Amendment 14 — Due Process Test In Mathews V Eldridge

prev | next

Fourteenth Amendment , Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The requirements of due process depend on the nature of the interest at stake and the weight of that interest balanced against the opposing government interests.[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn1amd14 " The Court stated: “The extent to which procedural due process must be afforded the recipient is influenced by the extent to which he may be ‘condemned to suffer grievous loss,’ . . . and depends upon whether the recipient’s interest in avoiding that loss outweighs the governmental interest in summary adjudication.” Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 262–63 (1970), (quoting Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123, 168 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring)). “The very nature of due process negates any concept of inflexible procedures universally applicable to every imaginable situation.” Cafeteria & Rest. Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 894–95 (1961). ") The Supreme Court articulated the current standard for determining what process is required before the government may impair a protected interest in the 1976 case Mathews v. Eldridge.[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn2amd14 " 424 U.S. 319 (1976). ") The Mathews Court explained:

Identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: first, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and, finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirements would entail.[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn3amd14 " Id. at 335. ")

Application of this standard is highly fact-dependent, as Mathews itself demonstrated. Mathews concerned termination of Social Security benefits. The Mathews Court compared the process required in the case before it with what was required in an earlier case involving termination of welfare benefits, Goldberg v. Kelly.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn4amd14 " 397 U.S. 254 (1970). ") The termination of welfare benefits in Goldberg, which affected “persons on the very margin of subsistence” and could have resulted in the challenger’s loss of food and shelter, had required a pre-deprivation hearing. By contrast, the Court held, the termination of Social Security benefits in Mathews required less protection because disability benefits are not based on financial need and a terminated recipient could apply for welfare if needed.[5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn5amd14 " Mathews, 424 U.S. at 340–41. ") Moreover, while the Court had found a significant risk of erroneous deprivation in Goldberg, it found that the determination of ineligibility for Social Security benefits more often turns on routine and uncomplicated evaluations of data, reducing the likelihood of error. Finally, the Court noted that the administrative burden and other societal costs involved in giving Social Security recipients a pre-termination hearing would be high. Therefore, the Court concluded that due process was satisfied by a post-termination hearing with full retroactive restoration of benefits if the claimant prevails.[6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn6amd14 " Id. at 339–49. ")

While more recent cases often cite Mathews for the test the Court announced in that case, other roughly contemporaneous cases also show changes in the Court’s approach to procedural due process in the 1970s. For instance, in cases involving debtors and installment buyers, the Court shifted its approach around the time of the Mathews decision, generally requiring less process before money or property could be seized. Earlier cases had focused upon the interests of the holders of the property in not being unjustly deprived of goods and funds in their possession and had thus leaned toward requiring pre-deprivation hearings. By contrast, newer cases look to the interests of creditors as well. In one 1974 case, the Court explained: “The reality is that both seller and buyer had current, real interests in the property, and the definition of property rights is a matter of state law. Resolution of the due process question must take account not only of the interests of the buyer of the property but those of the seller as well.” [7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn7amd14 " Mitchell v. W.T. Grant Co., 416 U.S. 600, 604 (1974). ")

To illustrate, the 1969 case Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. mandated pre-deprivation hearings before wages could be garnished.[8](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn8amd14 " 395 U.S. 337 (1969). ") The Court appears to have limited Sniadach to instances when wages, and perhaps certain other basic necessities, are at issue and the consequences of deprivation would be severe.[9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn9amd14 " N. Ga. Finishing v. Di-Chem, 419 U.S. 601, 611 n.2 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring). The majority opinion draws no such express distinction, instead emphasizing that Sniadach-Fuentes do require observance of some due process procedural guarantees. See id. at 605–06. But see Mitchell, 416 U.S. at 614 (opinion of the Court by Justice Byron White emphasizing the wages aspect of the earlier case). ") The 1972 case Fuentes v. Shevin struck down a replevin statute that authorized the seizure of household goods purchased on an installment contract upon the filing of an ex parte application and the posting of bond.[10](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn10amd14 " 407 U.S. 67 (1972). ") The Court has also limited that case, holding that an appropriately structured ex parte judicial determination before seizure is sufficient to satisfy due process.[11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn11amd14 " Mitchell, 416 U.S. at 600; Di-Chem, 419 U.S. at 601. More recently, the Court has applied a variant of the Mathews formula in holding that Connecticut’s prejudgment attachment statute, which “fail[ed] to provide a preattachment hearing without at least requiring a showing of some exigent circumstance,” operated to deny equal protection. Connecticut v. Doehr, 501 U.S. 1, 18 (1991). ") Thus, laws authorizing sequestration, garnishment, or other seizure of property of an alleged defaulting debtor need only require that (1) the creditor furnish adequate security to protect the debtor’s interest, (2) the creditor make a specific factual showing before a neutral officer or magistrate, not a clerk or other such functionary, of probable cause to believe that he is entitled to the relief requested, and (3) an opportunity be assured for an adversary hearing promptly after seizure to determine the merits of the controversy, with the burden of proof on the creditor.[12](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn12amd14 " Mitchell, 416 U.S. at 615–18 (1974). Efforts to litigate challenges to seizures in actions involving two private parties may be thwarted by finding that the case involves no state action, but there often is sufficient participation by state officials in transferring possession of property to constitute state action and implicate due process. Compare Flagg Bros. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149 (1978) (no state action in warehouseman’s sale of goods for nonpayment of storage, as authorized by state law), with Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S. 922 (1982) (state officials’ joint participation with private party in effecting prejudgment attachment of property), and Tulsa Professional Collection Servs. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478 (1988) (probate court was sufficiently involved with actions activating time bar in nonclaim statute). ")

The Court has applied Mathews in a broad range of contexts. Applying the standard in the context of government employment, the Court considered the interest of an employee in retaining his job, the governmental interest in the expeditious removal of unsatisfactory employees, the avoidance of administrative burdens, and the risk of an erroneous termination and concluded that due process requires some minimum pre-termination notice and opportunity to respond, followed by a full post-termination hearing, including an award of back pay if the employee is successful.[13](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn13amd14 " Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985) (discharge of state government employee). In Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55 (1979), the Court held that the state interest in assuring the integrity of horse racing carried on under its auspices justified an interim suspension without a hearing once it established the existence of certain facts, provided that a prompt judicial or administrative hearing would follow suspension at which the issues could be determined was assured. See also FDIC v. Mallen, 486 U.S. 230 (1988) (strong public interest in the integrity of the banking industry justifies suspension of indicted bank official with no pre-suspension hearing, and with ninety-day delay before decision resulting from post-suspension hearing). ") Where an adverse employment action does not rise to the level of termination of employment, the governmental interest is significant, and reasonable grounds for such action have been established separately, the Court has held that a prompt hearing held after the adverse action may be sufficient.[14](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn14amd14 " Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924 (1997) (no hearing required prior to suspension without pay of tenured police officer arrested and charged with a felony). ")

In Brock v. Roadway Express, Inc., a plurality of the Court applied a similar analysis to governmental regulation of private employment, determining that an agency may order an employer to reinstate a whistleblower employee without an opportunity for a full evidentiary hearing, but that the employer is entitled to be informed of the substance of the employee’s charges and to have an opportunity for informal rebuttal.[15](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/due-process-test-in-mathews-v-eldridge#fn15amd14 " 481 U.S. 252 (1987). ") The principal difference from the Mathews test was that the Court acknowledged two conflicting private interests to weigh in t