Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 22

Cite as:  545 U. S. ____ (2005) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

vation of any interest in life, liberty, or property.”  Ibid.  In 
this  case,  as  in  O’Bannon,  “[t]he  simple  distinction  be-
tween  government  action  that  directly  affects  a  citizen’s 
legal rights . . . and action that is directed against a third 
party and affects the citizen only indirectly or incidentally, 
provides  a  sufficient  answer  to”  respondent’s  reliance  on 
cases that found government-provided services to be enti-
tlements. 
Id.,  at  788.    The  O’Bannon  Court  expressly
noted,  ibid.,  that  the  distinction  between  direct  and  indi-
rect  benefits  distinguished  Memphis  Light,  Gas  &  Water 
Div.  v.  Craft,  436  U. S.  1  (1978),  one  of  the  government-
services cases on which the dissent relies, post, at 19. 

III 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  respondent  did  not,  for 
purposes  of  the  Due  Process  Clause,  have  a  property  in-
terest  in  police  enforcement  of  the  restraining  order 
It  is  accordingly  unnecessary  to 
against  her  husband. 
address the Court of Appeals’ determination (366 F. 3d, at 
1110–1117) that the town’s custom or policy prevented the 
police from giving her due process when they deprived her 
of that alleged interest.  See American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. 
v. Sullivan, 526 U. S. 40, 61 (1999).14 

In  light  of  today’s  decision  and  that  in  DeShaney,  the 
benefit  that  a  third  party  may  receive  from  having  some-
one  else  arrested  for  a  crime  generally  does  not  trigger 
protections  under  the  Due  Process  Clause,  neither  in  its
procedural  nor  in  its  “substantive”  manifestations.    This 
result reflects our continuing reluctance to treat the Four-
teenth  Amendment  as  “ ‘a  font  of  tort  law,’ ”  Parratt  v. 
Taylor, 451 U. S. 527, 544 (1981) (quoting Paul v. Davis, 424 
U. S., at 701), but it does not mean States are powerless to 

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14 Because we simply do not address whether the process would have 
been adequate if respondent had had a property interest, the dissent is 
correct to note that we do not “contest” the point, post, at 2.  Of course 
we do not accept it either.