Hoffman v. City of Willimantic

680 F. Supp. 504, 1988 WL 19686
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMarch 8, 1988
DocketNo. Civ. B-82-391 (PCD)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 680 F. Supp. 504 (Hoffman v. City of Willimantic) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hoffman v. City of Willimantic, 680 F. Supp. 504, 1988 WL 19686 (D. Conn. 1988).

Opinion

RULING ON PENDING MOTIONS

DORSEY, District Judge.

This ruling addresses the following pending motions: (1) Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Answers to Outstanding Discovery; (2) Motion to Compel filed by defendants City of Willimantic and Daniel P. Lamont; and (3) Motion Re Plaintiff’s Objections to Discovery filed by defendants City of Willimantic and Daniel P. Lamont.

Discussion

In deciding these motions, it is helpful to remember the posture of this case as to these parties.

[P]laintiff has alleged and supported by affidavit that his name and reputation have been adversely affected and his job prospects diminished. He continues to deny the substance of the charges made against him and claims that he has been stigmatized as a result of his termination. “Where a person’s good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him,” Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437 [91 S.Ct. 507, 510, 27 L.Ed.2d 515] (1971), and, specifically, where “the State, in declining to re-employ [a worker] impose[s] on him a stigma or other disability that foreclose[s] his freedom to take advantage of other employment opportunities,” Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573 [92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707, 33 L.Ed.2d 548] (1971), then the fourteenth amendment due process clause requires “notice and an opportunity to be heard,” Constantineau, 400 U.S. at 437 [91 S.Ct. at 510], wherein the employee has “an opportunity to refute the charge” and “to clear his name.” Roth, 408 U.S. at 573 n. 12 [92 S.Ct. at 2707 n. 12]. In light of plaintiff’s denial that he committed any sexual impropriety, his case comes within the rule of Codd v. Vegler, 429 U.S. 624, 627 [97 S.Ct. 882, 883-84, 51 L.Ed.2d 92] (1977) (per curiam), that “there must be some factual dispute between an employer and a discharged employee which has some significant bearing on the employee’s reputation.”
The “liberty” which the fourteenth amendment protects is “broad indeed.” Roth, 408 U.S. at 572 [92 S.Ct. at 2707]. It embraces not only the right to be free of bodily intrusions or restraint, but the right “to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at [506]*506common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399 [43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042] (1923). Inasmuch as discharged employees of the state have a liberty interest which is compromised when they are terminated under circumstances which affect their standing in the community and their future job prospects, plaintiff is entitled, even at this late date, to a hearing for the sole purpose of presenting his version of the facts and clearing his name and reputation.

Hoffman v. McNamara, 630 F.Supp. 1257, 1260-61 (D.Conn.1986) (emphasis added).

Thus, it was found that there was no question but that plaintiff was deprived of his right to a hearing. Furthermore, as a result of that denial, rather than as a result of the action taken against him— i.e., the fact of and basis for his termination — he is entitled to damages. His right to damages exists because his right to a hearing was initially deprived and later delayed. He is not entitled to deprivation because of the alleged deprivation of a property interest.1

(1) Plaintiffs Motion to Compel

This motion covers plaintiffs (1) interrogatories addressed to defendant city dated September 16, 1987; (2) request for production addressed to defendant city dated September 16,1987; (3) second set of interrogatories and request for production addressed to defendant City dated September 21, 1987; and (4) interrogatories and request for production addressed to defendant Lamont, as Executor of the Estate of John P. Hussey, dated September 21, 1987.

The first two discovery requests posed interrogatories concerning production of information relating to the compensation package provided to Willimantic police officers from 1980 through the present (i.e., number of overtime hours worked; description and statement of value of pension, health, disability and life insurance plans; copies of collective bargaining agreements; and copies of all other benefits available to Willimantic police officers during that period). The second set of interrogatories and requests for production sought information concerning whether the city had insurance coverage to satisfy part or all of any monetary judgment or attorney fees that might be awarded and whether it was “indemnifying Lamont.” Similar information was requested from Lamont. In each instance, defendants’ objection was the same:

This interrogatory [/request] seeks information that is irrelevant in that the court has ruled as to these defendants ... as there is no property interest, plaintiff would not be able to seek reinstatement or compensation for his job loss; onerous and burdensome.

In support of their objection to plaintiff’s discovery requests, defendants argue that plaintiff is not entitled to damages because he cannot show that he suffered damages as a result of defendants’ failure to provide him with procedural due process. Defendants claim that (1) plaintiff never asked for a hearing until he contacted his lawyer; (2) defendants never published any stigmatizing information regarding the accusations made against plaintiff; (3) the facts surrounding his resignation were not sufficiently stigmatizing; (4) defendants’ conduct does not justify damages as it does not rise to the level that “shocks the conscience” of the court; and (5) plaintiff cannot show that he would not have been terminated even had he been given a hearing.

Defendants may be liable for damages sustained by plaintiff during the period he was denied a hearing at which to present his version of the facts. It may not refuse to address discovery. The Supreme Court has noted that, where the state has acted in such a manner as to foreclose to plaintiff future employment opportunities, he would have had a right to damages. Roth, 408 U.S. at 573, 92 S.Ct. [507]*507at 2707. “For ‘[t]o be deprived not only of present government employment but of future opportunity for it certainly is no small injury____’” Id. at 575, 92 S.Ct. at 2708, quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 185, 71 S.Ct. 624, 655, 95 L.Ed. 817 (1951) (Jackson, J., concurring). If plaintiff is able to show that defendants’ failure to provide him with a timely hearing to contest the accusations made against him resulted in actual damages, he would be entitled to recover damages compensating him for that injury. Hogue v. Clinton, 791 F.2d 1318, 1323 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 107 S.Ct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Gary D. Swank v. James Smart
898 F.2d 1247 (Seventh Circuit, 1990)
Hoffman v. McNamara
688 F. Supp. 830 (D. Connecticut, 1988)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
680 F. Supp. 504, 1988 WL 19686, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hoffman-v-city-of-willimantic-ctd-1988.