitutionally protected. The Court concluded, however, that the loss of that life was “too remote a consequence” of government conduct to be deemed a deprivation attributable to state action. Id., at 285. I would similarly distinguish the Court’s “errant father” and “unpaid utility” hypotheticals as instances where no governmental deprivation occurred. Since the deprivation issue was neither briefed in this Court nor addressed below, I think there is a serious question whether the Court's inquiry into the indirect character of the patient’s loss has any place in this case.

 Because the “indirectness” of a result inevitably is a question of degree, and because countervailing considerations are likely to appear, I would prefer to treat “indirectness” as, at most, but one factor in the “property interest” calculus, which carries greater or lesser significance depending on the particular case. If I were to agree that the sole question here is whether the patients’ loss must be rigidly characterized as either “indirect” or “direct,” I doubt that I would reach the result the Court does. And if I did, I would undoubtedly rely on the policy-informed factors identified hereinafter, rather than on an essentially ipse dixit judgment informed by strained analogies. This would be so whether the relevant inquiry was whether a property interest exists or whether a deprivation had occurred. Cf. Monaghan, 62 Cornell L. Rev., at 428 (existence of "deprivation . . . depends ... on such matters as the nature of the invasion, its magnitude, and the character of the justification asserted”).

 See Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 1, 11 (1978) (receipt of services from public utility not terminable except for “good and sufficient cause”); Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S., at 345, n. 8 (finding determinative that public employment was terminable “at will,” rather than for cause); Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565, 573-574 (1975) (public education must be continued absent “misconduct”); Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S., at 578 (distinguishing situation where nonrenewal of state college professor’s employment authorized only for “sufficient cause”); Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 262 (1970) (public support payments to be continued unless recipient not qualified). See also Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 488-491 (1980); Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U. S. 1, 9-11 (1979); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U. S. 236, 242 (1976); Meaehum v. Fano, 427 U. S. 215, 226-227 (1976); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 558 (1974); Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778 (1973); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972). See generally Murray’s Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 276 (1856) (Fifth Amendment “cannot be so construed as to leave congress free to make any process ‘due process of law,’ by its mere will”).

 This common-sense notion is supported by the Court’s holding nearly a century ago in Fox v. Cincinnati, 104 U. S. 783 (1882). Ohio had dredged the Miami and Erie Canal which had one of its termini at the Ohio River in Cincinnati. Pursuant to statutory authority, the State entered into contracts with owners of land bordering the canal. Under these contracts, the State provided the landowners with water to generate hydraulic power in return for rents. Fox leased water from the State in 1855. In 1863, the State granted Cincinnati a portion of the canal so that a street might be laid. The city built the street, and Fox, alleging that the project ruined his lease, sued the city. The city responded that the State had implicitly rescinded Fox’s lease by abandoning the canal. Fox replied that, if this were so, the grant was void because it deprived him of property without due process of law and without just compensation. Id., at 785.
The Court perceived the issue to be “whether there is anything in the lease . . . which prevents the State from making such an abandonment.” Ibid. It answered the question in the negative. The State could abandon the canal whenever the “public necessities” justified abandonment. Ibid. No specific provision in the lease was required “because the right to abandon followed necessarily from the right to build. . . . Every lessee of power took his lease and put up his improvements with full notice of the reserved right of the State to discontinue its canal and stop his supply of water.” Id., at 786. See Kirk v. Providence Mill Co., 279 U. S. 807 (1929); Kirk v. Maumee Valley Co., 279 U. S. 797 (1929). If a State may abandon a canal without invading the “property” of a lessee of its waters, it also generally may “abandon” a college, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593 (1972), or a high school, Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975), or a nursing home Medicaid provider.

 The need for expeditious removal of patients from unsafe and unhealthful homes surely is substantial. See Lieberman, Relocation Research and Social Policy, 14 The Gerontologist 494, 500 (1974) (“Taking individuals out of environments that were sterile and barren and putting them into environments that were more humanizing and demanding produced positive results”). And providing procedures at the usual “meaningful time and in a meaningful manner,” Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U. S. 545, 552 (1965), will inevitably delay beneficial transfer of some nursing home residents. See Brown, An Appraisal of the Nursing Home Enforcement Process, 17 Ariz. L. Rev. 304, 337 (1975) (“While the cases granting a prior hearing [to nursing home operators] seem to reflect judicial concern for the consequences of the proposed action on the patients of the affected facility, the effect h^s been to allow patients to remain in seriously deficient homes undercutting enforcement activities aimed at remedying these deficiencies”); id., at 338 (“because the homes may be expected to use any available delaying tactics, the process proceeds at a snail’s pace”).

 “General statutes within the state power are passed that affect the person or property of individuals, sometimes to the point of ruin, without giving them a chance to be heard. Their rights are protected in the only way that they can be in a complex society, by their power, immediate or remote, over those who make the rule.” Bi-Metallic Investment Co. v. State Board, 239 U. S. 441, 445 (1915). Of course, we cannot ignore that this generalization does not always work well in practice. Thus, the Court has recognized that “prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities.” United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 153, n. 4 (1938). While nursing home patients may indeed make up a “minority,” they are not so much the victims of social prejudice as of physical *801infirmity and social neglect. Moreover, concerned friends and relatives or organized interest groups may, and often do, step forward to protect the interests of nursing home patients.

 Although basic analytical differences divide the Court and me, I am heartened by the Court’s seeming recognition that most, if not all, of the factors I have identified and explained may figure, in future cases, in due process analysis. See ante, at 789-790, n. 22.

 1 question whether the life and liberty issue decided by the Court is properly presented. The District Court refused to extend a preliminary injunction after a brief hearing. In that court, the plaintiffs only touched on the concept of transfer trauma. There was no explicit argument that the patients were threatened with a deprivation of life or liberty; rather, the danger of transfer trauma was noted only as a circumstance raising a likelihood of irreparable injury justifying injunctive relief. See Memorandum of Law in Support of Application for Temporary Restraining Order and Motion for Preliminary Injunction (filed July 20, 1977) (asserting only “taking of property without due process”). The transfer trauma studies cited to this Court were not cited to the District Judge. Testimony regarding transfer trauma was limited to the little-explained assertion of an expert witness that removal would subject some patients in the group to endangerment of their fives or aggravation of their ill*803nesses. App. 252a-253a. In the Court of Appeals, the patients again did not contend that decertification exposed them to a deprivation of life or liberty. See Reply Brief for Appellants in No. 77-2221 et al. (CA3), p. 10 (raising only “property interest” argument). It is to be remembered that this case arises from the refusal to extend a preliminary injunction — an order preceded by limited development of the record and not guided by focused presentation of legal arguments. “[T]his Court above all others must limit its review of interlocutory orders.” Goldstein v. Cox, 396 U. S. 471, 478 (1970).

 Blackstone, whose vision of liberty unquestionably. informed the Framers of the Bill of Rights, see Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U. S. 368, 424 (1979) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part), wrote that “[t]he right of personal security consists in a person’s legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *129 (emphasis added).

 The Court observes that “the fact that the decertification of a home may lead to severe hardship for some of its elderly residents does not *804turn the decertification into a governmental decision to impose that harm.” Ante, at 789. I question the relevance of this observation. When the government erroneously commits a person to a mental hospital, it is not “deciding] to impose . . . harm” either. But we have recognized that the risk that such action “may lead to severe hardship” is sufficiently great to justify a hearing for the transferee. Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480 (1980).

 See Borup, Gallego, & Heffernan, Relocation and its Effect on Mortality, 19 The Gerontologist 135, 136 (1979) (noting that 6 previous studies found increased mortality rates, while 12 did not: “findings have been ambiguous and appear to be contradictory”); id., at 138 (concluding on basis of new study that “relocation does not increase the probability of mortality”); Bourestom & Tars, Alterations in Life Patterns Following Nursing Home Relocation, 14 The Gerontologist 506 (1974); Lieberman, Relocation Research and Social Policy, 14 The Gerontologist 494, 495 (1974).