Court Opinion

ID: 9559862
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:37:06.378896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:49.096262
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J.
I respectfully dissent. The state has given permanent teachers substantial protection, both substantive and procedural, against arbitrary dismissal. An unavoidable consequence is that school districts must incur significant costs—financial, in loss of morale, and in disruption of the educational process—in order to terminate incompetent or misbehaving teachers. Education Code section 44944, subdivision (e) is an attempt, albeit an imperfect one, to reduce those costs in the more egregious cases by encouraging teachers who suspect they are likely to lose their challenges to accept the district’s decision or seek a settlement, rather than delay termination through administrative and subsequent judicial appeals. The statute does so not by denying any teacher a full evidentiary hearing, or even by *358requiring the teacher to pay any prehearing filing fee, but only by charging a losing teacher, after the hearing, with one-half of certain hearing costs. The individual plaintiff in this case received a full and fair hearing before his termination, and plaintiffs have introduced no evidence that any teacher— much less any teacher with a colorable defense to the dismissal charges—has ever been deterred from asking for a hearing. On this record, I am unable to conclude the state’s attempt to further its legitimate interests is constitutionally impermissible.
I
Before articulating my own analysis of the constitutional question, I will directly address the reasoning of the majority opinion. The majority opinion concludes Education Code section 44944, subdivision (e) (section 44944(e)), on its face, deprives teachers of due process. The opinion’s complicated discussion may be reduced to a fairly simple proposition: section 44944(e) fails constitutionally because the statutory standard for imposing costs is whether the teacher is ultimately dismissed, not whether his or her defense to the charges was frivolous. “[Bjecause section 44944(e)’s standard for imposing costs in teacher disciplinary proceedings is inherently flawed, it is facially invalid.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 345.) I disagree.
While section 44944(e) may represent a less than ideal approach to the allocation of costs in teacher disciplinary hearings, the majority opinion’s next step is a non sequitur. That a statute is imperfect does not make it constitutionally invalid; otherwise, we might soon clear the state’s legal codes of enforceable laws. The question before us is not whether section 44944(e) could be improved, but whether plaintiffs have demonstrated that the posthearing imposition of partial hearing costs on a losing teacher is such a high barrier to a hearing, and so unjustified by legitimate state interests, that it can be said to deprive teachers of “a meaningful opportunity to present their case.” (Mathews v. Eldridge (1976) 424 U.S. 319, 349 [96 S.Ct. 893, 909, 47 L.Ed.2d 18].)
To repeat, the individual plaintiff in this case demanded and received a full evidentiary hearing prior to his dismissal. He does not, and cannot, argue the potential for cost-sharing chilled his exercise of the right to a hearing. As the majority opinion acknowledges, therefore, plaintiffs can prevail on their facial challenge only by showing the statute “inevitably” and “total[ly]” (Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1069, 1084 [40 Cal.Rptr.2d 402, 892 P.2d 1145]) deprives teachers of a meaningful opportunity to defend against dismissal. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 338.) At the least, plaintiffs must *359show that section 44944(e) deprives teachers of the hearing due them in “ ‘the generality of cases' " (Santosky v. Kramer (1982) 455 U.S. 745, 757 [102 S.Ct. 1388, 1397, 71 L.Ed.2d 599], italics added in Santosky). (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 345.) Plaintiffs have not met any of these burdens. Indeed, they have presented no proof that any teacher has been denied a hearing as a result of the cost-sharing provision of section 44944(e).
The majority opinion nonetheless avers that section 44944(e) “invariably will chill the exercise of the right of teachers to a hearing . . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 338, italics added.) As a factual statement, this would be not merely unwarranted by the evidence, but demonstrably wrong, since we know at least one teacher, Mr. Daloyan, was not chilled—that is, deterred—in the exercise of his right to a hearing. As it turns out, however, the majority does not really mean to say that teachers will invariably forgo a hearing rather than face possible sharing of partial hearing costs, but merely that the cost provision “could cause teachers to limit their defense and forgo vigorous advocacy.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 346.) While anything “could” happen, I would assume, instead, that the possibility of bearing additional costs if one loses an administrative contest would spur one to make all reasonable efforts to win. As for unreasonable efforts—those calculated merely to lengthen the contest or delay the outcome, with little likelihood of success—deterring such efforts would be both desirable and constitutionally permissible. In short, I cannot agree with the majority that a procedural statute deprives disputants of due process simply because it creates an incentive to pursue only cost-effective strategies and tactics.
The majority’s central argument, as I understand it, is that despite all the state’s protestations to the contrary, the only interest served by section 44944(e) is to deter all hearing requests “in which the teacher happens not to prevail.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 341.) According to the state’s brief, the purpose of section 44944(e) is not to discourage hearing demands in general, but only those the teacher should know are meritless. Moreover, according to the state, because the statute also provides for government payment of a winning teacher’s attorney fees, it actually “encourages teachers with meritorious defenses to vigorously contest the charges.” As expressed by counsel at oral argument, the state’s asserted purpose for section 44944(e) is “to promote accurate administrative outcomes without undue taxpayer expense.”
Because the statute is not limited to frivolous hearing demands, the majority rejects the state’s asserted purpose out of hand and posits a different, obviously indefensible purpose: to deter all unsuccessful teacher requests, meritless or not. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 341-342.) Having set up this *360straw man, the majority proceeds, vigorously and at length, to knock it down. (Id. at pp. 342-346.) The majority’s analysis thus confuses two distinct questions: first, whether the asserted purpose of a statute is legitimate, and, second, if so, whether the statute is sufficiently tailored to that purpose so as to pass muster under the appropriate standard of constitutional review. Even assuming section 44944(e) is less than ideally tailored to its purpose of deterring meritless demands and encouraging meritorious ones, that does not render the state’s asserted purpose illegitimate. In my view, the state indisputably has a legitimate interest in avoiding the expense and educational disruption of drawn-out dismissal proceedings on nonmeritorious defenses. Whether the statute is so inexactly framed that its legitimate effects are outweighed by its deterrence of potentially meritorious teacher demands is a separate question, which I address later in this opinion.
The majority opinion may also be understood to claim that section 44944(e) is constitutionally illegitimate because it is “unique,” “radical” or “novel” (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 336-337), either in that the costs it imposes include part of the cost of the adjudicator (id. at pp. 334-336), or in that it imposes costs on the losing party without requiring the party’s position to have been frivolous (id. at pp. 340-341). In neither respect, however, is the statute unique, radical, or even particularly novel.
As a general matter, the American legal tradition might be said to favor public payment of the costs of adjudication in a public forum. Section 44944(e), however, is not unique among California statutes in requiring an administrative contestant to bear part of the cost of adjudication. (See, e.g., Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6086.10, subd. (b)(3) [disciplined attorney is to pay “charges determined by the State Bar to be ‘reasonable costs’ of investigation, hearing, and review”]; § 7403, subd. (b) [disciplined barber or cosmetologist to pay “charges incurred by the Office of Administrative Hearings for hearing the case and issuing a proposed decision” as well as investigative costs of disciplinary board and Attorney General]; § 2661.5, subd. (a) [physical therapist disciplined for unprofessional conduct may be ordered to pay “actual and reasonable costs of the investigation and prosecution of the case” before disciplinary board]; § 2497.5, subd. (a) [same for podiatrists]; § 4959, subd. (a) [same for acupuncturists];1 see also Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-151, subd. (d) [if tenured teacher demands hearing before impartial *361panel, each party pays its own panel member’s costs and “shall share equally the fee of the third panel member or hearing officer and all other costs incidental to the hearing”]; Va. Code Ann. § 22.1-312, subd. J [if teacher requests factfinding panel, “[t]he expenses of the panel shall be borne one-half by the school board and one-half by the teacher”].)
In other dispute resolution contexts, as well, disputants are sometimes required to bear part or all of the adjudicator’s expenses. (See, e.g., Code Civ. Proc., §§ 645.1 [court may order fees of court-appointed referee to be paid by parties in any fair and reasonable manner]; 631 [party payment of jury fees in civil trial]; 1033.5, subd. (a)(1) [jury fees allowable as costs to prevailing party]; 1141.21, subd. (a)(i) [in judicial arbitration, party who demands trial de novo but obtains result less favorable than the arbitration award pays the arbitrator’s compensation].)
I do not mean to suggest each of these provisions is in all respects indistinguishable from section 44944(e), or that each in all its applications necessarily meets due process standards. My point is merely that, notwithstanding our traditional expectation that the public will bear the cost of providing the adjudicator for a public forum, the California Legislature, like those elsewhere, has experimented with various exceptions to that tradition, especially in the area of administrative disciplinary proceedings. Analogously, although California follows the traditional “American rule” that each party to litigation pays its own attorney fees (7 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (4th ed. 1997) Judgments, § 145, p. 659), the Legislature there, too, has experimented with a variety of exceptions to that rule, shifting payment of attorney fees to the losing party in a large number of specified actions and circumstances. (See id., §§ 162, 190-201, pp. 683-684, 715-733.) Unless we are to draw a bright line requiring all public adjudicators’ fees and expenses to be borne by the public—a step even the majority opinion stops short of explicitly suggesting—we must examine the purpose and effect of each statute individually to determine if, on its face or as applied in a given instance, it deprives disputants of constitutionally due process.
Nor is section 44944(e) unique, radical or particularly novel in imposing costs on the losing party without requiring a finding the party’s position was *362frivolous. Although the law typically imposes sanctions, penalties, or tort liability on the basis of frivolousness (see maj. opn., ante, at p. 340), costs are commonly awarded simply to the prevailing party, without regard to whether the other party’s position lacked arguable merit. (See, e.g., Code Civ. Proc., § 1032, subd. (b) [“Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute, a prevailing party is entitled as a matter of right to recover costs in any action or proceeding.”]; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 26(a)(1) [“Except as provided in this rule, the prevailing party shall be entitled to costs on appeal . . . as an incident to the judgment on appeal.”].) In many types of actions, the prevailing party may recover his or her attorney fees as costs. (See, e.g., Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1021.4 [prevailing plaintiff in action based upon defendant’s commission of felony], 1021.5 [“successful party” in action benefiting public], 1021.9 [prevailing plaintiff in action for damages from trespass on farming or grazing land], 1036 [prevailing plaintiff in inverse condemnation action entitled to reasonable costs of proceeding, including attorney, appraisal and engineering fees]; Civ. Code, § 1780, subd. (d) [prevailing plaintiff in action by consumer for unfair or deceptive trade practice]; Gov. Code, § 12965, subd. (b) [prevailing plaintiff in action under Fair Employment and Housing Act].) In all these cases, a losing defendant can be ordered to pay the plaintiff’s court costs, including attorney fees, even though the defendant’s position in the litigation may have been far from frivolous.
Moreover, as already noted, California law provides for other circumstances, including some administrative proceedings, in which the losing party must pay part or all the cost of the adjudicator regardless of whether the party’s losing position had arguable merit. (See Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6086.10, subd. (b)(3); id., §7403, subd. (b); Code Civ. Proc., § 1033.5, subd. (a)(1).) Section 44944(e), therefore, is not unique in using a prevailing-party standard, in imposing part of the adjudicator’s expenses as costs, or in doing both these things together.
That a law is not unique, of course, does not necessarily mean it is constitutionally valid, any more than a law’s unusual characteristics necessarily amount to constitutional deficiencies. The question of section 44944(e)’s constitutionality must be answered by application of established principles of procedural due process. Applying such principles, as explained below, I conclude plaintiffs have not met their persuasive burden of showing, in this facial attack, that section 44944(e) “inevitably” and “totally]” (Tobe v. City of Santa Ana, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 1084), or even “generally] and ordinar[ily]” (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren (1997) 16 Cal.4th 307, 347 [66 Cal.Rptr.2d 210, 940 P.2d 797] (plur. opn. of George, C. J.)), deprives teachers threatened with dismissal of a reasonable opportunity to contest the charges against them.
*363II
Neither this court nor the United States Supreme Court has addressed the validity of a procedure that financially burdens a permanent government employee’s exercise of the constitutional right to a pretermination hearing. This court and the federal high court have, however, discussed more generally the chilling, through imposition of excessive risk, of a person’s exercise of procedural rights. From an examination of these decisions I conclude that, while due process does not require that the exercise of a constitutionally mandated hearing right be free from all costs, attaching a financial burden or risk to exercise of a hearing right will be deemed impermissible when the cost or risk is so high as effectively to deny the hearing right itself, or when its imposition is unjustified by any substantial purpose other than chilling the exercise of the hearing right.
Not all laws imposing financial or other costs on the exercise of a procedural right are unconstitutional. “[N]ot every burden on the exercise of a constitutional right, and not every pressure or encouragement to waive such a right, is invalid.” (Corbitt v. New Jersey (1978) 439 U.S. 212, 218 [99 S.Ct. 492, 497, 58 L.Ed.2d 466], fn. omitted.) We have said, similarly, that “it is not required that no burden at all be placed on a defendant’s constitutional rights; it is only an excessive burden that is impermissible . . . .” (People v. Amor (1974) 12 Cal.3d 20, 28 [114 Cal.Rptr. 765, 523 P.2d 1173]; see also In re Green (D.C. Cir. 1981) 669 F.2d 779, 786 [215 App.D.C. 393] [“a court may impose conditions upon a litigant—even onerous conditions—so long as . . . they are, taken together, not so burdensome as to deny the litigant meaningful access to the courts”].) The circumstances under which a burden upon the exercise of a procedural right will be deemed “excessive” or otherwise impermissible have not been fixed with great exactitude, but a few general guidelines can be drawn from the cases.
Confiscatory, ruinous or otherwise prohibitive financial penalties on the exercise of a procedural right are impermissible because they effectively deny the process that is due (Ex parte Young (1908) 209 U.S. 123, 146-147 [28 S.Ct. 441, 448-449, 52 L.Ed. 714]; Winston v. City of New York (2d Cir. 1985) 759 F.2d 242, 245-246;2 Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. v. Engman (2d Cir. 1975) 527 F.2d 1115, 1119), although even a prohibitive *364barrier to access may perhaps be imposed if the state has "a sufficient countervailing justification" (Boddie v. Connecticut (1971) 401 U.S. 371, 380-381 [91 S.Ct. 780, 787, 28 L.Ed.2d 113]). The imposition of a cost or risk on the exercise of a procedural right is also impermissible if it has no purpose or effect other than to punish, deter or prevent exercise of the right. (Fuller v. Oregon (1974) 417 U.S. 40, 54 [94 S.Ct. 2116, 2125, 40 L.Ed.2d 642]; North Carolina v. Pearce (1969) 395 U.S. 711, 723-725 [89 S.Ct. 2072, 2079-2080, 23 L.Ed.2d 656]; United States v. Jackson (1968) 390 U.S. 570, 581 [88 S.Ct. 1209, 1216, 20 L.Ed.2d 138]; Rankin v. Independent School Dist. No. I-3 (10th Cir. 1989) 876 F.2d 838, 840;3 Winston v. City of New York, supra, 759 F.2d at p. 246.)
Does section 44944(e) impose prohibitive, ruinous or confiscatory costs on a teacher who loses at the hearing? Is the “penalty” imposed for an unsuccessful challenge to dismissal so great that the teacher, like the rail companies in Ex parte Young, supra, 209 U.S. at page 146 [28 S.Ct. at page 448], “could not be expected” to risk the cost? In the context of this facial challenge, I must answer negatively. The hearing costs shared under section 44944(e) may be substantial and, to some degree, uncertain in advance, but I cannot say they “inevitably” and “total[ly]” (Tobe v. City of Santa Ana, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 1084), or even “generally] and ordinarily]” (American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, supra, 16 Cal.4th at p. 347), constitute a prohibitive risk for a teacher seeldng to save his or her job. Even conceding the cost-sharing provision could have a chilling effect in some instances, the record and briefing in this case provide no basis for concluding that effect rises to the level of a generally preclusive barrier to maintenance of an administrative challenge. Again, plaintiffs have presented no evidence any teacher has been deterred by section 44944(e) from seeking a hearing.
Is section 44944(e) justified by a legitimate purpose, i.e., one other than simply chilling teachers’ demands for hearings? As already discussed, the *365purpose of the law is not to discourage hearing demands in general, but to recoup a part of the school district’s costs in appropriately brought dismissal proceedings and, by imposing such partial costs only on a teacher who loses while also providing for government payment of attorney fees for a teacher who wins, to differentially discourage and encourage teacher hearing demands on the basis of likely merit.
I agree with the Attorney General that the deterrence of likely meritless demands for hearing, and the corresponding encouragement of potentially meritorious challenges to termination, is a legitimate state goal. (See, e.g., Lindsey v. Normet (1972) 405 U.S. 56, 78 [92 S.Ct. 862, 877, 31 L.Ed.2d 36] [“We do not question here reasonable procedural provisions ... to discourage patently insubstantial appeals, if these rules are reasonably tailored to achieve these ends and if they are uniformly and nondiscriminatorily applied”]; Roller v. Gunn (4th Cir. 1997) 107 F.3d 227, 229 [requirement of partial filing fee for prisoner suits is “legitimate exercise of Congress’ power to reduce frivolous lawsuits”].) The state’s undeniable interest in obtaining the dismissal of teachers who have committed serious misconduct or are otherwise unfit to teach entitles it to take reasonable measures to prevent unnecessary delay and expense in such dismissals.
By differentially encouraging and discouraging teachers’ hearing demands depending on the strength of the teacher’s defense, section 44944(e) serves the legitimate and important goals of improving public education and conserving public resources. At least on its face, then, section 44944(e) broadly serves a legitimate state purpose and does not impose a generally prohibitive barrier on access to administrative review. Under the precedents reviewed above, the statute therefore does not per se constitute an impermissible burden on the exercise of teachers’ hearing rights. In the next part of the analysis I discuss whether, under the general balancing analysis of Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, 424 U.S. 319 (Mathews), the statute nevertheless is so poorly tailored to its legitimate purpose that its public benefits are outweighed by the risk it creates of erroneous result.
III
Under the Mathews analysis for determining the process constitutionally due, three factors should be considered: “[f]irst, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and *366administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.” (Mathews, supra, 424 U.S. at p. 335 [96 S.Ct. at p. 903].) Mathews requires the court to “strik[e] the appropriate due process balance” among these factors. (Id. at p. 347 [96 S.Ct. at p. 909]; see also, e.g., Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (1985) 470 U.S. 532, 542 [105 S.Ct. 1487, 1493, 84 L.Ed.2d 494] [Mathews analysis involves “a balancing of the competing interests at stake”].) The Mathews court nonetheless insisted that “more is implicated in cases of this type than ad hoc weighing” of competing burdens (424 U.S. at p. 348 [96 S.Ct. at p. 909]) and that, finally, “[a]ll that is necessary is that the procedures be tailored, in light of the decision to be made, to ‘the capacities and circumstances of those who are to be heard,’ [citation], to insure that they are given a meaningful opportunity to present their case.” (Id. at p. 349 [96 S.Ct. at p. 909].)
I first consider, therefore, the private interest at stake, the teacher’s interest in continuing employment. I agree with the majority this factor weighs in plaintiffs’ favor as a particularly strong economic interest. “[T]he significance of the private interest in retaining employment cannot be gainsaid. We have frequently recognized the severity of depriving a person of the means of livelihood. [Citations.] While a fired worker may find employment elsewhere, doing so will take some time and is likely to be burdened by the questionable circumstances under which he left his previous job.” (Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, supra, 470 U.S. at p. 543 [105 S.Ct. at p. 1494].) In addition, teachers charged, as was Daloyan, with “immoral conduct” face the prospect of dismissal under circumstances that may deprive them of their liberty interest in pursuing a livelihood. (Board of Regents v. Roth (1972) 408 U.S. 564, 573-574 [92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707-2708, 33 L.Ed.2d 548].)
Evaluation of the second Mathews factor—the risk of erroneous results under the state’s procedures and the benefit of additional or substitute procedural safeguards—depends here on the extent to which section 44944(e) actually tends to deter teachers with potentially meritorious defenses to termination from demanding hearings. The challenged procedure in this case, the conditional sharing of partial costs under section 44944(e), carries a risk of reaching an erroneous result only to the extent it actually deters the exercise of hearing rights by such teachers. On this facial challenge, I am unable to conclude that the possible sharing of partial hearing costs will inevitably, or even ordinarily, deter a hearing demand from teachers who believe they have a meritorious defense to the charges against them.
The assessment of the degree of likely “chilling” of meritorious hearing demands is complicated by the fact section 44944(e) contains other, countervailing, cost-allocation provisions, most notably the provision that, if the *367commission decides against dismissal, the district pays the teacher’s reasonable attorney fees incurred at the hearing. The state argues the “substitute” procedure we should consider in the Mathews analysis is one premised on the complete invalidation of section 44944(e), and that such invalidation would actually increase the risk of erroneous results because teachers with meritorious defenses would lose their current incentive to hire attorneys and go to hearing. Plaintiffs, however, deny that their challenge, if successful, would require the complete invalidation of section 44944(e). The rest of section 44944(e), plaintiffs insist, will “work just fine” with deletion of the single provision requiring a losing teacher to share the hearing expenses.
I do not agree the hearing cost provision can be severed from the rest of section 44944(e) in the manner plaintiffs suggest. The statute contains no severance clause. Mechanically, the disputed provision cannot be simply removed, since removal would leave undetermined who (the state or the district) is to pay the hearing expenses. Most important, whether the remainder “ ‘ “is complete in itself and would have been adopted by the legislative body had the latter forseen the partial invalidation of the statute” . . .’” (Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego (1982) 32 Cal.3d 180, 190 [185 Cal.Rptr. 260, 649 P.2d 902]) is doubtful. The statute as written contains a set of trade-offs and matched incentives, no one of which can be disposed of without disturbing the legislative balance. Would the Legislature, for example, have provided for payment of a winning teacher’s attorney fees had it known it could not validly require a losing teacher to contribute to the cost of the administrative law judge? Would it have provided for the district or state to pay the expenses of the employee’s member of the commission, win or lose? I can answer neither of these questions confidently in the affirmative. I agree with defendants that, in assessing the costs and benefits of the statutory scheme, we must consider that scheme as a whole, including its benefits to teachers successful in their challenges.
I have already observed that section 44944(e), by penalizing unsuccessful challenges and rewarding successful ones, does, to some extent, serve the legitimate purpose of discouraging meritless defenses and encouraging those with potential merit. It remains to be considered whether the statute fails constitutionally because it is not sufficiently tailored to this purpose, in that it applies, as the Court of Appeal noted, even if a teacher prevails in part, and “regardless of the teacher’s good faith, the arguable merit of his or her position, or how reasonably he or she pursues the matter.”
Because section 44944(e) applies to all teachers dismissed after hearing, even those who had arguable defenses or were partially vindicated, some *368teachers with arguable cases against dismissal may be discouraged from demanding a hearing by the potential for costs, creating a risk of error in those cases. That such a risk may exist in some cases does not show, however, that it exists in “the generality of cases” (Mathews, supra, 424 U.S. at p. 344 [96 S.Ct. at p. 907]). At the same time, by providing for payment of a successful teacher’s attorney fees and relieving such teachers from any sharing of hearing costs, the statute offers a significant measure of encouragement to teachers who reasonably believe they have been unfairly or erroneously threatened with dismissal. On this facial challenge, I am unable to fix the degree to which that encouragement to pursue meritorious defenses will be outweighed by a teacher’s concern the hearing might, despite the teacher’s good faith defense, result in dismissal and therefore in assessment of partial hearing costs. Neither the risk of an erroneous result, through the chilling of meritorious challenges, nor the degree to which meritless challenges will, as intended, be deterred, is certain.
The majority argues that in the Mathews analysis we should consider, as additional or substitute procedural safeguards, possible procedures “for assessing whether the teacher’s position has potential merit or whether the costs of the hearing exceed the teacher’s ability to pay.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 349.) Because such (unspecified) procedures would assertedly not be costly or burdensome to the state, and because they would help to protect the liberty and property interests at stake in a dismissal hearing, the majority argues, their absence renders section 44944(e) facially invalid.
This reasoning cannot be correct as a method of constitutional scrutiny. Under the majority’s analysis, any procedural scheme that could be improved so as to increase its truthfinding efficiency while imposing relatively small costs on the state would be, simply for that reason, subject to complete invalidation. This court would sit as a legislative board of review over all procedural statutes, entertaining in each case any suggestions for improvement in the statutory scheme and finding the law invalid on its face if we believed the benefits of different or additional provisions would outweigh their cost.
But the question before us is not whether section 44944(e) could or should be improved; the question, rather, is whether, as enacted and on its face, the statute deprives teachers of a meaningful opportunity to present their case. The additional or substitute procedures we must consider are those the plaintiffs seek to have applied. Plaintiffs do not seek a holding that section 44944(e) may be constitutionally applied only when the teacher is able to pay the assessed cost, or only when the teacher’s defense to dismissal had no *369arguable merit. Plaintiffs seek, and the majority would provide, a ruling that the cost-sharing provisions of section 44944(e) may not be applied in any case because they are in total and inevitable conflict with the due process provisions of the state and federal Constitutions. Thus, the alternative procedural scheme they advocate, and the one we should assess, is one that includes none of the cost-sharing provisions (or, as explained above, the attorney fee provision) of section 44944(e). As just discussed, on this record the relative benefits of such a scheme to the discovery of truth are unknown.
I turn, finally, to the third Mathews factor, the government interest in maintaining the existing procedural scheme. As discussed earlier, school districts have a substantial and legitimate interest in avoiding the expense and educational disruption of drawn-out dismissal proceedings lengthened by meritless hearing demands, an interest section 44944(e) directly serves by imposing a cost on demands for an ultimately unsuccessful hearing. Amicus curiae Education Legal Alliance (an association of public school districts and governing boards) elaborates usefully on this point: “Currently, teachers have a stake in the dismissal procedure. As a result, not every dismissal is appealed. Much of the time, teachers and school districts reach settlement agreements. These settlement agreements often save valuable resources (both for the district and the teacher’s union), and minimize the disruption of the educational process for our students, ffl] . . . Invalidating Education Code section 44944, subdivision (e), would create an incentive for all teachers to appeal dismissal, thereby imposing significant costs on school districts. . . . [^] . . . The lengthy discovery process and attorney’s fees are not the only burdens a district faces in a dismissal proceeding. The dismissal process absorbs huge amounts of staff time, and often has a negative impact on morale. From a fiscal standpoint, since funds spent on administrative hearings are funds which do not reach classrooms, schools have an interest in minimizing costs. That interest cannot be satisfied if school districts are the only parties with an investment in the dismissal procedure.”
To weigh against the state’s important and legitimate interest, plaintiffs produce, in essence, only a speculative assumption that the possibility of paying partial adjudicative costs will deter even a teacher with potentially meritorious defenses to the charges from demanding a hearing that might preserve his or her job. Plaintiffs, in my view, have failed to show a risk of error sufficient to outweigh the state’s interest in the generality of cases. Permanent teachers are constitutionally entitled to a meaningful opportunity to contest the charges against them prior to dismissal, but they are not guaranteed a system in which any contest can be brought without cost. On balance, this record and briefing do not allow me to conclude the cost-sharing requirement denies teachers threatened with dismissal “a meaningful *370opportunity to present their case.” (Mathews, supra, 424 U.S. at p. 349 [96 S.Ct. at p. 909].)
Conclusion
Permanent teachers threatened with dismissal are statutorily and constitutionally entitled to contest the charges in a pretermination hearing. Section 44944(e), by requiring that teachers who unsuccessfully contest their termination and are dismissed after demanding a hearing pay half the cost of the administrative law judge, places a burden on the teachers’ exercise of their constitutional hearing right. But not all burdens on the exercise of a procedural right constitute a denial of due process. Plaintiffs here have failed to demonstrate that the burden imposed by section 44944(e) is constitutionally impermissible, either because, inevitably or in its ordinary application, the statute operates to block access to the mandated hearing, or because it fails to serve any legitimate purpose. Nor have they demonstrated that the statute, viewed as a whole, creates a risk of erroneous termination significant enough to outweigh the state’s legitimate interest in discouraging meritless hearing demands while encouraging those with potential merit. Although individual instances may arise in which the statute would create an impermissible burden or deny a teacher a meaningful opportunity to be heard, plaintiffs’ facial attack on the statute should be rejected.
Chin, J., and Brown, J., concurred.

The last three listed statutes are not explicit as to whether the assessable costs include the costs of hearing. The general statute on recovery of administrative costs in professional or business disciplinary procedures is Business and Professions Code section 125.3. It applies unless the specific licensing act for a given profession includes a cost recovery provision. (Id., subd. (j).) Section 125.3 provides for recovery of costs of “investigation and enforcement” (subd. (a)), but only “up to the date of the hearing” (subd. (c)), and hence does not appear to *361allow recovery of hearing costs as such. One should note, however, that the prehearing costs are not within the control of the disciplined person, can include fees of the disciplinary board’s attorneys (Schneider v. Medical Board (1997) 54 Cal.App.4th 351 [62 Cal.Rptr.2d 710]), and can be quite large. The California Medical Association, in its amicus curiae brief, points out that these costs are “open-ended” and represents there have been “several cases where more than $100,000 has been sought.”

Winston presented a clear case of an excessive burden on a teacher’s exercise of hearing rights. Under a provision of the New York City Administrative Code, teachers dismissed for cause forfeited their rights to city-funded retirement benefits, while those who, upon the filing of charges, resigned rather than demanding a hearing retained their retirement benefits. (Winston v. City of New York, supra, 759 F.2d at pp. 243-244.) The appellate court found this provision unconstitutionally prevented the teachers’ exercise of their due process rights to a *364pretermination hearing. The court concluded the stakes for an accused teacher were so high—teachers, in order to vindicate their rights, were forced, in effect, to “stake their economic future on a panel decision”—that “the City has effectively eliminated that teacher’s access to a forum to vindicate his or her innocence.” (Id. at p. 246.) As will appear, plaintiffs have made no such showing with regard to section 44944(e).

 Rankin, while superficially close to this case, is readily distinguishable in that the Oklahoma statute there at issue required cost sharing whatever the hearing’s outcome and did not provide any compensating financial benefit if the teacher won. (Rankin v. Independent School Dist. No. I-3, supra, 876 F.2d at p. 839.) Oklahoma was therefore unable to argue, as does California in the present case, that its statute was intended to discourage particularly meritless hearing demands while encouraging potentially meritorious demands. In addition, Rankin’ s result rested on application of strict constitutional scrutiny, a standard even plaintiffs do not contend should be applied here.