While much of California public employment law focuses on property interests in continued employment, public employees may also possess constitutionally protected liberty interests that arise in disciplinary or termination contexts. One of the leading California cases addressing this concept is Lubey v. City and County of San Francisco (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 340. Although decided decades ago, Lubey remains an important authority on when adverse employment actions implicate an employee’s reputation and future employment prospects, thereby triggering due process protections independent of any right to continued employment.
In Lubey, the Court of Appeal addressed whether a public employee who lacked a protected property interest in continued employment could nonetheless assert a due process claim based on reputational harm. The employee alleged that the employer had made stigmatizing accusations in connection with the termination that effectively foreclosed future employment opportunities. The court recognized that even where an employee serves at will or otherwise lacks a property interest in the job, the Constitution may require procedural protections when government action impairs the employee’s liberty interest in reputation and employability.
The court explained that a liberty interest is implicated when a public employer, in the course of terminating or disciplining an employee, makes charges that seriously damage the employee’s standing in the community or impose a stigma that effectively bars the employee from pursuing their occupation. Examples include accusations of dishonesty, immorality, criminal conduct, or other behavior that calls into question the employee’s integrity or fitness for employment. In such circumstances, the injury is not the loss of the job itself, but the broader reputational harm that accompanies the employer’s statements.
Importantly, Lubey clarified that not every negative employment decision implicates a liberty interest. Ordinary criticism, poor performance evaluations, or generalized dissatisfaction with an employee’s work are insufficient. The due process concern arises only where the employer’s actions involve stigmatizing charges that are publicly disclosed or otherwise placed in a context where they are likely to affect the employee’s ability to secure future employment. Absent public disclosure or a comparable dissemination of the allegations, a liberty interest claim generally does not arise.
When a liberty interest is implicated, Lubey held that due process requires the employee be afforded an opportunity for a name-clearing hearing. The purpose of such a hearing is not reinstatement or back pay, but rather to allow the employee to contest the stigmatizing allegations and clear their name. The hearing provides a forum for the employee to respond to the charges and to mitigate reputational damage caused by the employer’s statements. The court emphasized that this procedural protection flows from constitutional principles of fairness rather than from civil service rules or contractual rights.
Lubey also highlights the distinction between property-interest due process, as addressed in Skelly v. State Personnel Board, and liberty-interest due process. While Skelly concerns the timing and procedures required before depriving an employee of a vested employment right, Lubey addresses a separate constitutional interest that may arise even when no such vested right exists. In that sense, the two doctrines operate independently, though they may overlap in cases where a public employee both has a property interest in employment and faces stigmatizing accusations in connection with discipline.
Revisiting Lubey remains important because public employers routinely make disciplinary findings, investigative conclusions, and termination statements that may be shared internally or externally. When those statements go beyond neutral explanations and assert misconduct that impugns an employee’s character or integrity, due process considerations may arise even if the employee lacks civil service protection or contractual job security. Understanding this distinction helps explain why procedural obligations can attach in situations that might otherwise appear to involve at-will employment decisions.
More than forty years after it was decided, Lubey v. City of Los Angeles continues to serve as a reminder that due process in public employment is not limited to job tenure alone. Where government action threatens an individual’s reputation and future employability, constitutional liberty interests may be at stake, requiring procedural safeguards designed to ensure fairness and accuracy in the public employer’s actions.