Nahmod Law

This is the second post for those lawyers, law students and others who are not familiar with 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The first was on October 27, 2009.

The Seminal Decision: Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961)

This forty-eight year old decision is where § 1983, enacted long ago in 1871, first had life breathed into it. The themes it announced continue to be important to this day.

Monroe involved a plaintiff’s allegations that police officers entered his home without warning and forced the occupants to stand naked while the entire house was ransacked. The plaintiff was thereafter arrested but released without being charged. According to the plaintiff, the police officers violated his Fourth (and Fourteenth) Amendment rights and were personally liable to him for damages under § 1983.

In response, the officers made three arguments, all of which the Court rejected.

The First Defense Argument: “Chutzpa” and Color of Law

The officers’ first argument was one that I have elsewhere characterized as “chutzpa.” Focusing on § 1983’s color of law requirement, they maintained that they did not act under color of law because they allegedly violated the Illinois constitution and much statutory and common law. In their view, § 1983 defendants could only be liable for federal constitutional violations where they acted in a manner consistent with state law. For this reason, the officers did not act under color of law and were not liable for damages under § 1983.

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Douglas, responded by saying that § 1983’s statutory color of law requirement was essentially the same as the Fourteenth Amendment’s state action requirement: once there was state action, there was color of law. (Justice Frankfurter dissented on this issue). And since in this case it was clear that the plaintiff alleged an abuse of state law and power that violated the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights, state action was present. It followed from this that the plaintiff properly alleged acts under color of law. To put it another way, the Court said that the scope of § 1983 was as broad as the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This turned out to be very significant as the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment expanded, by the process of incorporation, to include most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights. Read the rest of this entry »