# Knowlton Merritt v. John E. MacKey

> Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · September 16, 1987 · 827 F.2d 1368

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9476663

## Case

- **Full name:** Knowlton MERRITT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John E. MACKEY, Et Al., Defendants-Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- **Decided:** September 16, 1987
- **Citations:** 827 F.2d 1368; 56 U.S.L.W. 2179; 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 12281
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Norris
- **Judges:** Wallace, Ferguson, Norris
- **Cited by:** 116 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9476663

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that an employee of a government contractor who was fired after government officials demanded his immediate termination could state a procedural due process claim
- reversing the district court’s decision that the Parratt doctrine applied, and denying qualified immunity because the plaintiff had a clearly established right to predeprivation process
- finding coercion where federal officials issued drug treatment agency ultimatum of firing employee or facing complete loss of state and federal funds
- finding of unconstitutional government interference in employment relationship dependent upon employee’s enforceable entitlement to continued employment
- finding a violation of procedural due process when the government had “coercive dealings” with the plaintiffs employer

## Opinion text

NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I write separately even though I concur in Judge Ferguson’s opinion. This case calls upon us once again to engage in the difficult line-drawing enterprise of deciding whether a given employment situation gives rise to a cognizable property right under the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. I agree with the district court and with Judge Ferguson that Oregon law gave Merritt a constitutionally significant property interest in his continued employment. In my view, this conclusion follows not only from Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 , 92 S.Ct. 2701 , 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), but also Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 , 92 S.Ct. 2694 , 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), in which the Supreme Court recognized that a contractual interest in continued employment falls within the class of “property” interests that may be subject to procedural due process protections. Id. at 601 , 92 S.Ct. at 2699. At heart, it is this Supreme Court precedent — liberating the definition of property from “rigid, technical forms,” id, —with which Judge Wallace is really quarrelling in his dissent. Thus, while I share his concern that our jurisprudence not afford constitutional status to the entirety of state contract law, I believe that we cannot escape the Supreme Court’s mandate explicit in Roth and Perry that state law can create a constitutionally significant property interest in an employment relationship.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9476663. Public record. Not legal advice.