930
Opinion of the Court
such a rule would be "eminently sensible," id., at 1016, the Court of Appeals adopted a categorical prohibition: "[A] governmental employer may not suspend an employee without pay unless that suspension is preceded by some kind of pre-suspension hearing, providing the employee with notice and an opportunity to be heard." Ibid. Respondent (as well as most of his amici) makes no attempt to defend this absolute rule, which spans all types of government employment and all types of unpaid suspensions. Brief for Respondent 8, 12- 13. This is eminently wise, since under our precedents such an absolute rule is indefensible.
It is by now well established that " 'due process,' unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances." Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895 (1961). "[D]ue process is flexible and calls for such procedural protections as the particular situation demands." Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 481 (1972). This Court has recognized, on many occasions, that where a State must act quickly, or where it would be impractical to provide pre-deprivation process, postdeprivation process satisfies the requirements of the Due Process Clause. See, e. g., United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U. S. 43, 53 (1993); Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 128 (1990) (collecting cases); Barry v. Barchi, 443 U. S. 55, 64-65 (1979); Dixon v. Love, 431 U. S. 105, 115 (1977); North American Cold Storage Co. v. Chicago, 211 U. S. 306, 314-320 (1908). Indeed, in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), overruled in part on other grounds, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327 (1986), we specifically noted that "we have rejected the proposition that [due process] always requires the State to provide a hearing prior to the initial deprivation of property." 451 U. S., at 540. And in FDIC v. Mallen, 486 U. S. 230 (1988), where we unanimously approved the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC's) suspension, without prior hearing, of an indicted private bank employee, we said: "An important gov-
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