Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-05316/USCOURTS-caDC-03-05316-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alvin Hardwick
Appellee
United States of America
Appellee
Theodore E. Williams
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 2, 2004 Decided January 25, 2005

No. 03-5316

THEODORE E. WILLIAMS,

APPELLANT

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND

ALVIN HARDWICK, OFFICER, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE POLICE OFFICER,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cv02638)

Donald M. Temple argued the cause and filed the briefs for

appellant.

Heather Graham-Oliver, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued

the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and Michael J. Ryan, Assistant U.S.

Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered

an appearance.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS, and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

USCA Case #03-5316 Document #872174 Filed: 01/25/2005 Page 1 of 8
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: This appeal presents a single issue:

whether the district court erred in concluding that the appellant,

who claims he was unlawfully arrested by a special police

officer employed by the U.S. Government Printing Office, could

not maintain a cause of action against the officer under 42

U.S.C. § 1983. Because we agree that the officer did not act

under color of District of Columbia law, we affirm the summary

judgment order in his favor. 

I.

The Government Printing Office, a federal agency

headquartered in Washington, D.C., employs some special

policemen, including appellee Alvin Hardwick. Federal law

authorizes these policemen to

make arrest[s] for violations of laws of the United States,

the several States, and the District of Columbia; and enforce

the regulations of the Public Printer, including the removal

from Government Printing Office premises of individuals

who violate such regulations. The jurisdiction of special

policemen in premises occupied by or under the control of

the Government Printing Office and adjacent areas shall be

concurrent with the jurisdiction of the respective law

enforcement agencies where the premises are located.

44 U.S.C. § 317. 

On duty one afternoon in January 2001, Hardwick asked to

see the identification badge of appellant Theodore Williams, a

handicapped African American who worked at the GPO’s D.C.

office. At the time, Williams was returning to the building after

mailing a letter. 

The parties dispute what happened next. According to

Williams, he showed his badge and Hardwick confiscated it.

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When Williams protested, Hardwick grabbed Williams by the

arm, dragged him across the lobby, and slammed him head-first

into a brass door at the entrance to the GPO police office.

According to Hardwick, Williams refused to show his badge,

used profanity, and threatened Hardwick with a cane,

whereupon Hardwick took Williams to the GPO police office

without Williams and the door coming into contact.

Once in the GPO police office, Hardwick handcuffed

Williams and confiscated his cane, then let him go to the

medical unit for a check-up. Shortly thereafter, Hardwick and

another officer went to the medical unit and arrested Williams

for disorderly conduct—a misdemeanor offense under the D.C.

Code, see D.C. Code Ann. § 22-1321. The officers took

Williams back to the GPO police office, advised him of his

rights, and took him to the local D.C. police station. There, he

was detained for several hours and formally charged.

Williams sued Hardwick and the GPO in the U.S. District

Court for the District of Columbia. In his complaint, he alleged

deprivation of his Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights in

violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and also raised several common

law claims. The defendants moved for summary judgment,

which the district court granted in full. Williams v. GPO, No.

01-02638 (D.D.C. Oct. 1, 2003). On appeal, Williams

challenges only one aspect of the district court’s ruling: its

conclusion that Williams could not bring a section 1983 claim

against Hardwick because the officer had not acted under color

of D.C. law. 

II. 

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment

de novo. Media Gen., Inc. v. Tomlin, 387 F.3d 865, 869 (D.C.

Cir. 2004). Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to

Williams, see id., we ask whether he can state a claim under 42

U.S.C. § 1983. That statute provides in relevant part: 

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Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,

regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the

District of Columbia, 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.

Williams and Hardwick offer different interpretations of

what constitutes action “under color of” D.C. law. Williams

makes what might be termed a “but for” argument: but for the

fact that the District of Columbia has enacted a disorderly

conduct statute, D.C. Code Ann. § 22-1321, Hardwick could not

have arrested Williams under the federal statute giving GPO

police officers concurrent jurisdiction with the local police, 44

U.S.C. § 317. Therefore, Williams argues, Hardwick acted

under color of D.C. law. For his part, Hardwick argues that

since no D.C. officials encouraged him to make the arrest and

since his power to make such arrests comes solely from federal

law, he did not act under color of D.C. law.

Existing case law supports Hardwick’s argument. “The

traditional definition of acting under color of state law requires

that the defendant in a § 1983 action have exercised power

‘possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only

because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state

law.’” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 49 (1988) (quoting United

States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941)). Courts generally

treat “‘under color’ of law . . . as the same thing as the ‘state

action’ required under the Fourteenth Amendment,” RendellBaker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 838 (1982) (quoting United States

v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 794 n.7 (1966)), and state action “maybe

found if, though only if, there is such a close nexus between the

State and the challenged action that seemingly private behavior

may be fairly treated as that of the State itself,” Brentwood

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Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Athletic Ass’n,531 U.S. 288, 295

(2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “[A]

challenged activity may be state action when it results from the

State’s exercise of coercive power, when the State provides

significant encouragement, either overt or covert, or when a

private actor operates as a willful participant in joint activity

with the State or its agents.” Id. at 296 (internal quotation marks

and citations omitted).

In cases under section 1983, circuit courts looking at

whether defendants have acted “under color of” state law have

thus focused on whether these defendants are state officials or

have conspired with state officials in committing the alleged

illegal acts. For example, in a situation paralleling the one

before us today, the Seventh Circuit held that a plaintiff could

not bring a section 1983 action against federal police officers

who arrested him for state law violations since the state had not

“cloaked the defendants in some degree of authority” and the

defendants had not “conspired or acted in concert with state

officials to deprive a person of his civil rights.” Case v.

Milewski, 327 F.3d 564, 567-68 (7th Cir. 2003). The court

found that the officers acted pursuant to federal law, not state

law: “defendants’ actions were taken under color of federal law;

federal officers appeared at a federal property in response to a

complaint by a federal employee about an allegedly disorderly

person.” Id. at 568; see also Richardson v. Dep’t of Interior,

740 F. Supp. 15, 19-20 (D.D.C. 1990) (holding that the plaintiff

could not bring a section 1983 claim against a federal official

who arrested the plaintiff under the federal Assimilative Crimes

Act, which provides that D.C. law can be applied on federal

property as though it is federal law); Townsend v. Carmel, 494

F. Supp. 30, 32 (D.D.C. 1979) (same). Applying a similar

analysis, the Second Circuit permitted a section 1983 suit to go

forward against federal officials who allegedly conspired with

state officials to violate the plaintiff’s federal rights. Kletschka

v. Driver, 411 F.2d 436, 448-49 (2d Cir. 1969); cf. Johnson v.

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Orr, 780 F.2d 386, 390-93 (3d Cir. 1986) (holding that the

plaintiff could sue certain Air National Guard officials under

section 1983 since New Jersey’s significant control over these

officials meant they were state actors); Tongol v. Usery, 601

F.2d 1091, 1097 (9th Cir. 1979) (concluding that a section 1983

action was appropriate against state officials administering a

federally funded program since these officials were “empowered

to act only by virtue of their authority under state law”). 

Following this approach, we conclude that Hardwick’s

arrest of Williams cannot “be fairly treated as that of” the

District of Columbia, see Brentwood Acad., 531 U.S. at 295, and

thus cannot be called D.C. action. Hardwick was a federal

official, not a D.C. official. Only the federal government gave

him the power to make arrests for violations of D.C. law; the

District of Columbia had no authority over him and thus did not

“exercise . . . coercive power” through him, see id. at 296.

Moreover, D.C. officials neither “provide[d] significant

encouragement,” see id., nor otherwise participated in

Hardwick’s arrest and alleged mistreatment of Williams. D.C.

officials got involved only at the end of the incident when

Hardwick took Williams to the D.C. police station. At oral

argument, counsel for Williams urged us to find that once

Hardwick and Williams reached the station, the D.C. officers

conspired with Hardwick to violate Williams’s constitutional

rights. Because Williams never makes that argument in his

briefs, we consider it forfeited. See City of Waukesha v. EPA,

320 F.3d 228, 250 n.22 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (argument

inadequately raised in opening brief is waived). Even were this

argument properly before us and even had Williams offered

evidence of a conspiracy, he would have no basis for

challenging Hardwick’s conduct prior to their arrival at the D.C.

police station.

To the extent that “under color of” D.C. law requires D.C.

action, then, Hardwick prevails because Williams cannot show

such action. Admittedly, the under-color-of-state-law doctrine

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may cast a somewhat wider net than does the state-action

requirement. The Supreme Court has provided no definitive

word on this issue; indeed, two Supreme Court cases decided the

same day offer different perspectives. Compare Rendell-Baker,

457 U.S. at 838 (observing that “[i]n cases under § 1983, ‘under

color’ of law has consistently been treated as the same thing as

the ‘state action’ required under the Fourteenth Amendment”)

(citation omitted), with Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U.S.

922, 935 n.18 (1982) (stating that “although we hold that

conduct satisfying the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth

Amendment satisfies the statutory requirement of action under

color of state law, it does not follow from that that all conduct

that satisfies the under-color-of-state-law requirement would

satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment requirement of state action”).

Specifically, the under-color-of-state-law doctrine may also

apply to individuals who act “with knowledge of and pursuant

to a state-enforced custom requiring” unconstitutional behavior.

See Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 174 n.44 (1970).

In such circumstances, the state’s involvement in the illegality

stems from its unconstitutional statute or custom rather than

from the participation of its officials in the alleged

unconstitutional conduct. See id. We need not address whether

the under-color-of-state-law doctrine applies to such situations

and sweeps beyond the state-action requirement, as Williams

has alleged only that Hardwick’s application of D.C.’s

disorderly conduct statute is unconstitutional, not that the statute

itself violates the Constitution. Thus, even if section 1983

applied to all situations where a defendant acts pursuant to an

unconstitutional state law, Williams could not sue Hardwick

under it.

Finally, we think it worth noting that plaintiffs alleging

abuse by federal officials are not without a remedy. As

Williams’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument, Williams

could have brought an action against Hardwick under Bivens v.

Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics,

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403 U.S. 388 (1971). See, e.g., Berry v. Funk, 146 F.3d 1003,

1013 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (noting that plaintiffs can bring Bivens

actions against federal officials and section 1983 actions against

state officials). The district court, however, declined to construe

Williams’s section 1983 claim as a Bivens claim, Williams, No.

01-02638, slip op. at 6 n.3—a decision Williams does not

challenge here.

We affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment

to Hardwick.

So ordered.

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