Section 13 What Process Is Due?

• Library: Employer-Employee Law 2008

The formality and timing of due process safeguards required by the Constitution are influenced by the importance of the interests at stake. Boddie v. Conn., 401 U.S. 371, 378 (1971). In Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976), the Supreme Court adopted a three-factor balancing test for determining what due process must be afforded. The factors that must be balanced are:

First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the 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 requirement would entail.

Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335.

The due process procedures required in a termination case are...