Commonwealth v. Cappellucci

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a school district’s statement of reasons for terminating an employee “implicate[d] the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment” even though New York law required the school district to issue it
• noting that while a hearing is appropriate in eases of public charges of dishonesty and immorality, it is not required where employee alleges “free-standing defamatory statements”
• concluding that supervisor’s termination implicated a liberty interest because statements and comments about her “reciting a litany of lack of professional competence” were “so harsh as to be likely to persuade any other school board not to hire plaintiff as a supervisor”
• finding liberty interest where the disputed statements constituted “extensively detailed lists of [appellant’s] supposed professional failings”
• “[Stigmatizing allegations also include charges going to professional competence when the charges are sufficiently serious.”
• noting that a sufficient name-clearing hearing reduces the risk that dismissal is accompanied by stigmatizing allegations in the employee’s personnel file and that “[t]he employer need not rehire the employee even if she can prove the inaccuracy of the stigmatizing allegations.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).