The Civil Rights Acts - Part 1

Question 1

Monroe v. Pape - Historical Background

Answer 1

• before this case, §1983 was remarkable for its insignificance - very few suits brought
• generally, in prior cases, acts complained of were affirmatively authorized by statute or local ordinance + thus fit even narrowest reading of “under color of” law -> none raised issue of unauthorized conduct by state officials

Question 2

Monroe v. Pape - Significance

Answer 2

• first SCOTUS vindication of use of 1983 as an independent federal remedy against acts that violated both state law and the federal constitution
• didn’t overrule precedent, but did overturn longstanding assumption that 1983 remedy reached only misconduct officially authorized or so widely tolerated as to amount to “custom or usage”

Question 3

Civil Rights Cases

Answer 3

• 1883
• SCOTUS struck down the attempt in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to prohibit racial discrimination by private parties in the provision of public accomodations
• think related to Monroe b/c reflects prior SCOTUS insistence that fed leg power to enforce guarantees of 14th Am could be exercised only against “state action” + held unconstitutional reconstruction-era efforts to reach private misconduct

Question 4

Civil Rights Cases - SCOTUS Argument

Answer 4

• Until some State law has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into activity -> prohibitions of the amendment are against State laws and acts done under State authority.
• “civil rights, such as are guaranteed by the Constitution against State aggression, cannot be impaired by the wrongful acts of individuals, unsupported by State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings”

Question 5

Civil Rights Cases - Relationship to Monroe

Answer 5

• never explicitly said acts of a state officer in violation of state law could not constitute the required state action
• BUT this decision + others seemed to imply as much -> 19th century observer might reasonably have thought §1983 unconstitutional unless limited to acts explicitly or impliedly authorized by state law

Question 6

Monroe - Prof’s Takes

Answer 6

• creates broad cause of action in §1983, but becomes riddled with immunities over time
• Prof says no common law precedent for qualified immunity
• Prof thinks Frankfurter technically has the better statutory reading of 1983
• also noted that numbers of cases under 1983 skyrocketed after Monroe

Question 7

Monroe - Facts

Answer 7

• 1961
• 13 Chicago police officers broke into Monroe’s home, ransacked it + arrested Monroe w/o a search or arrest warrant
• Monroe brought suit under §1983 against the officers and the City of Chicago
• officers moved to dismiss on grounds that police weren’t acting “under color of” state law, + city moves to dismiss on grounds not covered by 1983

Question 8

Monroe - Issue

Answer 8

Construction of 42 U.S.C. § 1983

• “Every person
• who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory,
• subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof
• to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws,
• shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”

Question 9

Monroe - Rule

Answer 9

“Under color of law” includes abuses of power made possible only because official is clothed with authority of state law – need not be a demonstrated persistent pattern

Question 10

Monroe - Reasoning

Answer 10

Three purposes of §1983 statute:
- override state laws that are against the federal rights/privileges/immunities
- provide a remedy where state law inadequate
- provide a remedy where state law is adequate in theory but unavailable in practice

• history - passed to combat KKK, including instances where state officials “in some capacity were unable or unwilling to enforce a state law” -> means it doesn’t matter if a state law would also apply to the conduct
• no exhaustion requirement
• Court adopts interpretation of “under color of law” from an older case interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1866: “Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of’ state law.” (U.S. v. Classic)
• officer need not have intended to deny someone their federal right - statute does not say “willfully”

Question 11

Monroe - Dissent

Answer 11

• Frankfurter
• appears to have argued §1983 was about nullifying overtly racist and discriminatory laws rather than supplanting state remedies where legally available
• meant to cover actions sanctioned by state law or patterns of behavior so pervasive (systemic, permanent, settled practice) that they rise to a “custom or usage” -> not present in this case

Question 12

Home Telephone and Telegraph Company v. Los Angeles - Facts

Answer 12

• 1913
• telephone company went to fed court to enjoin enforcement of a city ordinance setting telephone rates
• company charged that rates so unreasonably low as to be confiscatory + hence violative of the 14th Am guarantee of due process
• city answered, if that were true, rates would also violate a parallel provision of the state constitution -> if true, rates would then be forbidden by state law + wouldn’t count as “state action” -> city argued fed court wouldn’t have power to consider matter until decided that the rates were authorized by the state

Question 13

Home Telephone & Telegraph - Rule + Significance

Answer 13

• 14AM “state action” reached not only unconstitutional acts authorized by state law but also those committed when state powers were abused by those who possessed them
• relevant b/c gets cited in Monroe to essentially support its shift - marks initial demise of notion of constitutional incapacity to reach unauthorized misconduct of state officials

Question 14

Home Telephone & Telegraph - Holding

Answer 14

14TH AMENDMENT STATE ACTION DOES NOT REQUIRE STATE AUTHORIZATION

• rejected the city’s argument b/c “in truth the amendment contemplates the possibility of state officers’ abusing the powers lawfully conferred upon them by doing wrongs prohibited by the amendment.” -> Am doesn’t just reach unconstitutional acts authorized by state law, it also gets at uncon acts committed by state agents abusing their power
• established that, even if conduct violates of state law, it could constitute state action within meaning of 14th Am

Question 15

Home Telephone & Telegraph - Subsequent Decisions

Answer 15

• decision undermined the notion of a constitutional bar to a broad reading of § 1983, but gave no indication whether the statute should in fact be so read
• that possibility was first raised in US v. Classic and US v. Screws -> both broadly interpreted parallel “under color of” law language in 18 USC § 242 (crim provision, originally §2 of Civil Rights Act of 1866, stat. that ultimately became 1983 was modeled on this earlier law)

Question 16

Harlan - Rationale for Independent Federal Remedy

Answer 16

• Harlan attributed to the enacting leg the view that a deprivation of a constitutional right is significantly different from and more serious than a violation of a state right and therefore deserves a different remedy even though the same act may constitute both a state tort and the deprivation of a constitutional right

Question 17

Scheuer v. Rhodes - Rule

Answer 17

• higher-level state executive officers (ex: governor) get qualified immunity

Question 18

Scheuer - Facts

Answer 18

• 1974
• following the Kent State shootings, the estates of the killed students brought 1983 damages actions against governor, adjutant general, officers of the Ohio National Guard, + president of Kent State (for deprivation of life in violation of due process)
• district court dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds - reasoned the suit was “in substance and effect” against the state of Ohio

Question 19

Scheuer - Holding + Reasoning

Answer 19

• 11th Am does not bar claims because the officers are all sued in their own persons, and Ex Parte Young shows that when a state officer is accused of violating the const’n, he is stripped of sovereign immunity if sued directly

Exec officials get qualified immunity - rationale:
- injustice (in absence of bad faith) of subjecting official to liability for exercising discretion required by the position
- danger of deterring officials from being able to execute their office with decisiveness and judgment required by the public good

• 1983 legislative history and Monroe makes clear no absolute imm, but statute did not abolish common law immunities -> these extend absolute immunity to legislators (Tenney) and judges (Pierson) but only qualified to police officers (Pierson) -> higher officers of exec branch are more like police officers -> only get qualified immunity

Question 20

Scheuer - Concept of Qualified Imm

Answer 20

• in varying scope, a qualified immunity is available to officers of the executive branch of government, the variation being dependent upon the scope of discretion and responsibilities of the office and all the circumstances as they reasonably appeared at the time of the action on which liability is sought to be based
• qualified imm for exec officers for acts performed in course of official conduct based on existence of reasonable grounds for the belief formed at the time + in light of all the circs, plus good faith belief

Question 21

Pierson v Ray

Answer 21

• court held that police sued for making unconstitutional arrests were entitled to defense of good faith and probable cause

Question 22

Scheuer and Pierson

Answer 22

• court in Scheuer noted that the inquiry described in Pierson is far more complex for higher level exec officials
• BUT court followed Pierson in making two-pronged inquiry w/ both objective and subjective components - asked whether executive official had “reasonable ground for the belief formed at the time and in light of all the circumstances” combined w/ “good-faith belief”

Question 23

Wood v. Strickland - Facts and Procedural Posture

Answer 23

• teenage schoolgirls brought 1983 suit against board members who suspended them for spiking the punch at a high school event (denial of due process)
• district court told jury defendants liable only if they acted with malice -> Ct of app reversed on the grounds that liability depends on objective, not subjective standard

Question 24

Wood v Strickland - Holding

Answer 24

• White
• essentially holds both district court and appeals court wrong - need some kind of objective component (can’t be based solely on malice) but also needed some kind of subjective element
• official gets immunity only if satisfied both objective and subjective standards - must be acting sincerely (no malice) and reasonably (did not violate “settled, indisputable law”, which officials are presumed to know) to avoid liability
• in this context, school board member voluntarily undertakes task of supervising school/students -> should know students’ basic rights

Question 25

Wood v Strickland - Dissent

Answer 25

• Powell, Blackmun, and Rehnquist
• not reasonable to expect lay school officials to know constitutional law (Prof essentially disagreed with this - she said at the very least they should’ve thought to consult a lawyer in cases where students are getting thrown out for three months)

Question 26

Challenges After Wood v Strickland

Answer 26

• subjective aspect of qualified immunity seen as difficult to administer
• substantial pre-trial proceedings sometimes required to determine whether an allegation of subjective bad faith had adequate foundations to proceed to trial

Question 27

Harlow v. Fitzgerald - Significance

Answer 27

• gets rid of the subjective component of qualified immunity - leaves only objective component

Question 28

Harlow v. Fitzgerald - Rule

Answer 28

• qualified immunity applies for executive officials unless conduct “violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known” (objective, not subjective)

Question 29

Harlow v. Fitzgerald - Facts

Answer 29

• DOD whistleblower was fired -> brought damages action (Bivens, not 1983, BUT qualified immunity gets treated the same)
• suit against Harlow, presidential aide whom he alleged conspired to fire him for exposing government waste

Question 30

Harlow v. Fitzgerald - Reasoning

Answer 30

• immunity rules were supposed to be designed such that insubstantial claims could be quickly dismissed, vs. subjective prong of Wood test requires jury finding + full trial, along w/ “broad-ranging discovery”
  -> too costly - inhibits discretion, distracts gov officials, + deters people from public office
• court therefore ELIMINATES subjective prong
  ->gov officials performing discretionary functions are immune UNLESS their conduct violates “clearly established” federal rights of which a reasonable person would have known
• goal is to have insubstantial claims dealt with at summary judgment

Question 31

Harlow v Fitzgerald - Prof’s View

Answer 31

• absolute immunity designed to shield people from trial, BUT qualified immunity NOT actually about that concern - just supposed to shield defendants from unjust outcomes -> court is going too far here + losing sight of fairness as the touchstone value for qualified immunity
• very frustrated that seems designed only to cut down cases - court isn’t fully engaging with justice on the other side (her ex of playing poker with a policeman who then pulls you over just b/c you won)
• noted that push to get rid of things at the outset really dominates rest of the cases we have in qualified immunity + leads to problems of its own
• importance of letting factual issues go to a jury (Prof thinks too much getting decided at summary judgment)
• Prof also noted that Brennan was not happy that the court was taking away the “bare allegations of malice” option (think maybe Harlow dissent)