notice and opportunity to be heard

In Florida, the State owns in trust for the public the land permanently submerged beneath navigable waters and the foreshore, making the mean high-water line the ordinary boundary between private beachfront property and state-owned land. Littoral owners hold special rights with regard to the water and foreshore, including the right to receive accretions and relictions to their property. In 1961, Florida’s Legislature passed the Beach and Shore Preservation Act, which sets procedures for beach restoration and nourishment projects to deposit sand on eroded beaches. A local government may apply to the Department of Environmental Protection for funds and permits, and when placing fill on the State’s submerged lands, authorization from the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund is required. Once a beach restoration is determined to be undertaken, the Board sets an erosion control line that replaces the fluctuating mean high-water line as the boundary between privately owned littoral property and state property, after which the common law ceases to increase upland property by accretion. In 2003, the city of Destin and Walton County applied for permits to restore 6.9 miles of beach within their jurisdictions that had been eroded by several hurricanes. The project would add about 75 feet of dry sand seaward of the mean high-water line. The Department issued a notice of intent to award the permits, and the Board approved the erosion-control line. Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc., a nonprofit corporation formed by people who own beachfront property bordering the project area, brought an administrative challenge to the proposed project. After the challenge proved unsuccessful and the Department approved the permits, the corporation challenged the action in state court under the Florida Administrative Procedure Act. The District Court of Appeal for the First District set aside the Department’s final order and certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative and quashed the First District’s remand. Petitioner sought rehearing on the ground that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision itself effected a taking of the Members’ littoral rights contrary to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, but the request for rehearing was denied. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.

Yaser Esam Hamdi, a United States citizen born in Louisiana in 1980, moved with his family to Saudi Arabia as a child and resided in Afghanistan by 2001. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed approximately 3,000 people, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force one week later. Hamdi was seized by Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan during the ensuing conflict and turned over to United States military authorities, who initially detained and interrogated him in Afghanistan before transferring him to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in January 2002; upon learning of his American citizenship, authorities moved him to a naval brig in Norfolk, Virginia, and later to Charleston, South Carolina. In June 2002, Hamdi's father, Esam Fouad Hamdi, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of his son, alleging that the Government had held Hamdi without access to legal counsel or notice of any charges and that the detention violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court found the father a proper next friend, appointed the federal public defender as counsel, and ordered access to Hamdi, but the Fourth Circuit reversed that order and directed a more deferential inquiry on remand. The Government then submitted the Mobbs Declaration, a sworn statement from a Defense Department official describing Hamdi's travel to Afghanistan in July or August 2001, his affiliation with a Taliban military unit, receipt of weapons training, surrender of a Kalashnikov rifle to Northern Alliance forces, and classification as an enemy combatant based on interviews and association with the Taliban. The district court found the Mobbs Declaration fell far short of supporting the detention, criticized its generic and hearsay nature, and ordered the Government to produce additional materials including copies of Hamdi's statements, interview notes, lists of interrogators, and records of capture and detention for in camera review. The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that because it was undisputed Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat no further factual inquiry or evidentiary hearing was necessary or proper, that the Mobbs Declaration provided a sufficient basis for detention, and that the district court's inquiry went beyond the acceptable scope of review; the Fourth Circuit denied rehearing en banc and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In 1968 the Board of Regents of State Colleges hired David Roth as an assistant professor of political science at Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh for a fixed term running from September 1, 1968, to June 30, 1969. The formal notice of appointment stated that the employment basis was the academic year. It provided that regulations governing tenure followed Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 37.31. Roth was informed before he began teaching that he had no tenure rights and would be rehired for the 1969-1970 academic year only if the University chose to retain him. Under Wisconsin law a teacher could acquire tenure as a permanent employee only after four years of continuous service. The Board of Regents' rules established February 1 as the deadline for written notification of non-retention for nontenured faculty. No reason for non-retention need be given and no review or appeal is provided in such case. In conformance with these rules the University president notified Roth before February 1, 1969, that he would not be rehired. Roth received no statement of reasons and no opportunity to challenge the decision. Roth brought this action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. He alleged that the failure to provide reasons and a hearing violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process. He also alleged that the non-renewal decision was actually retaliation for statements critical of the University administration that violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court granted summary judgment for Roth on the procedural due process claim. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Board of Regents petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted.

George Eldridge was first awarded Social Security disability benefits in June 1968. In March 1972 he received a questionnaire from the state agency charged with monitoring his medical condition. He completed and returned the questionnaire, indicating that his condition had not improved and identifying recent medical sources. The state agency obtained reports from his physician and a psychiatric consultant. After reviewing those reports and other information in his file, the agency sent Eldridge a letter stating that it had made a tentative determination that his disability had ceased in May 1972. The letter included a statement of reasons for the proposed termination and advised Eldridge that he could request time to submit additional information. Eldridge responded in writing, disputing one characterization of his medical condition and asserting that the agency already possessed sufficient evidence of his disability. The state agency then made a final determination that Eldridge had ceased to be disabled in May 1972; the Social Security Administration accepted that determination. In July 1972 Eldridge received written notice that his benefits would terminate after that month and that he could seek reconsideration by the state agency within six months. Instead of requesting reconsideration, Eldridge filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. He challenged the constitutionality of the Secretary's termination procedures and sought an injunction barring termination of benefits until a pretermination evidentiary hearing was provided, together with immediate reinstatement of benefits. The District Court held that the existing procedures violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, ordered the Secretary to provide Eldridge a pretermination hearing, and directed reinstatement of benefits pending that hearing. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and heard the case.