Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill
Whether public employees who have a statutory right to be discharged only for cause possess a property interest in their continued employment under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and if so, what procedural protections they are entitled to before being terminated.
The Decision
8-1 decision · Opinion by Byron R. White · 1985
Majority Opinion— Byron R. Whiteconcurring ↓dissent ↓
The Supreme Court affirmed the Sixth Circuit's decision in an opinion written by Justice Byron R. White. The vote was 9–0 on the central question of whether the employees had a constitutionally protected property interest, and 8–1 on the overall holding that pre-termination process was required, with Justice Rehnquist as the sole dissenter.
The Court first held that Loudermill and Donnelly clearly had a property interest in their continued employment. Ohio law specified that classified civil service employees could be terminated only for cause. This statutory guarantee created a legitimate expectation of continued employment — which is exactly the kind of interest the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause protects. The Court rejected the Board's argument that because the state created the property right, the state could also define (and limit) the procedures for taking it away. Justice White wrote that this 'bitter with the sweet' approach had been considered and rejected by the Court in prior cases. The Constitution, not the state legislature, determines what process is due once a property interest exists.
Turning to what process was required, the Court applied a balancing test weighing the private interest at stake, the risk of erroneous deprivation under existing procedures, and the government's interest in efficient operations. The Court acknowledged that the government has a legitimate interest in quickly removing unsatisfactory employees and that a full evidentiary hearing before every termination would be impractical. However, it held that something more than nothing was required before the government could take away a person's livelihood.
The Court concluded that due process requires, at a minimum, that the employee receive oral or written notice of the charges against them, an explanation of the employer's evidence, and an opportunity to present their own side of the story before being terminated. This pre-termination hearing does not need to be elaborate — it is essentially an initial check to determine whether there are reasonable grounds for the termination. A more comprehensive post-termination hearing can then follow to make a final determination. The key insight was that the purpose of the pre-termination hearing is to serve as a safeguard against mistakes — to catch cases where the employer may be acting on incorrect information or where the employee may have a ready explanation.
The Court also addressed Loudermill's claim that the nine-month delay before his post-termination hearing violated due process. On this point, the majority declined to rule definitively that the delay was unconstitutional on its face, noting that the case record was not well-developed on the issue, though the Court signaled that lengthy delays could raise serious concerns. This particular aspect of the holding prompted Justice Brennan to write separately.
Concurring Opinions
Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a concurrence emphasizing that the pre-termination safeguards required by the majority were the bare minimum and that more robust protections might be appropriate in some cases. Justice William J. Brennan Jr. concurred in part but dissented in part, arguing that the extraordinary nine-month delay Loudermill experienced before receiving his post-termination hearing itself constituted a violation of due process, a point on which he faulted the majority for not ruling more firmly.
Dissenting Opinions
William H. Rehnquist
Justice Rehnquist argued that the majority's analysis was fundamentally flawed because the state that creates a property interest is entitled to define the procedures by which that interest may be taken away. In his view, Ohio had given employees both a right to keep their jobs and a specific procedure for contesting dismissals — the post-termination appeal process — and the Constitution did not require anything more.
- The 'property' interest in employment is entirely a creation of state law, so the state should be able to attach whatever procedural conditions it wishes to that interest, including limiting employees to post-termination remedies.
- The majority's approach improperly separates the substantive right from its procedural framework, effectively allowing the federal Constitution to override the state's reasonable choices about how to administer its own civil service system.
- Employees who accept government jobs under a statutory scheme that provides only post-termination review have received all the process they are due, because the property right they hold is defined by — and limited by — that very scheme.
Background & Facts
James Loudermill was a security guard employed by the Cleveland Board of Education. When he was hired, he stated on his job application that he had never been convicted of a felony. The Board later discovered that Loudermill had in fact been convicted of grand larceny in 1968. On the basis of this dishonesty, the Board dismissed him in November 1980. He was not given any chance to respond to the charges against him or explain his side of the story before being fired. His case was consolidated with that of Richard Donnelly, a bus mechanic employed by the Parma Board of Education, who was fired in August 1977 after failing an eye examination. Donnelly, too, received no pre-termination hearing.
Both Loudermill and Donnelly were classified civil service employees under Ohio law. Ohio Revised Code § 124.34 provided that such employees were entitled to retain their positions during good behavior and could only be dismissed for specified causes, such as misfeasance, malfeasance, or dishonesty. The statute also gave employees the right to appeal their dismissals to the State Personnel Board of Review, which could hold an administrative hearing after the termination took place. Loudermill filed his appeal, but it took over nine months before he received a hearing, and even longer before a final decision was reached.
Loudermill and Donnelly each filed federal lawsuits arguing that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required the state to provide them with a hearing before taking away their jobs — not just after the fact. The federal district court dismissed both cases, reasoning that Ohio's post-termination administrative review procedures were sufficient to satisfy due process.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. It held that because Ohio law gave classified civil service employees a right to continued employment absent just cause for dismissal, these employees had a 'property interest' in their jobs. That property interest, the Sixth Circuit concluded, entitled them to some kind of hearing before they were terminated. The Cleveland and Parma Boards of Education then asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case because it raised a fundamental and recurring question about the constitutional rights of millions of public employees across the country: When the government gives its workers legal protections against arbitrary firing, does the Constitution require the government to hear the employee's side of the story before pulling the trigger on termination?
The Arguments
The Board argued that when Ohio law creates a right to continued employment, the state is also free to define the procedures by which that right can be taken away. Because Ohio provided for a post-termination administrative appeal, the Board contended this was all the process that was constitutionally required.
- The state that creates the property right also defines its dimensions, including the procedures for its removal — employees must take the 'bitter with the sweet.'
- Ohio's post-termination appeal process before the State Personnel Board of Review provided a meaningful opportunity to challenge the dismissal and was constitutionally adequate.
- Requiring a pre-termination hearing would impose significant administrative burdens on government employers and interfere with the efficient management of public agencies.
Loudermill argued that because Ohio law gave him a right not to be fired without just cause, he had a constitutionally protected property interest in his job. The Due Process Clause required the government to give him notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before depriving him of that interest.
- Ohio law created a substantive right to continued employment by limiting the grounds for dismissal to specific causes — this is a classic property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Once a property interest is established, the procedures required to protect it are determined by the Constitution, not by the state legislature that created the interest.
- Being fired without any opportunity to respond — and then waiting many months for a post-termination hearing — inflicts serious harm including loss of income, damage to reputation, and emotional distress that cannot be adequately remedied after the fact.