Due process for public workers
Billie Jo Leatham v. Mose
In brief
- Where it stands
- Petition Pending
Awaiting an order on the petition
- What it’s about
- Billie Jo Leatham says her public-employment termination relied on hearsay and testimony later taken back, violating her right to fair process (due process); she also challenges ending her case without a trial and using an earlier grievance process to bar her claims.
- What's at stake
- The Court has not decided whether to review Leatham’s claims or whether her firing and the handling of her lawsuit violated her rights.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
The petition was distributed for a Supreme Court conference, but that is not a decision to hear it.
Leatham says her public employer relied on hearsay, misattributed statements and testimony that was later recanted when it fired her.
The case comes from the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
Question presented
1. Whether due process is violated when a public employee is terminated based on hearsay, misattribution, and later recanted testimony, and the courts treat these substantive factual reversals as clerical errors rather than constitutional defects. 2. Whether summary judgment is improper under Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (1986), and Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986), where the record contains sworn recantations, contradictory testimony, credibility disputes subject to Rule 806 impeachment, and no signed or corroborated statements supporting the employer ’ s justification. 3. Whether claim preclusion may be applied to a non-adversarial grievance process that lacked discovery, cross-examination, neutral adjudication, and meaningful representation, contrary to Rue v. KMart Corp., 552 Pa. 13, 713 A.2d 82 (1998); Taylor v. Stargell, 553 U.S. 880 (2008); and Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashions Group, Inc., 590 U.S. , 140 S. Ct. 1589 (2020).
What happens next
The petition was distributed for the Court’s Oct. 9, 2026 conference, where the justices may consider whether to hear it. That distribution does not guarantee an order that day.
Documents
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
Case data updated: question_presented, extraction_metadata
Brief added: Petition
More questions
- What evidence does Leatham say should have kept her case from ending without a trial?
- She points to sworn recantations, conflicting testimony and credibility disputes, and says no signed or corroborated statements supported the employer’s reason.
Sources
Primary materials plus reporting. Best-effort analysis: this explainer relies on a mix of primary materials and trusted secondary sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.