Supreme Court of Texas 

Appellate: Civil; Business; Gov’t/Administrative; Labor/Employment; Litigation

County of Dallas v. Wiland

2/16/2007 – 04-0247

Justice Hecht. Justice Brister, joined by Chief Justice Jefferson, Justice O’Neill, and Justice Medina, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

Employment. Deputy Constables covered by civil service manual have a property interest in continued employment and a right to procedural due process.

Three deputy constables covered by Dallas County’s civil service system contend that the County terminated their employment without just cause and without a hearing, thereby denying them substantive and procedural due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and entitling them to actual damages under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (referred as “section 1983”). The Dallas Commissioners Court established a civil service system on July 17, 2001 – and therefore for purpose of this case – the system was set out in the Dallas County Administrative Policies and Procedures Manual (“the manual”). From 1990 to 2003, deputy constables were Category “C” employees covered by the system under section 2.00. Section 1.00 of the Manual states that the Dallas County civil service system “is a systematic method of appointing employees to offices and promoting them for competency and performance.” On the inside of the cover page is the following statement: “Nothing in the [Manual] is to be construed as a contract of employment or a provision guaranteeing the specific term or tenure of employment.” The rules governing dismissal state in pertinent part: “4.21 An employee may be dismissed from the County without prior notice for just cause including, but not limited to [The rules here list on ground for dismissal other than for just cause.] The trial court granted partial summary judgment for the deputies on liability issues and rendered judgment on the jury’s finding of actual damages, and the court of appeals affirmed. 124 S.W.3d 390 Held: Reversed and remanded to the trial court. Because the trial court erred in holding that the absence of just cause had been established as a matter of law, the deputies’ claim for denial of procedural due process must be remanded for further proceedings. The system’s covered employees cannot be discharged without just cause, and thus they have a property interest in continued employment. The deputies were discharged with out the hearing before the civil service commission promised by system rules to determine whether just cause existed, and thus they w ere denied procedural due process.

Civil service system procedure does not create a property right interest and does not alter the employee’s “At-Will” status.

The County’s civil service system clearly provided covered employees important procedures for hearing and deciding grievances, but the entitlement to such procedures, without more, does not alter an employee’s at-will status, thereby creating a property interest in continued employment. The County can rightly be faulted for not being clearer on the subject in the Manual. But, a limitation on at-will employment cannot simply be inferred. On balance, such a limitation in the Manual is more than an inference, and the fair import of the Manual’s provisions, taken as a while, is that covered employees are not to be discharged without being given a reason they can contest. This expectation in continued employment except for just cause, while not a contract right, as the Manual expressly disavows, in nevertheless a property interest of which employees may not be deprived without due process.

Due process denial remedy is due process. Damages follow only if dismissal was without cause.

The deputies were entitled under the Manual to have a hearing on their grievances, and since they were denied such a hearing, they were denied procedural due process. In general the remedy for the denial of due process is due process. For having been denied procedural due process, the deputies could recover damages for injuries resulting from the loss of their employment, as they requested, only if just cause did not exist for their termination. Whether there was cause to dismiss the deputies has never been established, because the County has taken the position throughout that the deputies were never dismissed at all. The County has consistently contended that the deputies’ terms of employment automatically expired when Constable Dupree took office, and he refused to administer the oath of office to them. If just cause existed for the deputies’ dismissal, the County’s refusal to give them a hearing on the issue could not have caused damages “resulting from…dismissal from…employment”. The existence of just cause have never been established. The deputies’ recovery of damages “resulting from… dismissal from…employment” must therefore be reversed because it has not been shown on this record that these damages were caused by the County’s denial of procedural due process. But the case must be remanded for the deputies to advance that contention if they choose to do so. If there was just cause to dismiss the deputies, the deputies can recover only damages directly resulting from the denial of a hearing, if any can be proved, or, absent such proof, nominal damages. Only if there was no just cause to dismiss the deputies can they recover the damages resulting from the dismissal. The Court expresses no opinion on how the burden of proof of just cause for dismissal should be assigned.

Continued employment of government employees not protected by substantive due process.

A government employee’s interest in continued employment is not protected by substantive due process, and even if it were, the County’s decision to discharge the constables was not arbitrary and capricious so as to violate substantive due process. When a plaintiff challenges the validity of a legislative act, substantive due process typically demands that the act be rationally related to some legitimate government purpose. In contrast, when a plaintiff challenges a non-legislative state action (such as an adverse employment decision), the courts look, as a threshold matter, to whether the property interest being deprived is “fundamental” under the Constitution. If it is, then substantive due process protects the plaintiff from arbitrary or irrational deprivation, regardless of the adequacy of procedures used. If the interest is not “fundamental,” however, the governmental action is entirely outside the ambit of substantive process and will be upheld, so long as the state satisfies the requirements of procedural due process. The deputies have no interest in continued employment protected by substantive due process. Even if such an interest were protected, the United States Supreme Court has firmly held that executive actions – which individual employment decision – violate substantive due process, only if they are wholly arbitrary. The County believed, based on legal advice and the court of appeals’ opinion in Arrington v. County of Dallas, 792 S.W.2d 468, 471 (Tex. App.- Dallas 1990, writ denied), that the deputies’ term had automatically expired. The County was in error about the legal effect of the expiration of a constable’s tem of office, but its decisions were nevertheless reasoned and reasonable. They were certainly not arbitrary, nor did they remotely approach the conscience-shocking required for a substantive due process violation.