Court Opinion

ID: 9426441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:57.863919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.872140
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs, dissenting.
Petitioner was discharged as a policeman on the grounds of insubordination, “causing low morale,” and “conduct unsuited to an officer.” Ante, at 343. It is difficult to imagine a greater “badge of infamy” that could be imposed on one following petitioner’s calling; in a profession in which prospective employees are invariably investigated, petitioner’s job prospects will be severely constricted by the governmental action in this case. Although our case law would appear to require that petitioner thus be accorded an opportunity “to clear his name” of this calumny, see, e. g., Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 573, and n. 12 (1972); Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134, 157 (1974) (opinion *351of Rehnquist, J.), the Court condones this governmental action and holds that petitioner was deprived of no liberty interest thereby.
Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693 (1976), a decision overtly hostile to the basic constitutional safeguards of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that I had hoped would be a “short-lived aberration,” id., at 735 (Brennan, J., dissenting), held that the “interest in reputation asserted in [Paul] is neither 'liberty’ nor 'property’ guaranteed against state deprivation without due process of law.” Id., at 712. Accordingly, it found inapplicable the rule that “[wjhere a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him, notice and an opportunity to be heard are essential.” Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433, 437 (1971), and cases cited therein. In so holding, the Court eviscerated the substance of a long line of prior cases, see, e. g., Anti-Fascist Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 (1951); Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886 (1961); Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, by confining their protection of “liberty” to situations in which the State inflicts damage to a government employee’s “good name, reputation, honor, or integrity” in the process of terminating his employment. See Paul v. Davis, supra, at 708. Compare id., at 709, 710, with id., at 732-733 (Brennan, J., dissenting).1 Today the Court effectively destroys even that last vestige of protection for “liberty” by holding that a State may tell an employee that he is being fired for some nonderogatory reason, and then turn around and inform prospective employers that the em*352ployee was in fact discharged for a stigmatizing reason that will effectively preclude future employment.
The Court purports to limit its holding to situations in which there is “no public disclosure of the reasons for the discharge,” ante, at 348, but in this case the stigmatizing reasons have been disclosed, and there is no reason to believe that respondents will not convey these actual reasons to petitioner's prospective employers.2 The Court responds by asserting that since the stigma was imposed “after petitioner had suffered the injury for which he seeks redress, it surely cannot provide retroactive support for his claim.” Ibid. But the “claim” does not arise until the State has officially branded petitioner in some way, and the purpose of the due process hearing is to accord him an opportunity to clear his name; merely because the derogatory information is filed in respondents’ records and no “publication” occurs until shortly after his discharge from employment does not subvert the fact that a postdepri-vation hearing to accord petitioner an opportunity to clear his name has been contemplated by our cases.3 *353Even under Paul v. Davis, respondents should be required to accord petitioner a due process hearing in which he can attempt to vindicate his name; this further expansion of those personal interests that the Court simply writes out of the “life, liberty, or property” Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is simply another curtailment of precious constitutional safeguards that marks too many recent decisions of the Court.
I also fully concur in the dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Blackmun, which forcefully demonstrate the Court's error in holding that petitioner was not deprived of “property” without due process of law. I would only add that the strained reading of the local ordinance, which the Court deems to be “tenable,” ante, at 347, cannot be dispositive of the existence vel non of petitioner’s “property” interest. There is certainly a federal dimension to the definition of “property” in the Federal Constitution; cases such as Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, held merely that “property” interests encompass those to which a person has “a legitimate claim of entitlement,” 408 U. S., at 577, and can arise from “existing rules or understandings” that derive from “an independent source such as state law.” Ibid, (emphasis supplied). But certainly, at least before a state law is definitively construed as not securing a “property” interest, the relevant inquiry is whether it was objectively reasonable for the employee to believe he could rely on continued employment. Cf. ibid. (“It 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.” 4) At a minimum, this would require in this *354case an analysis of the common practices utilized and the expectations generated by respondents, and the manner in which the local ordinance would reasonably be read by respondents' employees.5 These disputed issues of fact are not meet for resolution, as they were on summary judgment, and would thus at a minimum require a remand for further factual development in the District Court.
These observations do not, of course, suggest that a “federal court is . . . the appropriate forum in which to review the multitude of personnel decisions that are made daily by public agencies.” Ante, at 349. However, the federal courts are the appropriate forum for ensuring that the constitutional mandates of due process are followed by those agencies of government making personnel decisions that pervasively influence the lives of those affected thereby; the fundamental premise of the Due Process Clause is that those procedural safeguards will help the government avoid the “harsh fact” of “incorrect or ill-advised personnel decisions.” Ante, at 350. *355Petitioner seeks no more than that, and I believe that his “property” interest in continued employment and his “liberty” interest in his good name and reputation dictate that he be accorded procedural safeguards before those interests are deprived by arbitrary or capricious government action.

 The Court in Paul also ignored the clear import of Goss v. Lopez, 419 U. S. 565 (1975); Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U. S. 433 (1971); and Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411 (1969). See Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S., at 729-733 (Brennan, J., dissenting).

 It is only common sense, to be sure, that prospective employers will inquire as to petitioner’s employment during the 33 months in which he was in respondents’ service.

 The Court asserts that to provide petitioner with a post-deprivation hearing when the stigmatizing reasons become known during litigation “would penalize forthright and truthful communication . . . between litigants.” Ante, at 349. Of course, there are various sanctions under our judicial system to ensure that testimony is “forthright and truthful” without necessitating denial of petitioner’s due process rights. And I suppose the Court would declare that according a discharged employee a postdeprivation hearing as soon as it is clear his former employer is stigmatizing his name when it communicates with prospective employers would similarly discourage “forthright and truthful” communication between employers in that situation. However, the purpose of the due process hearing is to provide petitioner a mechanism for clearing his name of a cloud that is not in fact “truthful.”

 By holding that States have “unfettered discretion” in defining “property” for purposes of the Due Process Clause of the Federal Constitution, see ante, at 349-350, n. 14, the Court is, as my Brother White argues, effectively adopting the analysis rejected by a major*354ity of the Court in Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U. S. 134 (1974). More basically, the Court’s approach is a resurrection of the discredited rights/privileges distinction, for a State may now avoid all due process safeguards attendant upon the loss of even the necessities of life, cf. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970), merely by labeling them as not constituting “property.” See also, e. g., Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535 (1971); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471 (1972).

 For example, petitioner was hired for a “probationary” period of six months, after which he became a “permanent” employee. No reason appears on the record for this distinction, other than the logical assumption, confirmed by a reasonable reading of the local ordinance, that after completion of the former period, an employee may only be discharged for “cause.” As to respondents’ personnel practices, it is important to note that in a department which currently employs 17 persons, petitioner’s was the only discharge, for cause or otherwise, during the period of over three years from the time of his hiring until the time of pretrial discovery.