Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985)
Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill is a cornerstone of public employment law and procedural due process.
Whether the Due Process Clause requires a tenured (for-cause) public employee to receive notice and an opportunity to respond before termination, notwithstanding a state statute that provides only post-termination administrative review, and whether the length of the post-termination delay violated due process.
When state law or other sources create a property interest in continued public employment (e.g., termination only for cause), the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause requires, before termination, (1) oral or written notice of the charges, (2) an explanation of the employer's evidence, and (3) an opportunity for the employee to present his or her side of the story. The adequacy of procedures is assessed under Mathews v. Eldridge's balancing test, considering the private interest affected, the risk of erroneous deprivation and the value of additional safeguards, and the government's interests including fiscal and administrative burdens. States may not define the scope of constitutional due process by the procedures they choose to attach to the property interest; once a property interest is conferred, the Constitution independently defines the minimum process due.
Yes. A tenured public employee must receive, prior to termination, notice of the charges, an explanation of the employer's evidence, and an opportunity to respond; a full evidentiary hearing may follow post-termination. The statutory provision of only post-termination review is constitutionally insufficient standing alone. On the record presented, the approximately nine-month delay in the post-termination administrative proceedings did not, by itself, amount to a due process violation. Judgment of the court of appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Loudermill is foundational in public employment law and is the source of the widely used term "Loudermill hearing." It clarifies that minimal pretermination process is constitutionally required for public employees with a recognized property interest in their jobs, even if a state statute offers only post-termination review. It rejects the notion that a state can control constitutional due process by defining the procedures attached to a conferred property interest. For law students, the case illustrates the Mathews balancing test in the employment context, the distinction between creation of a property interest and the constitutional floor of process, and the practical calibration between pretermination and post-termination proceedings.