Harold E. Sonnleitner v. Stanley York, Joann O'connor, Kathleen Bellaire, Kathy Karkula and Joe Leann

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that the plaintiff had a property interest in his position because a Wisconsin statute stated “an employee with permanent status in class may be removed, suspended without pay, discharged, reduced in base pay or demoted only for just cause”
• holding that “the allegations against the defendants in their official capacities refer to, at most, a past rather than an ongoing violation of federal law” because the plaintiff “was eventually given an opportunity to tell his side of the story”
• holding that “it is undisputed that [the plaintiff] possessed a property interest in his supervisory position by virtue of his employment with the state” because the relevant Wisconsin statue required just cause for removal, suspension, discharge, or reduction in pay
• finding that request for reinstatement “could be characterized” as request for prospective relief, but that underlying alleged violation was not “ongoing”
• explaining that to defeat qualified immunity, a plaintiff must show that the right violated was “clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, so that a reasonable public official would have known that his conduct was unlawful”
• finding a legally cognizable property de privation in part because it was “undisputed that [the plaintiffs] demotion involved a reduction in his base pay”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).