Court Opinion

ID: 9470260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:00:53.735122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:48.535719
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority insofar as it holds that even if the teachers have a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, they were given all the process that was due them. Therefore, I concur in the result. Yet, because I view the property analysis under the Fourteenth Amendment quite differently than the majority, I cannot join their opinion.
I
The entire panel joins in the proposition, which disposes of this case, that even if the teachers were to prevail on the property interest issue, they cannot succeed in claiming that they have suffered a constitutional deprivation. This conclusion follows from the variable notion of due process elaborated in Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961). The kind of process due varies by the interest protected and the governmental interests involved. Id.
Later, in Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), the Court noted three factors that should be assessed in determining what process is due: (1) the nature of the private interest to be affected by the government action; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation and the effect of additional safeguards; and (3) the governmental interests involved including the fiscal and administrative burdens of additional process.
In this case, a proper due process analysis suggests that the teachers are entitled to no more process than the hearing they received. Unlike many due process cases, the teachers here are not challenging the loss of their jobs or a permanent reduction in pay. Rather, after a six-week strike, they have been deprived of salary for thirteen days of work. Their interest, unlike the teacher who loses his/her job, or a welfare recipient who loses his/her means of subsistence, is small.
The hearing that was afforded the teachers, on May 19, 1980, gave them ample opportunity to voice their objections to the shortened year. They took advantage of that chance and raised their belief that a 180-day term was mandatory. It is difficult to see what else they would have done at a more extensive hearing.
Moreover, though the teachers allege that the school board’s decision to shorten the year is independent from their decision to pay lower salaries, I believe the hearing was, in effect, one concerning salary. The teachers cannot on the one hand argue that the 180-day mandate is part of the broad contractual and state law scheme that provides them with an entitlement in their full pay and then argue that the school year issue and the salary issue are not intimately entwined.
Finally, the school board’s interests are more significant than the teachers’. The decision to shorten the year was motivated by concern over attendance for Saturday classes and the cost-benefit analysis regarding running the schools on weekends. It is important that the board be able to make decisions concerning school calendars with relative ease and speed.
*829In short, given the minimal interest the teachers allege, I believe that the hearing on May 19 was enough to meet the due process standard. I reject, as does the majority, that there is any constitutional relevance to the claim that the board may have had contractual or state law obligations to give more process than they did. The constitutional standard is independent of any process granted by other means.
II
Since I believe that there are difficult questions of state law that must be resolved before we can fully assess the property interest claim, I would decide this case on the fact that the teachers, even if they have a' legitimate property interest, received all the process that was due. For that reason, I concur. Yet, because the majority reaches the property issue, I feel compelled to offer my view on that issue.
The Constitution is not the source of the property interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Instead, we must look to an independent source, such as state law. Id. In both Roth and its companion case, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), however, the Supreme Court made clear that state and local law are not the sole source of protected property interests. Rather, a “person’s interest in a benefit is a ‘property’ interest for due process purposes if there are ... rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing.” Id. at 601, 92 S.Ct. at 2699.
Of course, every unilateral expectation does not rise to the level of a property interest for due process purposes; to be a protected interest, there must be more than a unilateral expectation, the individual must “have a legitimate claim to entitlement.” Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709.
It is important to recognize, however, that the determination as to whether there is a legitimate expectation that rises to a claim of entitlement is not to be limited by “a few rigid, technical forms.” Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. at 601, 92 S.Ct. at 2699. Rather, the notion of property interest, though not infinite, encompasses a “broad range of interests that are secured by ‘existing rules or understandings’.” Id.
The courts have recognized that contract notions are a useful guide in determining whether a property interest deserves due process protection. This theme originated in Roth’s distinction between a unilateral expectation of and a legitimate claim to an entitlement. In making that distinction, the Court related that “it is the 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. It is a purpose of the constitutional right to a hearing to provide an opportunity for a person to vindicate those claims.” Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972); Jago v. VanCuren, 454 U.S. 14, 102 S.Ct. 31, 70 L.Ed.2d 13 (1981); Northeast Georgia Radiological Association v. Tidwell, 670 F.2d 507 (5th Cir.1982).1
*830In Fourteenth Amendment analysis, then, the Supreme Court has clearly warned that we should not apply wooden and mechanical distinctions in assessing whether there is a protected property interest. The flexible conception of property must include a fair and thorough assessment of the informal, as well as the formal, relationships between the aggrieved party and the defendant institution. Moreover, any formal agreements must be read in light of any mutual understandings or agreements that would give rise to the kind of reliance interest deemed property for due process purposes. Roth, supra.
Ill
The majority opinion simply ignores the development of the broad Fourteenth Amendment property interest notion I have outlined above. Without citing authority other than Roth, and by applying a rather mechanical and formalistic analysis of the claimed sources of a property interest, the majority rejects appellants’ contention. I find such a balkanized method of analysis inappropriate for appellate review.
Not only do I disagree with the balkanized analysis that the majority offers as to individual sources of expectation and entitlement, I believe they then fail to apply the broader analysis that we are mandated to use by virtue of decisions that build on Roth. To consider each source separately is to reject the view that “explicit contractual provisions may be supplemented by other agreements implied from the ‘promisor’s words and conduct in light of the surrounding circumstances’.” Tidwell, supra, 670 F.2d at 511.
The teachers refer to several statutes which they allege give rise to the expectation of their full salary. In addition, they refer to the collective bargaining agreement. While it may be that none of these alone will support the reliance or expectation claim that is needed to implicate the due process clause, there is good reason to think that collectively they do provide the kind of reasonable reliance or expectation that forms the basis of a Fourteenth Amendment property interest.
The teachers cite two Michigan statutes, M.C.L.A. Section 380.1231 and M.C.L.A. Section 380.1232, which provide for the nature of the contract between the board and the teachers. The former requires that the contract be in writing and that wages shall be specified. The latter provides for amendment of the contract by the board *831and teacher or representative organization for an upward scaling of benefits. In addition, the teachers refer to M.C.L.A. Section 380.1284(1) which provides that school boards shall formulate their school calendars such that there are at least 180 days of student instruction. Finally, the teachers refer to the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement which provide for their full salaries.
The majority holds that the teachers cannot rely on the contract because the district court found, and they do not here contest, that the contract had expired. The teachers’ further claim based upon the interim operating conditions (IOC) as the successor to the contract, was rejected by the majority. The majority contends that since the teachers went on strike, in violation of the IOC, they cannot rely on the IOC as a source of a property interest. (Slip op. at 827) I cannot agree with their reasoning.
In my view, this analysis misses the point; it confuses the merits of the teachers’ claim to full salary with the issue as to whether that claim must be afforded due process. In the welfare cases, like Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), one need not find that the recipient is entitled to continued benefits to hold that they have a protected property interest.2 Similarly, in dismissal cases, the determination that the employee dismissed has a due process interest is not a determination that there is no cause for dismissal, rather it is a determination that the employee’s interest in his/her job is such that there must be some process afforded him/her when it is taken away.3
The issue as to whether due process attaches is distinct from the issue as to whether, once the process is given, the claimant will succeed on the merits; whether or not there is cause for a dismissal, or a reduction in pay, is irrelevant to whether process is due. Thus, in holding that the teachers do have a protected interest, we would not be holding that teachers are free to strike without any loss of wages. If in fact they have breached the law, or the IOC, their pay could be withheld. Yet, the due process clause ensures that this will be done by procedures that prevent an “arbitrary undermining” of one’s legitimate claims to entitlement. Roth, supra, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709.
Similarly, I cannot agree with the majority’s analysis of the 180-day provision of M.C.L.A. Section 380.1284(1). The district court, and the majority, state that this cannot be the source of a property interest because the teachers were, at best, third or fourth-party beneficiaries of the statute. Yet, that is to misread the contract notions that serve as guides to property analysis under the Fourteenth Amendment. The teachers need not be beneficiaries, in my view, to have gathered an expectation from that statute and the practice under it. If we are to read the terms of their contract in light of the “surrounding circumstances” and “usage of the past,” Tidwell, 670 F.2d at 510-11, rather than a resort to the balkanizing mode of analysis, then we must give more weight than the majority suggests to the statute. The teachers may have had a reasonable expectation that they would be paid their full salary in virtue of the fact that the state law, though not an absolute mandate, normally results in the board extending the term to the 180 days when exigent circumstances require.
Again, the fact that the teachers caused the loss of time is not relevant to the issue as to whether the 180-day requirement, *832along with the other practices and customs of the district, create an interest that is afforded due process protection; rather, that fact is relevant to the merits of their claim, that is, whether or not their actions enable the board to deprive them of their salary.
In sum, I believe the majority confuses the merits of the teachers’ claim to full pay with the issue as to whether they have a sufficient property interest requiring due process protection. Moreover, the majority fails to consider the overall scheme on which the teachers’ claim of a property interest is based. For these reasons, I cannot join the majority’s discussion on the property interest issue.

. Contract notions were also essential to the analysis in Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). There, the petitioner, a teacher, claimed that though there was no formal tenure system which would bind the respondent university into continuing his employment, there was an understanding that amounted to a de facto tenure program. The respondent contended that he legitimately relied upon guidelines and understandings that fostered the belief in that security.
The Supreme Court remanded the case to allow the petitioner an opportunity to establish the legitimacy of the expectation, stating:
A person’s interest in a benefit is a “property” interest for due process purposes if there are such rules or mutually explicit understandings that support his claim of entitlement to the benefit and that he may invoke at a hearing. Ibid.
A written contract with an explicit tenure provision clearly is evidence of a formal understanding that supports a teacher’s claim of entitlement to continued employment unless sufficient “cause” is shown. Yet *830absence of such an explicit contractual provision may not always foreclose the possibility that a teacher has a “property” interest in re-employment. For example, the law of contracts in most, if not all, jurisdictions long has employed a process by which agreements, though not formalized in writing, may be “implied.” 3 A. Corbin on Contracts Sections 561-572A (1960). Explicit contractual provisions may be supplemented by other agreements implied from “the promisor’s words and conduct in the light of the surrounding circumstances.” Id., at Section 562. And, “[t]he meaning of (the promisor’s) words and acts is found by relating them to the usage of the past.” Ibid.
A teacher, like the respondent, who has held his position for a number of years, might be able to show from the circumstances of this service — and from other relevant facts— that he has a legitimate claim of entitlement to job tenure. Just as this Court has found there to be a “common law of a particular industry or of a particular plant” that may supplement a collective-bargaining agreement, Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Co., 363 U.S. 574, 579 [80 S.Ct. 1347, 1351, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409], so there may be an unwritten “common law” in a particular university that certain employees shall have the equivalent of tenure.
More recently, in Jago v. VanCuren, 454 U.S. 14, 102 S.Ct. 31, 70 L.Ed.2d 13 (1981), the Court reiterated that contract analysis is useful in the property interest determination. There, the Court was deciding whether to extend the use of contract notions to determinations concerning protected liberty interests. The Court declined to do so, but reaffirmed its position that contract notions are well suited to the property interest issue.
The Fifth Circuit also recognized the doctrine in Northeast Georgia Radiological Assoc. v. Tidwell, 670 F.2d 507 (5th Cir.1982). There, the Court found that there were understandings between the appellee hospital and the medical staff that benefits would not be terminated without a hearing. The Court held that this created a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The analysis rested, in part, upon the contract notions.

. In cases recognizing protected property interests, courts have made clear that an interest is created when some benefit or entitlement is to be withheld only for cause; i.e., Jeffries v. Georgia Residential Authority, 678 F.2d 919 (11th Cir.1982) (“It is well settled that a protected property interest arises where a governmental benefit may be withdrawn only for cause.”); Vanelli v. Reynolds School Dist., 667 F.2d 773 (9th Cir.1982) (the Court held that midyear dismissal of probationary teachers, when statute provides for dismissal for cause, implicates the due process clause).

. As the First Circuit phrased it in Bleeker v. Dukakis, 665 F.2d 401 (1st Cir.1981), “By ‘constitutionally protected,’ we mean protected against discharge without appropriate procedural safeguards.” 665 F.2d at 403 n. 3.