Goldberg v. Kelly (1970) (Welfare, SCOTUS)
Case Overview
New York City cut off welfare benefits to recipients without giving them a hearing first, relying on post-termination review as sufficient. John Kelly and other recipients argued that cutting off their only income before they could respond violated due process. Justice Brennan's majority opinion held that welfare benefits are not a gratuity the government can revoke at will. They are a statutory entitlement, and terminating them requires an evidentiary hearing before the check stops, not after. This was a conceptual shift: government benefits could be property interests entitled to procedural protection. Bryan covers it in the due process arc, explaining how it laid the groundwork for the protections that government employees, contractors, and benefit recipients later relied on.
Legal Issues
BrynoDC Coverage 3 videos
The Facts
New York City terminated welfare benefits to John Kelly and others without providing a pre-termination hearing. Recipients argued that stopping payments before any hearing violated their due process rights. The city contended that post-termination review was sufficient.
The Issue
Whether welfare benefits are protected by the Due Process Clause such that recipients are entitled to a hearing before termination
The Rules
Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process
New property doctrine, government entitlements as protected interests
Mathews v. Eldridge balancing framework (foreshadowed)
The Application
The Court applied the due process balancing test to welfare benefits, treating them as a protected property interest under the Fourteenth Amendment despite their statutory origin, and weighing New York's administrative interest in terminating benefits promptly against Kelly's interest in receiving a hearing before losing subsistence-level income. The balance decisively favored the recipient because post-termination review, however fair and thorough, cannot remedy the irreparable harm of deprivation that has already occurred to someone dependent on those benefits for food and shelter. The Court thus held that the constitutional minimum for welfare termination must include a pre-termination hearing, establishing that procedural due process protections extend to government-conferred entitlements and that the gravity of the interest at stake (not just its formal legal category) determines what process is due.
The Conclusion
**Goldberg v. Kelly established that statutory welfare benefits constitute property interests protected by the Due Process Clause.** The Court held that recipients were entitled to an evidentiary hearing before termination, not after, reframing government benefits as entitlements rather than gratuities and laying the doctrinal foundation for procedural protections across government employment and benefit programs.
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