Section 11 Property Interest

• Library: Employer-Employee Law 2008

A public employee has a property interest in a job only if the employee can establish a legitimate expectancy of continued employment, Bd. of Regents of State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972), or at least to continued compensation in lieu of employment, Holloway v. Reeves, 277 F.3d 1035, 1040 (8^th Cir. 2002) (superintendent had property interest in contractual compensation, but not in continuing to serve as superintendent). The source of this “legitimate expectancy” is not the Constitution. The property interest is created by any “rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law—rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits.” Roth, 408 U.S. at 577.

The most typical source of a property interest in public employment is a statute creating a tenure or merit system for certain employees (such as the Missouri Teacher Tenure Act, §§ 168.102–168.130, RSMo 2000 and Supp. 2007, and The State Personnel Law, Chapter 36, RSMo) that...