VI. FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS RIGHTS
The Constitution also guarantees substantive due process rights to public-sector employees.138 Substantive due process rights are not extensive, nor will the court use substantive due process as a tool to second-guess the employer's decision-making authority. Instead, substantive due process will only be applied to ensure that the government does not act with respect to its employees in a manner that shocks the conscience or is arbitrary or capricious.139
When public-sector workers truly are at-will employees, they do not have a property interest in continued employment. As such, at-will employees cannot state a substantive due process violation, even if their termination was arbitrary and capricious or shocks the conscious.140
The Eleventh Circuit has interpreted Supreme Court precedent to mean that state employees who have a property interest in continued employment cannot state a substantive due process claim. Instead, the only claim for an arbitrary and capricious termination is a claim for a procedural due process violation.141 It appears that the other circuit courts have not adopted this interpretation.142 For example, the Third Circuit has held that a substantive due process claim may exist if the employee establishes a property interest of a "particular quality," which is a vague standard with very little judicial guidance.143 Furthermore, the Eleventh Circuit has limited its holding so that it does not prevent suit by employees who claim that an employment action violated their other constitutional rights, such as the right to free speech, as distinguished from the property rights that only exist as a creature of state law.144
Regardless of the judicial circuit, it is clear that the courts are loathe to extend substantive due process to all but the most extreme cases. The Supreme Court has cautioned that the substantive due process doctrine should be applied with "caution and restraint." 145 Thus, it has been said that "it is only when some basic and fundamental principle has been transgressed that the constitutional line has been crossed" and a substantive due process claim might exist.146 Cases in which substantive due process concerns were raised include cases involving discrimination intended to cause emotional harm, intentional deprivation of liberty interests, and placing an African American employee in a position of danger while attempting to frame him for a drug offense.147
When the...
