Lawless v. Sadeck ( 2023 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
_____________________
No. 21-1251
DIANE LAWLESS,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
TOWN OF FREETOWN, et al.,
Defendants, Appellants.
_____________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. Indira Talwani, U.S. District Judge]
_____________________
Before
Kayatta and Howard, Circuit Judges,
and Walker, District Judge.
_____________________
Joseph A. Padolsky, with whom Louison, Costello, Condon &
Pfaff, LLP was on brief, for appellants.
Chip Muller, with whom Muller Law, LLC was on brief, for
appellee.
_____________________
March 22, 2023
_____________________
 Of the District of Maine, sitting by designation.
WALKER, District Judge. The Appellants, three members of the
Town of Freetown Board of Selectmen, ask us to review a summary
judgment order that rejected their affirmative defense of
qualified immunity against Appellee Diane Lawless’s procedural due
process claim. For reasons that follow, we reverse in part the
district court’s summary judgment ruling and remand for further
proceedings.
I.
Plaintiff-Appellee Diane Lawless served as Treasurer of the
Town of Freetown for roughly two years beginning in 2013 and ending
in 2015. Her contract called for a three-year term of employment,
terminable only for cause following a six-month probationary
period. The Town of Freetown is governed by a Board of Selectmen.
The board members took exception to Lawless’s continued tenure,
arranged for her to receive notice of perceived shortcomings,
placed her on administrative leave, and eventually instituted
disciplinary proceedings based on a notice reciting eight charges.
At her termination hearing before the Board, Lawless was
represented by counsel, questioned the Board’s two witnesses, and
addressed the Board on her own behalf. At the conclusion of the
three-day hearing, the Board voted to terminate Lawless’s contract
without deliberation. In connection with the underlying
controversy concerning Lawless’s performance and in the lead up to
the hearing, certain statements were made by the board members
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that would permit findings of personal bias or prejudgment. The
Town of Freetown affords no further proceeding post-termination.
Lawless filed an action in Bristol County Superior Court
naming as defendants the Town of Freetown and (now former) board
members Lee Baumgartner, Lisa Pacheco, and Paul Sadeck. The
individual board members are the Appellants herein.1 Lawless
included in her complaint a claim alleging deprivation of her right
to procedural due process, citing 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and on that
basis the defendants removed Lawless’s state court action to the
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
In due course, Lawless amended her complaint and the Town and the
board members filed a joint answer to the amended complaint. The
answer recited nine affirmative defenses but omitted any reference
to the doctrine of qualified immunity or immunity in general.
Following the close of discovery, the board members joined
with the Town in seeking summary judgment against Lawless’s due
process claim, contending for their part that the doctrine of
qualified immunity shielded them from Lawless’s § 1983 claim.
Lawless opposed the motion by arguing, in part, that the board
members waived the defense of qualified immunity by failing to
include it in their answer. The board members did not file a reply
memorandum, leaving Lawless’s waiver challenge unopposed. Nor did
1 Lawless also named Freetown’s replacement treasurer, Jessica
Thomas, as a defendant in her action. Ms. Thomas is not one of
the Appellants in this appeal.
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they file a motion to amend their answer to add the qualified
immunity defense.
The district court called the summary judgment motion for
oral argument on February 26, 2021. In the limited time available
for argument, the parties argued only their respective positions
on the merits of Lawless’s state law libel claim and her due
process claim; they did not address either the board members’
qualified immunity defense or Lawless’s waiver contention.
The district court issued its summary judgment ruling in a
memorandum and order dated March 9, 2021. Lawless v. Town of
Freetown by & through Thomas, No. 18-cv-11089-IT, 2021 WL 878083(D. Mass. Mar. 9, 2021). In its ruling, the court opted to proceed
directly to the merits of the qualified immunity defense, neither
relying on nor even mentioning the waiver argument. Based on its
discussion of the merits of the procedural due process claim, which
it found supported on the summary judgment record, the court
quickly rejected the board members’ argument for qualified
immunity, concluding that it is clearly established that a “sham”
disciplinary hearing does not satisfy due process.
The board members (“Appellants”) filed a timely notice of
appeal in which they argued that the district court erred in its
denial of their qualified immunity defense.
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II.
This Court has jurisdiction over the Appellants’
interlocutory appeal of the district court’s “denial of summary
judgment on qualified immunity only insofar as the appeal rests on
legal, rather than factual grounds.” McCue v. City of Bangor, 838
F.3d 55, 57 (1st Cir. 2016) (cleaned up). Here, the district court
concluded that the facts viewed in the light most favorable to
Diane Lawless would permit a jury to find that the Appellants
violated clearly established constitutional law. That legal
determination is subject to appellate review. Id.A.
Because Lawless’s waiver argument logically precedes analysis
of the merits, we pause to consider it before turning to the
district court’s qualified immunity ruling. The Appellants did
not assert in their answer the affirmative defense of qualified
immunity. Lawless argued in her summary judgment opposition that
the failure to timely plead the defense amounted to waiver. The
Appellants did not file a reply to that challenge. Nor did they
seek leave to amend their answer.
As an affirmative defense, qualified immunity can be waived
or, more precisely here, forfeited.2 Guzmán-Rivera v. Rivera-
2“Although jurists often use the words interchangeably, forfeiture
is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right; waiver is
the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.”
Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 458 n.13 (2004) (cleaned up).
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Cruz, 98 F.3d 664, 667 (1st Cir. 1996); Buenrostro v. Collazo, 973
F.2d 39, 44 (1st Cir. 1992). Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure provides: “In responding to a pleading, a party must
affirmatively state any avoidance or affirmative defense.” Fed.
R. Civ. P. 8(c). This Court has warned practitioners “that
affirmative defenses not included in an appropriate responsive
pleading are waived,” Carrasquillo-Serrano v. Mun. of Canovanas,
991 F.3d 32, 42–43 (1st Cir. 2021), and has reversed district
courts for failing to observe this maxim, see, e.g., Knapp Shoes,
Inc. v. Sylvania Shoe Mfg. Corp., 15 F.3d 1222, 1226 (1st Cir.
1994). Ordinarily, as explained in Knapp Shoes, “affirmative
defenses under Rule 8(c) must be pled in the answer . . . to give
the opposing party notice of the defense and a chance to develop
evidence and offer arguments to controvert the defense.” Id.Despite this otherwise stern admonition, in Knapp Shoes this
Court reserved the issue of whether a district court may excuse a
failure to plead “if ‘a plaintiff receives notice of an affirmative
defense by some means other than pleadings’ and is not prejudiced
by the omission of the defense from the initial pleading.” Id.(quoting Moore, Owen, Thomas & Co. v. Coffey, 992 F.2d 1439, 1445
(6th Cir. 1993)).3 Since Knapp Shoes, this Court has articulated
3 Another exception applies when the merits of an affirmative
defense have been “fully tried under the express or implied consent
of the parties, as if it had been raised in the original responsive
pleading.” Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Ramirez-Rivera, 869 F.2d
624, 626-27 (1st Cir. 1989).
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the standard to allow a district court to excuse a failure to
timely plead where (1) “the defendant asserts [the affirmative
defense] without undue delay and the plaintiff is not unfairly
prejudiced by any delay,” or (2) “the circumstances necessary to
establish entitlement to the affirmative defense did not obtain at
the time the answer was filed.” Davignon v. Clemmey, 322 F.3d 1,
15 (1st Cir. 2003).
If there is an exception to Rule 8(c)’s pleading requirement
in this case, it necessarily falls under the first category, which
calls for consideration of delay and its more significant
counterpart, resulting prejudice. In short, the party seeking to
assert the defense should explain why and the district court should
consider whether the totality of the relevant circumstances (e.g.,
the nature of the case, case pleadings, discovery initiatives,
correspondence, and statements made in open court) supports “a
practical, commonsense” conclusion that “Rule 8(c)’s core purpose-
-to act as a safeguard against surprise and unfair prejudice--has
been vindicated.” Williams v. Ashland Eng’g Co., Inc., 45 F.3d
588, 593 (1st Cir. 1995), abrogated on other grounds by Carpenters
Local Union No. 26 v. U.S. Fidelity & Guar. Co., 215 F.3d 136 (1st
Cir. 2000).
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Given the Appellants’ delay in raising the defense of
qualified immunity and their failure to defend that delay4, the
district court in its discretion could have deemed the defense
forfeited for purposes of summary judgment. The district court,
however, opted not to rely on any waiver or forfeiture. On appeal,
Lawless fails to argue either that the district court abused its
discretion in so proceeding or that that she was prejudiced by any
delay in raising the defense. Accordingly, like the district
court, we proceed to the merits.
B.
We review a district court's denial of summary judgment on
qualified immunity grounds de novo. Estate of Rahim by Rahim v.
Doe, 51 F.4th 402, 410 (1st Cir. 2022). However, we credit the
district court’s factual assessment that the record, viewed in the
light most favorable to Lawless, the nonmoving party, would support
the finding that the Appellants were seriously biased against her
continued employment by the Town. See Valdizán v. Rivera-
Hernandez, 445 F.3d 63, 65 (1st Cir. 2006). Nonetheless, “we
4Citing Guzmán-Rivera v. Rivera-Cruz, 98 F.3d 664 (1st Cir. 1996),
Appellants argue that a state actor is always free to raise the
qualified immunity defense “in a post-discovery summary judgment
motion even if it was not raised as an affirmative defense in the
answer.” Reply Br. 1. However, the defendants in Guzmán-Rivera
had asserted the qualified immunity defense in their answer, unlike
the Appellants. Id. at 669. Thus, contrary to Appellants’
argument, Guzmán-Rivera is not a license for defendants to raise
initially and exclusively by summary judgment motion a qualified
immunity defense.
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remain free to examine, on an interlocutory appeal, whether [a]
fact makes any cognizable legal difference.” Id.Diane Lawless contends that the appellants violated her right
to due process of law because they harbored biases against her yet
still presided at the only due process hearing afforded to her by
the Town of Freetown. For their part, the Appellants argue they
are entitled to qualified immunity because they provided Lawless
a fulsome, three-day, pretermination process replete with notice
of the charges and possible consequences, the opportunity to cross-
examine and call witnesses, and the opportunity to respond and
advocate for herself, both in her own words and through the closing
argument of counsel. They argue that they are shielded by
qualified immunity because no reasonable board member would
appreciate that this kind of process was deficient, even if the
decisionmakers arrive at the hearing predisposed to terminate the
employee.
The district court rejected the idea that biased decision
makers might provide adequate pretermination procedural due
process based on its determination that the facts viewed in the
light most favorable to Lawless would permit a jury finding “that
the Board had made up its mind to terminate Lawless prior to the
hearing and that no evidence she presented would have changed the
result.” Mem. & Order at 20. Among other facts shedding light on
this ruling, the district court noted several disparaging comments
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that the Appellants made prehearing, one board member’s remark
that the due process proceeding was a “dog and pony show” standing
in the way of Lawless’s prompt termination, and the Appellants’
failure to deliberate before voting to terminate Lawless’s
contract. In the district court’s estimation, such findings would
support a verdict that Lawless had not received a “true”
opportunity to respond, id., in violation of clearly established
law. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the district
court erred in its assessment of the Appellants’ qualified immunity
defense.
When government officials are sued in their individual
capacities for money damages, the doctrine of qualified immunity
shields them from pecuniary liability unless their conduct
violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights
of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v.
Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009). To assess an official’s bid
for qualified immunity, we may begin by determining whether the
conduct in question violated a federal statutory or constitutional
right. Alternatively, we may begin by determining whether the
unlawfulness of the conduct was clearly established at the time.
Punsky v. City of Portland, 54 F.4th 62, 65-66 (1st Cir. 2022).
The latter inquiry has “two related aspects,” Rocket Learning,
Inc. v. Rivera-Sanchez, 715 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2013), namely: (1)
the relative clarity of the governing law to a reasonable official
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on the date of the alleged wrong and (2) whether the specific
characteristics of the situation confronted by the official would
have made it clear to a reasonable official how the governing law
applied in the given situation. Punsky, 54 F.4th at 66. Together,
these aspects of the inquiry must persuade us that available
precedent placed the legal question beyond debate such that any
reasonable official would have appreciated the illegality of the
conduct in question. City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sheehan,
575 U.S. 600, 611 (2015). We take up the latter aspect of the
qualified immunity analysis because it affords the most direct
route to consideration of the clarity of the governing law and
resolution of the appeal.
To begin, the parties do not dispute that Lawless was entitled
under Massachusetts law to due process in connection with the for-
cause termination of her employment contract with the Town of
Freetown. Given this premise, it was clearly established that the
essential components of a pretermination due process hearing were
“oral or written notice of the charges against [her], an
explanation of the employer’s evidence, and an opportunity to
present [her] side of the story.” Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v.
Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 546 (1985). It was also clearly
established that “[t]o require more than this prior to termination
would intrude to an unwarranted extent on the government’s interest
in quickly removing an unsatisfactory employee.” Id. Based on
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our review of the summary judgment recitation of facts provided by
Lawless and the district court, the pretermination hearing in this
case met all the essential requirements of predeprivation process.
Lawless disagrees because she contends that personal bias
plugged the Appellants’ ears so that they did not actually hear
her response. The district court based its ruling precisely on
this notion. However, as far as the law is concerned, this notion
was drawn a priori by Lawless’s counsel and the district court; it
was not clearly established in the law, at least not in this
circuit and others.
Reasonable persons generally come to understand--
instinctively as much as inductively--that the impartiality of
decisionmakers is a basic precept of a fair process. This Court
has announced as much, stating that “[a]n impartial decisionmaker
is, of course, a fundamental component of due process.” Beauchamp
v. De Abadia, 779 F.2d 773, 776 (1st Cir. 1985) (citing Friendly,
Some Kind of Hearing, 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267, 1279 (1975)).
Nowhere is this more clearly enshrined in the law than in the
context of judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings. Schweiker v.
McClure, 456 U.S. 188, 195 (1982) (“[D]ue process demands
impartiality on the part of those who function in judicial or
quasi-judicial capacities.”).
Yet, even in judicial proceedings absolute impartiality is
not a constitutional mandate.
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[V]arious situations have been identified in which
experience teaches that the probability of actual bias
on the part of the judge or decisionmaker is too high to
be constitutionally tolerable. Among these cases are
those in which the adjudicator has a pecuniary interest
in the outcome and in which he has been the target of
personal abuse or criticism from the party before him.
Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975) (footnotes omitted).
However, other than the “constitutionally [in]tolerable”
situations identified by the Withrow Court, “most matters relating
to judicial disqualification [do] not rise to a constitutional
level.” FTC v. Cement Institute, 333 U.S. 683, 702 (1948).
“[M]atters of kinship, personal bias, state policy, remoteness of
interest, would seem generally to be matters merely of legislative
discretion.” Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 523 (1927); see also
Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Lavoie, 475 U.S. 813, 820 (1986). Stated
otherwise, even when it comes to judicial officers, the
constitutional threshold for disqualifying personal bias is not
clearly established.
By comparison, the threshold for unconstitutional bias in
pretermination government employment proceedings is about as clear
as mud. In fact, there is not even a basic requirement that
hearing officers be impartial in the employment context.
Chmielinski v. Massachusetts, 513 F.3d 309, 318 (1st Cir. 2008);
Acosta-Sepulveda v. Hernandez-Purcell, 889 F.2d 9, 12 (1st Cir.
1989). To the contrary, it is clearly established that employing
authorities may preside at termination hearings even though they
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instituted the termination proceedings. Acosta-Sepulveda, 889
F.2d at 12 (listing Loudermill entitlements and observing that “it
is not required that a hearing be conducted before an ‘impartial
decisionmaker’”). That kind of bias--essentially a predisposition
to terminate an employee’s contract--is precisely the kind of bias
in play here.5
While this Circuit has openly questioned whether “the issue
of bias can be addressed with an abstract broad statement that the
due process standard of Loudermill either always or never requires
that the hearing officer be unbiased,” Chmielinski, 513 F.3d at
317, such “abstract broad statements”--were they offered--would
not serve as clearly established law for purposes of our qualified
immunity inquiry. See Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004)
(“It is important to emphasize that this inquiry must be undertaken
in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad
general proposition.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Consequently, the Chmielinski panel’s contemplation of a
decisionmaker “so utterly biased” that the Loudermill response
right can be deemed a hollow exercise, id. at 318, does not afford
5 In the context of municipal employment, this species of personal
bias is almost certain to be present to a greater or lesser degree.
Municipal decisionmakers routinely have a degree of supervisory
insight based on observations of workplace performance. To hold
that such a bias precludes the town officials from approving a
termination even after the employee is given notice and a chance
to explain why termination is not called for would be to require
most small towns to surrender important responsibilities to
persons not accountable to local citizens.
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such clear guidance that any reasonable official in the Appellants’
position would have been on notice that presiding at Lawless’s
termination hearing would violate the due process clause.6
Given that the clear legal statements available in binding
precedent tend more to frustrate than support Lawless’s due process
claim against the Appellants, we have little difficulty concluding
that the doctrine of qualified immunity shields the Appellants
from liability against Lawless’s due process claim. Before ending
our inquiry, we pause to transcribe a coda.
Lawless contends that her case is different because the Town
of Freetown provided only one hearing, a pretermination hearing.
In her understanding, Appellants should have known that a
postdeprivation hearing would be needed if the pretermination
hearing was infected with personal bias, because the availability
6 Concerning the Appellants’ personal liability, clearer guidance
is available in this circuit’s precedent, and it does not favor
the imposition of liability on individual government decision
makers based on bias in a pretermination hearing. Cronin v. Town
of Amesbury, 81 F.3d 257, 260 n.2 (1st Cir. 1996) (“[Cronin]
generally argues that the Town defendants were out to get him,
and, with respect to the termination specifically, he argues that
[the hearing officer] was biased and made evidentiary errors.”);
see also id. at 260 (“Cronin cannot succeed on his procedural due
process claim unless he can show that the state failed to provide
him with an adequate postdeprivation remedy.”). Cf. Lowe v. Scott,
959 F.2d 323, 340–41 (1st Cir. 1992) (“[I]f a state provides
adequate postdeprivation remedies--either by statute or through
the common-law tort remedies available in its courts--no claim of
a violation of procedural due process can be brought under § 1983
against the state officials whose random and unauthorized conduct
occasioned the deprivation.”).
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of a state law postdeprivation remedy--be it a breach of contract
claim or a claim for judicial review of administrative action--
does not moot an otherwise ripe, federal procedural due process
claim. The district court took note of the argument but chose not
to address it. Contrary to Lawless’s argument, neither the Supreme
Court nor this Court has clearly established that the membership
of a municipal board that conducts a pretermination proceeding
must, independent of state law, arrange for a postdeprivation
hearing before a neutral official whenever colorable allegations
of bias have been or might be raised against them but the
pretermination hearing otherwise met the full complement of
Loudermill requirements.7
Furthermore, it is not clearly established in this circuit
that postdeprivation remedies available under Massachusetts law
are inadequate to serve as a check against biased pretermination
tribunals that honor Loudermill. While this Court has explained
that a federal claim for a procedural due process violation is not
automatically negated by the availability of a state law breach of
contract claim, see Clukey v. Town of Camden, 717 F.3d 52, 61
(1st Cir. 2013) (collecting cases), in such cases underlying
7Lawless observes that the Appellants did not swear the witnesses,
deliberate before voting, or issue findings of fact. However,
these attributes were not itemized in Loudermill and Lawless has
not identified any within-circuit authority that would require
them. In any event, “Ms. Lawless does not contend that any of
these, standing alone, [is] dispositive of this instant appeal.”
Brief of Appellee at 22.
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process deficiencies were manifest. See, e.g., id. at 60 (finding
that the plaintiff did not receive “notice of any kind whatsoever”
(emphasis in original)); Concepcion Chaparro v. Ruiz-Hernandez,
607 F.3d 261, 266 (1st Cir. 2010) (involving a stipulation that no
pretermination process was afforded); Cotnoir v. Univ. of Maine
Sys., 35 F.3d 6, 11-12 (1st Cir. 1994) (explaining that the summary
judgment record reflected inadequate notice of both the charges
and the proposed employment consequences and that there was no
predeprivation reveal of the evidence used to justify
termination); Collins v. Marina-Martinez, 894 F.2d 474, 480 (1st
Cir. 1990) (explaining that the plaintiff “had no prior inkling of
what type of information would be requested . . . [;] [n]o
specification of charges . . . [;] no documents available to him[;
and received an] interview last[ing] for 30 minutes”). See also
Loudermill, 470 U.S. at 548 (emphasizing the failure to afford the
plaintiffs in the consolidated appeals the opportunity to
respond). In any event, as far as the board-member Appellants are
concerned8, for reasons already explained a violation of clearly
8 Because our appellate jurisdiction is founded on the qualified
immunity question, the Town’s potential municipal liability on the
due process claim is not before us. We do observe, however, that
“[t]he alleged procedural default cannot be the [Board’s] failure
to reach the right result. Such a holding would turn any
procedural due process claim into a full judicial [or jury] review
of discretionary administrative decisions.” Acosta-Sepulveda, 889
F.2d at 12. The district court will need to iron out these concerns
based primarily on a review of postdeprivation remedies available
under Massachusetts law.
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established law is not manifested by a genuine issue of personal
bias.9
9 The district court cited contrary law from the Seventh Circuit,
specifically Ryan v. Illinois Department of Children & Family
Services, 185 F.3d 751, 762 (7th Cir. 1999) (“A plaintiff who can
introduce evidence that the decision has already been made and any
hearing would be a sham is entitled to go forward with a procedural
due process claim.”). While “[t]he Supreme Court has stated that
clearly established law can be dictated by controlling authority
or a robust consensus of persuasive authority,” Irish v. Fowler,
979 F.3d 65, 77 (1st Cir. 2020), Lawless has not demonstrated to
us that the Seventh Circuit’s approach to bias allegations in the
procedural due process context is part of a robust consensus of
circuit authority, though she has identified simpatico Tenth
Circuit authority, citing, inter alia, Bjorklund v. Miller, 467
Fed. App’x 758, 765 (10th Cir. 2012); but see Cacy v. City of
Chickasha, 124 F.3d 216, 1997 WL 537864, at *5 n.6 (10th Cir. 1997)
(Table) (citing Tenth Circuit cases to the contrary). We must
also consider divergent views, such as those expressed in McKinney
v. Pate, 20 F.3d 1550 (11th Cir. 1994) (en banc), in which the
Eleventh Circuit held that “the appropriate forum” for allegations
of a biased tribunal “is not federal court but a . . . state court
possessing the ability to remedy the alleged procedural [bias]
defect.” Id. at 1561. The Eleventh Circuit reasoned that the
“demonstration that the decisionmaker was biased . . . is not
tantamount to a demonstration that there has been a denial of
procedural due process [because] procedural due process violations
do not become complete ‘unless and until the state refuses to
provide due process.’” Id. at 1562 (quoting Zinermon v. Burch,
494 U.S. 113, 123 (1990)). The Second Circuit appears to concur.
See Green v. Dep’t of Educ. of New York, 16 F.4th 1070, 1077 (2d
Cir. 2021) (“Green’s argument that the arbitrator was biased also
fails because due process does not require that pre-termination
hearings occur before a neutral adjudicator. Even if Green’s pre-
termination hearing was imperfect, the availability of a state-
court proceeding to challenge the arbitration decision provided a
wholly adequate post-deprivation hearing for due process
purposes.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).
There also appears to be a wider consensus among sister circuits
that direct administrative and/or state court postdeprivation
review suffices. McDaniels v. Flick, 59 F.3d 446, 458-60 (3d Cir.
1995); Duchesne v. Williams, 849 F.2d 1004, 1006 (6th Cir. 1988)
(en banc), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1081 (1989); Schaper v. City of
Huntsville, 813 F.2d 709, 715-16 (5th Cir. 1987); see also Riggins
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III.
The district court’s order denying summary judgment on the
federal claims against appellants is reversed, and the case is
remanded for further proceedings.
v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Nebraska, 790 F.2d 707, 711-12 (8th
Cir. 1986) (availability of impartial post-termination grievance
procedure sufficient to provide procedural due process despite
lack of ability for employee to cross-examine adverse witnesses at
any stage).
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