Court Opinion

ID: 9565808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:28:26.391057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:54.236961
License: Public Domain

*418OPALA, Vice Chief Justice,
concurring in judgment.
I join the court in reversing today the nisi prius judgment for the plaintiff, which gave him recovery in an action founded, inter alia, on a § 1983 claim for deprivation of his liberty interest in public employment with the Housing Authority of the City of Norman [Authority].
The Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment is deemed offended and the liberty interest protected by that fundamental-law norm impermissibly invaded when a nontenured public employee’s discharge, which has a “stigmatizing” effect, leaves him (or her) without an opportunity to “clear his name” in a post-termination hearing.1 Generally, a person’s § 1983 liberty interest claim is not complete when the deprivation occurs “unless ... the state fails to provide due process.”2 Extant U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence gives less than sure and meaningful guidance on the precise question to be answered here— Must a stigmatized nontenured public employee request an opportunity to clear his name before he may press a § 1983 claim for damages, or does the law itself demand a name-clearing hearing for a stigmatized employee under all circumstances? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has held that a nontenured public employee’s § 1983 claim for vindication of a deprived liberty interest is actionable only after his request for a post-termination hearing has been denied.3 The jurisprudence of the Tenth Circuit appears, at best, inconclusive.4
Absent controlling federal Supreme Court precedent and without much guidance on the point from the Tenth Circuit jurisprudence,5 I would adopt today an al*419ternative rule: (1) in open-and-shut cases of stigmatization, the § 1983 liberty interest claim of a nontenured public employee is indeed actionable without a demand for a name-clearing hearing, because it is the public employer’s failure timely to afford such a hearing that constitutes a “deprivation” under the so-called “third tier” of claims enumerated in Zinermon v. Burch;6 but (2) where, as here, the stigmatizing effect of a dismissal is, at best, debatable, I would follow the Fifth Circuit jurisprudence and hold that the discharged employee, not the public employer, must initiate the request for a name-clearing hearing, because the latter should not be deemed on notice that the employee has perceived the dismissal as stigmatizing him for future employability. My analysis appears to rest on an accurate assessment of evolving federal constitutional doctrine for actionability of those § 1983 claims which, as in this case, are sought to be rested on deprivation of a liberty interest in nontenured public employment.
A name-clearing hearing is necessary when the stigmatization involves imputation of illegal, dishonest or disloyal conduct that reflects on the employee’s good name, honor or integrity, or will foreclose freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunity. On this record, any stigmatization claimed to result from the Authority chairman’s after-dismissal statements to two news reporters which attribute to the discharged employee a violation of the Authority’s “trust and confidence” because he had taped its members’ telephone conversations and then played them for the staff’s entertainment is, at best, questionable. An employee’s termination for amusing himself and others by listening to taped conversations does not, in my opinion, indicate on its face a character flaw of a stigmatizing dimension.
Although I join today's reversal, I rest my concurrence (a) on the rather doubtful nature of stigmatization claimed to have been visited on the plaintiff in the wake of his dismissal, coupled with (b) his failure timely to seek a name-clearing hearing before the entire Authority.

. Discharge from nontenured public employment under circumstances that put an employee’s reputation, honor or integrity at stake gives rise to a protectible liberty interest in a procedural opportunity to clear the cloud cast upon one's good name. See Codd v. Velger, 429 U.S. 624, 627, 97 S.Ct. 882, 884, 51 L.Ed.2d 92 [1977]; Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 348, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 2079, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 [1976]; Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 710, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 1165, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 [1976]; Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 [1972]; Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437, 91 S.Ct. 507, 510, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 [1971]; Cafeteria & Rest. Wkrs. U., Local 473 v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 [1961]; Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 191, 73 S.Ct. 215, 218, 97 L.Ed. 216 [1952],

. Zinermon v. Burch, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 975, 983, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 [1990].

. Rosenstein v. City of Dallas, Tex., 876 F.2d 392, 396 n. 8 [5th Cir.1989]; In re Selcraig, 705 F.2d 789, 796 [5th Cir.1983],

. See McGhee v. Draper, 564 F.2d 902 [10th Cir.1977]; McGhee v. Draper, 639 F.2d 639 [10th Cir.1981].
As noted in the text, we are here without sure guidance either from the U.S. Supreme Court, the tribunal to which we look as a state court of last resort for authority on federal-law issues, or from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in whose jurisdiction we sit. The jurisprudence of the federal circuits is either inconclusive on the point in issue here or clearly favors the view that a demand for a name-clearing hearing is a sine qua non of a § 1983 claim based on deprivation of a person’s liberty interest.
(1) Fifth Circuit jurisprudence in Rosenstein v. City of Dallas, Tex., supra note 3 at 396 n. 8, holds that the “state deprives an employee of a liberty interest only when it denies his request for an opportunity to contest the charges and clear his name." (Emphasis added.) See also In re Selcraig, supra note 3 at 796, where the same court states that the public employer "need not initiate the [name-clearing] hearing process of its own accord.” (2) In Buxton v. City of Plant City, Fla, 871 F.2d 1037, 1046 [11th Cir.1989], the Eleventh Circuit appears to require the dismissed nontenured public employee to take the initiative in requesting a hearing, since the public employer need only provide the opportunity for a name-clearing hearing and give notice of the right to such a hearing. (3) First, Sixth and Tenth Circuit caselaw appears to be inconclusive. See Rodriguez de Quinonez v. Perez, 596 F.2d 486 [1st Cir.1978], cert. den., 444 U.S. 840, 100 S.Ct. 78, 62 L.Ed.2d 51 [1979]; Burkhart v. Randles, 764 F.2d 1196, 1201 [6th Cir.1985]; McGhee v. Draper, supra. (4) The Iowa Supreme Court, relying on Fifth Circuit jurisprudence in Rosenstein, supra note 3, holds that a discharged nontenured public employee must request a name-clearing hearing to establish a § 1983 liberty interest claim. Bennett v. City of Redfield, 446 N.W.2d 467, 471 n. 8 [Iowa 1989].

.Absent controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent, we follow the Tenth Circuit jurisprudence — the federal law in our circuit. Phillips v. Williams, Okl., 608 P.2d 1131, 1135 [1980],

. Supra note 2.