Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1702_h315.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  587 U. S. ____ (2019) 

11 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

private  agent.    When  MNN  took  on  the  responsibility  of 
administering  the  forum,  it  stood  in  the  City’s  shoes  and 
became a state actor for purposes of 42 U. S. C. §1983. 
  This conclusion follows from the Court’s decision in West 
v.  Atkins,  487  U. S.  42  (1988).    The  Court  in  West  unani-
mously held that a doctor hired to provide medical care to 
state  prisoners  was  a  state  actor  for  purposes  of  §1983.  
Id., at 54; see also id., at 58 (Scalia, J., concurring in part 
and  concurring  in  judgment).    Each  State  must  provide 
medical  care  to  prisoners, the  Court  explained,  id.,  at  54, 
and when a State hires a private doctor to do that job, the 
doctor  becomes  a state actor,  “ ‘clothed with  the  authority 
of  state  law,’ ”  id.,  at  55.    If  a  doctor  hired  by  the  State 
abuses his role, the harm is “caused, in the sense relevant 
for  state-action  inquiry,”  by  the  State’s  having  incarcer-
ated the prisoner and put his medical care in that doctor’s 
hands.  Ibid. 
  The  fact  that  the  doctor  was  a  private  contractor,  the 
Court emphasized, made no difference.  Ibid.  It was “the 
physician’s  function  within  the  state  system,”  not  his 
private-contractor  status,  that  determined  whether  his 
conduct  could  “fairly  be  attributed  to  the  State.”    Id.,  at 
55–56.    Once  the  State  imprisoned  the  plaintiff,  it  owed 
him  duties  under  the  Eighth  Amendment;  once  the  State 
delegated  those  duties  to  a  private  doctor,  the  doctor 
became a state actor.  See ibid.; see also id., at 56–57.  If 
the  rule  were  any  different,  a  State  would  “ ‘be  free  to 
contract  out  all  services  which  it  is  constitutionally  obli-
gated  to  provide  and  leave  its  citizens  with  no  means 
for  vindication  of  those  rights,  whose  protection  has 
been  delegated  to  ‘private’  actors,  when  they  have  been 
denied.’ ”  Id., at 56, n. 14. 
  West  resolves  this  case.    Although  the  settings  are  dif-
ferent,  the  legal  features  are  the  same:  When  a  govern-
ment  (1)  makes  a  choice  that  triggers  constitutional  obli-
gations,  and  then  (2)  contracts  out  those  constitutional