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Page Number: 2.0

2 

ZIGLAR v. ABBASI 

Syllabus 

conspiracies  to  violate  equal  protection  rights.    The  District  Court 
dismissed the claims against the Executive Officials but allowed the 
claims  against  the  Wardens  to  go  forward.    The  Second  Circuit  af-
firmed in most respects as to the Wardens but reversed as to the Ex-
ecutive Officials, reinstating respondents’ claims. 

Held: The  judgment  is  reversed  in  part  and  vacated  and  remanded  in 

part. 

789 F. 3d 218, reversed in part and vacated and remanded in part. 

JUSTICE  KENNEDY  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  except  as  to

Part IV–B, concluding:

1. The  limited  reach  of  the  Bivens  action  informs  the  decision 
whether  an  implied  damages  remedy  should  be  recognized  here. 
Pp. 6–14.

(a) In  42  U. S. C.  §1983,  Congress  provided  a  specific  damages
remedy  for  plaintiffs  whose  constitutional  rights  were  violated  by
state  officials,  but  Congress  provided  no  corresponding  remedy  for
constitutional  violations  by  agents  of  the  Federal  Government.    In 
1971,  and  against  this  background,  this  Court  recognized  in  Bivens 
an implied damages action to compensate persons injured by federal
officers  who  violated  the  Fourth  Amendment’s  prohibition  against
unreasonable  searches  and  seizures.    In  the  following  decade,  the
Court  allowed  Bivens-type  remedies  twice  more,  in  a  Fifth  Amend-
ment  gender-discrimination  case,  Davis  v.  Passman,  442  U. S.  228, 
and  in  an  Eighth  Amendment  Cruel  and  Unusual  Punishments 
Clause case, Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14.  These are the only cases
in which the Court has approved of an implied damages remedy un-
der the Constitution itself.  Pp. 6–7.

(b) Bivens,  Davis,  and  Carlson  were  decided  at  a  time  when  the 
prevailing  law  assumed  that  a  proper  judicial  function  was  to  “pro-
vide  such  remedies  as  are  necessary  to  make  effective”  a  statute’s 
purpose.  J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426, 433.  The Court has 
since adopted a far more cautious course, clarifying that, when decid-
ing whether to recognize an implied cause of action, the “determina-
tive” question is one of statutory intent.  Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 
U. S. 275, 286.  If a statute does not evince Congress’ intent “to create
the private right of action asserted,” Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 
442  U. S.  560,  568,  no  such  action  will  be  created  through  judicial
mandate.  Similar caution must be exercised with respect to damages
actions  implied  to  enforce  the  Constitution  itself.  Bivens  is  well-
settled  law  in  its  own  context,  but  expanding  the  Bivens  remedy  is 
now considered a “disfavored” judicial activity.  Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 
U. S. 662, 675. 

When a party seeks to assert an implied cause of action under the 
Constitution, separation-of-powers principles should be central to the