United States Fifth Circuit

In a civil rights case involving the termination of an employment contract of a tenured professor and the alleged destruction of his personal property, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed in part as to equal protection and First Amendment retaliation claims, but reversed in part as to a procedural due process claim where: 1) the district court erred in dismissing such claim on the basis of the availability of an adequate post-deprivation remedy; 2) plaintiff properly identified materials in which he had a property interest, and the district court erred in not finding a procedural due process violation in the case; and 3) defendant-provost was not entitled to qualified immunity as a reasonable state official would understand that discarding plaintiff's personal property in such a manner violated his procedural due process rights, and that such conduct was objectively unreasonable. (Substituted opinion)

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/27/2007
• Published 11/28/2007

Judges

• DENNIS, Circuit Judge:, Before DENNIS and PRADO, Circuit Judges, and ENGELHARDT, District Judge.

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Regina Bacon Criswell (argued), Law Office of Regina B. Criswell, San Antonio, TX, for Stotter.


• For Appellees:
  
• Peter B. Plotts, III, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), Austin, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.