Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/18pdf/17-1702_h315.pdf
Page Number: 36

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

17 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

an  independent  food  seller  who  just  happens to  be  highly 
regulated by the restaurant’s owners. 
  The  majority  also  relies  on  the  Court’s  statements  that 
its  “public  function”  test  requires  that  a  function  have 
been  “traditionally  and  exclusively  performed”  by  the 
government.    Ante,  at  6  (emphasis  deleted);  see  Jackson, 
419  U. S.,  at  352.    Properly  understood,  that  rule  cabins 
liability in cases, such as Jackson, in which a private actor 
ventures  of  its  own  accord  into  territory  shared  (or  regu-
lated)  by  the  government  (e.g.,  by  opening  a  power  com- 
pany or a shopping center).  The Court made clear in West 
that  the  rule  did  not  reach  further,  explaining  that  “the 
fact  that  a  state  employee’s  role  parallels  one  in  the  pri-
vate  sector”  does  not  preclude  a  finding  of  state  action.  
487 U. S., at 56, n. 15. 
  When  the  government  hires  an  agent,  in  other  words, 
the question is not whether it hired the agent to do some-
thing that can be done in the private marketplace too.  If 
that  were  the  key  question,  the  doctor  in  West  would  not 
have been a state actor.  Nobody thinks that orthopedics is 
a function “traditionally exclusively reserved to the State,” 
Jackson, 419 U. S., at 352. 
  The majority consigns West to a footnote, asserting that 
its  “scenario  is  not  present  here  because  the  government 
has  no  [constitutional]  obligation  to  operate  public  access 
channels.”    Ante,  at  7,  n. 1.    The  majority  suggests  that 
West  is  different  because  “the  State  was  constitutionally 
obligated to provide medical care to prison inmates.”  Ante, 
at 7, n. 1.  But what the majority ignores is that the State 
in West had no constitutional obligation to open the prison 
or incarcerate the prisoner in the first place; the obligation 
to  provide  medical  care  arose  when  it  made  those  prior 
choices. 
  The  City  had  a  comparable  constitutional  obligation 
here—one brought about by its own choices, made against 
a state-law backdrop.  The City, of course, had no constitu-