Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/922/case.html
Timestamp: 2017-02-23 05:18:52
Document Index: 541542088

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 8', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 43', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 7', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. (full text) :: 457 U.S. 922 (1982) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc.
Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. 457 U.S. 922 (1982)
U.S. Supreme CourtLugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc., 457 U.S. 922 (1982)Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., Inc.No. 80-1730Argued December 8, 1981Decided June 25, 1982457 U.S. 922CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
1. Constitutional requirements of due process apply to garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures whenever state officers act jointly with a private creditor in securing the property in dispute. Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337. And if the challenged conduct of the creditor constitutes state action as delimited by this Court's prior decisions, then that conduct is also action under color of state law, and will support a suit under § 1983. Pp. 457 U. S. 926-935. Page 457 U. S. 923
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the Page 457 U. S. 924 United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
In 1977, petitioner, a lessee-operator of a truckstop in Virginia, was indebted to his supplier, Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. Edmondson sued on the debt in Virginia state court. Ancillary to that action and pursuant to state law, Edmondson sought prejudgment attachment of certain of petitioner's property. Va.Code § 8.01-533 (1977). [Footnote 2] The prejudgment attachment procedure required only that Edmondson allege, in an ex parte petition, a belief that petitioner was disposing of or might dispose of his property in order to defeat his creditors. Acting upon that petition, a Clerk of the state court issued a writ of attachment, which was then executed by the County Sheriff. This effectively sequestered petitioner's Page 457 U. S. 925 property, although it was left in his possession. Pursuant to the statute, a hearing on the propriety of the attachment and levy was later conducted. Thirty-four days after the levy, a state trial judge ordered the attachment dismissed because Edmondson had failed to establish the statutory grounds for attachment alleged in the petition. [Footnote 3]
Relying on Flagg Brothers, Inc. v. Brook, 436 U. S. 149 (1978), the District Court held that the alleged actions of the respondents did not constitute state action, as required by the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the complaint therefore did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted under § 1983. Petitioner appealed; the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed, with three dissenters. [Footnote 5] 639 F.2d 1058 (1981). Page 457 U. S. 926
639 F.2d at 1061-1062 (footnote omitted).
Although the Court of Appeals correctly perceived the importance of Flagg Brothers to a proper resolution of this case, Page 457 U. S. 927 it misread that case. [Footnote 6] It also failed to give sufficient weight to that line of cases, beginning with Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969), in which the Court considered constitutional due process requirements in the context of garnishment actions and prejudgment attachments. See North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972). Each of these cases involved a finding of state action as an implicit predicate of the application of due process standards. Flagg Brothers distinguished them on the ground that, in each, there was overt, official involvement in the property deprivation; there was no such overt action by a state officer in Flagg Brothers, 436 U.S. at 436 U. S. 157. Although this case falls on the Sniadach, and not the Flagg Brothers, side of this distinction, the Court of Appeals thought the garnishment and attachment cases to be irrelevant because none but Fuentes arose under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and because Fuentes was distinguishable. [Footnote 7] Page 457 U. S. 928 It determined that it could ignore all of them because the issue in this case was not whether there was state action, but rather whether respondents acted under color of state law.
In support of this proposition, the Court cited Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944), and Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953). [Footnote 10] In both of these Page 457 U. S. 929 cases, black voters in Texas challenged their exclusion from party primaries as a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment, and sought relief under 8 U.S.C. § 43 (1946 ed.). [Footnote 11] In each case, the Court understood the problem before it to be whether the discriminatory policy of a private political association could be characterized as "state action within the meaning of the Fifteenth Amendment." Smith, supra, at 321 U. S. 664. [Footnote 12] Having found state action under the Constitution, there was no further inquiry into whether the action of the political associations also met the statutory requirement of action "under color of state law."
"[m]isuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken 'under color of state law,' was founded on the rule announced in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 100 U. S. 346-347 (1880), that the actions of a state officer who exceeds the limits of his authority constitute state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. [Footnote 13] "Page 457 U. S. 930
The two-part approach to a § 1983 cause of action, referred to in Flagg Brothers, was derived from Adickes v. Page 457 U. S. 931 S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 398 U. S. 150 (1970). Adickes was a § 1983 action brought against a private party, based on a claim of racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although stating that the § 1983 plaintiff must show both that he has been deprived "of a right secured by the Constitution and laws' of the United States" and that the defendant acted "under color of any statute . . . of any State," ibid., we held that the private party's joint participation with a state official in a conspiracy to discriminate would constitute both "state action essential to show a direct violation of petitioner's Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights" and action "`under color' of law for purposes of the statute." Id. at 398 U. S. 152. [Footnote 14] In Page 457 U. S. 932 support of our conclusion that a private party held to have violated the Fourteenth Amendment "can be liable under § 1983," ibid., we cited that part of United States v. Price, 383 U.S. at 383 U. S. 794, n. 7, in which we had concluded that state action and action under color of state law are the same (quoted supra, at 457 U. S. 928). Adickes provides no support for the Court of Appeals' novel construction of § 1983. [Footnote 15]
Beginning with Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969), the Court has consistently held that constitutional requirements of due process apply to garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures whenever officers Page 457 U. S. 933 of the State act jointly with a creditor in securing the property in dispute. Sniadach and North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), involved state-created garnishment procedures; Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974), involved execution of a vendor's lien to secure disputed property. In each of these cases, state agents aided the creditor in securing the disputed property; but in each case, the federal issue arose in litigation between creditor and debtor in the state courts, and no state official was named as a party. Nevertheless, in each case, the Court entertained and adjudicated the defendant debtor's claim that the procedure under which the private creditor secured the disputed property violated federal constitutional standards of due process. Necessary to that conclusion is the holding that private use of the challenged state procedures with the help of state officials constitutes state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), was a § 1983 action brought against both a private creditor and the State Attorney General. The plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief, on due process grounds, from continued enforcement of state statutes authorizing prejudgment replevin. The plaintiff prevailed; if the Court of Appeals were correct in this case, there would have been no § 1983 cause of action against the private parties. Yet they remained parties, and judgment ran against them in this Court. [Footnote 16] Page 457 U. S. 934
Id.App. 81. [Footnote 17] Page 457 U. S. 935
In sum, the line drawn by the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with our prior cases, and would substantially undercut the congressional purpose in providing the § 1983 cause of action. If the challenged conduct of respondents constitutes state action as delimited by our prior decisions, then that conduct was also action under color of state law, and will support a suit under § 1983. [Footnote 18] Page 457 U. S. 936
Careful adherence to the "state action" requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed. A major consequence is to require the courts to respect the limits of Page 457 U. S. 937 their own power as directed against state governments and private interests. Whether this is good or bad policy, it is a fundamental fact of our political order.
In Moose Lodge, the Court held that the discriminatory practices of the appellant did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because those practices did not constitute "state action." The Court focused primarily on the question of Page 457 U. S. 938 whether the admittedly discriminatory policy could in any way be ascribed to a governmental decision. [Footnote 19] The inquiry, therefore, looked to those policies adopted by the State that were applied to appellant. The Court concluded as follows:
Flagg Brothers focused on the other component of the state action principle. In that case, the warehouseman proceeded under New York Uniform Commercial Code, § 7-210, and the debtor challenged the constitutionality of that provision on the grounds that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Undoubtedly the State was responsible for the statute. The response of the Court, however, focused not on the terms of the statute, but on the character of the defendant to the § 1983 Page 457 U. S. 939 suit: action by a private party pursuant to this statute, without something more, was not sufficient to justify a characterization of that party as a "state actor." The Court suggested that that "something more" which would convert the private party into a state actor might vary with the circumstances of the case. This was simply a recognition that the Court has articulated a number of different factors or tests in different contexts: e.g., the "public function" test, see Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946); the "state compulsion" test, see Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. at 398 U. S. 170; the "nexus" test, see Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345 (1974); Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U. S. 715 (1961); and, in the case of prejudgment attachments, a "joint action test," Flagg Brothers, 436 U.S. at 436 U. S. 157. [Footnote 21] Whether these different tests are actually different in operation or simply different ways of characterizing the necessarily fact-bound inquiry that confronts the Court in such a situation need not be resolved here. See Burton, supra, at 365 U. S. 722 ("Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance").
Turning to this case, the first question is whether the claimed deprivation has resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority. The second question is whether, under the facts of this case, respondents, who are private parties, may be appropriately characterized as "state actors." Page 457 U. S. 940
639 F.2d at 1060, n. 1. Both courts held that resolution of this ambiguity was not necessary to their disposition of the case: both resolved it, in any case, in favor of the view that petitioner was attacking the constitutionality of the statute, as well as its misapplication. In our view, resolution of this issue is essential to the proper disposition of the case.
Count one is a different matter. That count describes the procedures followed by respondents in obtaining the prejudgment attachment as well as the fact that the state court subsequently ordered the attachment dismissed because respondents had not met their burden under state law. Petitioner Page 457 U. S. 941 then summarily states that this sequence of events deprived him of his property without due process. Although it is not clear whether petitioner is referring to the state-created procedure or the misuse of that procedure by respondents, we agree with the lower courts that the better reading of the complaint is that petitioner challenges the state statute as procedurally defective under the Fourteenth Amendment. [Footnote 22]
As is clear from the discussion in 457 U. S. we have consistently held that a private party's joint participation with state officials in the seizure of disputed property is sufficient to characterize that party as a "state actor" for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. The rule in these cases is the same as that articulated in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 398 U. S. 152, in the context of an equal protection deprivation:
""Private persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the prohibited action, are acting under color' of law for purposes of the statute. To act `under color' of law does not require that the accused be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents,"" quoting United States v. Price, 383 U.S. at 383 U. S. 794. Page 457 U. S. 942
So ordered. Page 457 U. S. 943
The Court of Appeals held Fuentes v. Shevin not to be relevant because the defendants in that case included the State Attorney General, as well as the private creditor. In the court's view, the presence of a state official made the "private party defendant . . . merely a nominal party to the action for injunctive relief." 639 F.2d at 1068, n. 22. Judge Butzner, in dissent, found Fuentes to be directly controlling.
Whether we are dealing with suits under § 1983 or suits brought pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, in my view, the inquiry is the same: is the claimed infringement of a federal right fairly attributable to the State. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, ante at 457 U. S. 838. Applying this standard, it cannot be said that the actions of the named respondents are fairly attributable to the State. * Respondents did no more than invoke a presumptively valid state prejudgment attachment procedure available to all. Relying on a dubious "but for" analysis, the Court erroneously concludes that the subsequent procedural steps taken by the State in attaching a putative debtor's property in some way transforms respondents' acts into actions of the State. This case is no different from the situation in which a private party commences a lawsuit and secures injunctive relief which, even if temporary, may cause significant injury to the defendant. Invoking a judicial process, of course, implicates the State and its officers, but does not transform essentially private conduct into actions of the State. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U. S. 24 (1980). Similarly, one who practices a trade or profession, drives an automobile, or builds a house under a state license is not engaging in acts fairly attributable to the state. In both \Dennis\ and the instant case, petitioner's remedy lies in private suits for damages such as malicious prosecution. The Court's opinion expands the reach of the statute beyond anything intended by Congress. It may well be a consequence of too casually falling into a semantical trap because of the figurative use of the term "color of state law." Page 457 U. S. 944
Today's decision is a disquieting example of how expansive judicial decisionmaking can ensnare a person who had every reason to believe he was acting in strict accordance with law. The case began nearly five years ago as the outgrowth of a simple suit on a debt in a Virginia state court. Respondent -- a small wholesale oil dealer in Southside, Va. -- brought suit against petitioner Lugar, a truckstop owner who had failed to pay a debt. [Footnote 2/1] The suit was to collect this indebtedness. Fearful that petitioner might dissipate his assets before the debt was collected, respondent also filed a petition in state court seeking sequestration of certain of Lugar's assets. He did so under a Virginia statute, traceable at least to 1819, that permits creditors to seek prejudgment attachment of property in the possession of debtors. [Footnote 2/2] No court had questioned the validity of the statute, and it remains presumptively valid. The Clerk of the state court duly issued a writ of attachment, and the County Sheriff then executed it. There is no allegation that respondent conspired with the state officials to deny petitioner the fair protection of state or federal law. Page 457 U. S. 945
This Court today reverses the judgment of those lower courts. It holds that respondent, a private citizen who did no more than commence a legal action of a kind traditionally initiated by private parties, thereby engaged in "state action." This decision is as unprecedented as it is implausible. It is plainly unjust to the respondent, and the Court makes no Page 457 U. S. 946 argument to the contrary. Respondent, who was represented by counsel, could have had no notion that his filing of a petition in state court, in the effort to secure payment of a private debt, made him a "state actor" liable in damages for allegedly unconstitutional action by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Nor is the Court's analysis consistent with the mode of inquiry prescribed by our cases. On the contrary, the Court undermines fundamental distinctions between the common sense categories of state and private conduct and between the legal concepts of "state action" and private action "under color of law."
This case demonstrates why separate inquiries are required. Here it is not disputed that the Virginia Sheriff and Clerk of Court, the state officials who sequestered petitioner's property in the manner provided by Virginia law, engaged in state action. Yet the petitioner, while alleging constitutional injury from this action by state officials, did not sue the State or its agents. In these circumstances, the Court of Appeals correctly stated that the relevant inquiry was the second identified in Flagg Bros.: whether the respondent, a private citizen whose only action was to invoke a presumptively valid state attachment process, had acted under color of state law in "causing" the State to deprive petitioner Page 457 U. S. 947 of alleged constitutional rights. [Footnote 2/4] Consistently with past decisions of this Court, the Court of Appeals concluded that respondent's private conduct had not occurred under color of law.
Ante at 457 U. S. 941, quoting Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 398 U. S. 152, in turn quoting United State v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 383 U. S. 794 (1966). Page 457 U. S. 948
As this Court recognized in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 365 U. S. 172 (1961), the historic purpose of § 1983 was to prevent state officials from using the cloak of their authority under state law to violate rights protected against state infringement by the Fourteenth Amendment. [Footnote 2/5] The Court accordingly is correct that an important inquiry in a § 1983 suit against a private party is whether there is an allegation of wrongful "conduct that can be attributed to the State." Ante at 457 U. S. 941. This is the first question referred to in Flagg Bros. But there still remains the second Flagg Bros. question: whether this state action fairly can be attributed to the respondent, whose Page 457 U. S. 949 only action was to invoke a presumptively valid attachment statute. This question, unasked by the Court, reveals the fallacy of its conclusion that respondent may be held accountable for the attachment of property because he was a "state actor." [Footnote 2/6] From the occurrence of state action taken by the Sheriff who sequestered petitioner's property, it does not follow that respondent became a "state actor" simply because the Sheriff was. This Court, until today, has never endorsed this non sequitur.
"[r]espondent's exercise of the choice allowed by state law where Page 457 U. S. 950 the initiative comes from it and not from the State, does not make its action in doing so 'state action' for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment."
A "color of law" inquiry acknowledges that private individuals, engaged in unlawful joint behavior with state officials, may be personally responsible for wrongs that they cause to occur. But it does not confuse private actors with the Page 457 U. S. 951 State -- the fallacy of the analysis adopted today by the Court. In this case, involving the private action of the respondent in petitioning the state courts of Virginia, the appropriate inquiry as to respondent's liability is not whether he was a state actor, but whether he acted under color of law. It is to this question that I therefore turn.
Contrary to the position of the Court, our cases do not establish that a private party's mere invocation of state legal procedures constitutes "joint participation" or "conspiracy" with state officials satisfying the § 1983 requirement of action under color of law. In Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U. S. 24 (1980), we held that private parties acted under color of law when corruptly conspiring with a state judge in a joint scheme to defraud. In so holding, however, we explicitly stated that "merely resorting to the courts and being on the winning side of a lawsuit does not make a party a coconspirator or a joint actor with the judge." Id. at 449 U. S. 28. This conclusion is reinforced by our more recent decision in Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U. S. 312 (1981). As we held to be true with respect to the defense of a criminal defendant, invocation of state legal process is "essentially a private function . . . for which state office and authority are not needed." Id. at 454 U. S. 319. These recent decisions make clear that independent, private decisions made in the context of litigation cannot be said to occur under color of law. [Footnote 2/8] The Court nevertheless advances two principal grounds for its holding to the contrary. Page 457 U. S. 952
Of the cases cited by the Court, Sniadach, Mitchell, and Di-Chem all involved attacks on the validity of state attachment or garnishment statutes. None of the cases alleged that the private creditor was a joint actor with the State, and none involved a claim for damages against the creditor. Each case involved a state suit, not a federal action under § 1983. It therefore was unnecessary in any of these cases for this Court to consider whether the creditor, by virtue of instituting the attachment or garnishment, became a state actor or acted under color of state law. There is not one word in any of these cases that so characterizes the private creditor. [Footnote 2/10] In Fuentes v. Shevin, the Court did consider a Page 457 U. S. 953 § 1983 action against a private creditor, as well as the State Attorney General. [Footnote 2/11] Again, however, the only question before this Court was the validity of a state statute. No claim was made that the creditor was a joint actor with the State, or had acted under color of law. No damages were sought from the creditor. Again, there was no occasion for this Court to consider the status under § 1983 of the private party, and there is not a word in the opinion that discusses this. As with Sniadach, Mitchell, and Di-Chem, Fuentes thus fails to establish that a private party's mere invocation of state attachment or garnishment procedures represents action under color of law -- even in a case in which those procedures are subsequently held to be unconstitutional.
In addition to relying on cases involving the constitutionality of state attachment and garnishment statutes, the Court advances a "joint participation" theory based on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144 (1970). In Adickes, the plaintiff sued a private restaurant under § 1983, alleging a conspiracy between the restaurant and local police to deprive her of the right to equal treatment in a place of public accommodation. Id. at 398 U. S. 152, 398 U. S. 153. Reversing the decision below, this Court upheld the cause of action. It found that the private defendant, in "conspiring" with local police to obtain official enforcement of a state custom of racial segregation, engaged in a "joint activity with the State or its agents,'" Page 457 U. S. 954 and therefore acted under color of law within the meaning of § 1983. Id. at 398 U. S. 152 (quoting United States v. Price, 383 U.S. at 383 U. S. 794).
398 U.S. at 389 U. S. 150-152. Construed as resting on this basis, Adickes establishes that a private Page 457 U. S. 955 party acts under color of law when he conspires with state officials to secure the application of a state law so plainly unconstitutional as to enjoy no presumption of validity. In such a context, the private party could be characterized as hiding behind the authority of law, and as engaging in "joint participation" with the State in the deprivation of constitutional rights. [Footnote 2/12] Here, however, petitioner has alleged no conspiracy. Nor has he even alleged that respondent was invoking the aid of a law he should have known to be constitutionally invalid. [Footnote 2/13] Finally, there is no allegation that respondent's decision to invoke legal process was in any way Page 457 U. S. 956 compelled by the law or custom of the State in which he lived. In this context, Adickes simply is inapposite.
At one stage in the litigation, the respondent averred that his lawsuit raised "[n]o question of the constitutional validity of the State statutes." Plaintiff's Memorandum in Opposition to Motion to Dismiss 3. The District Court nevertheless concluded that "the complaint can only be read as challenging the constitutionality of Virginia's attachment statute." App. to Pet. for Cert. 38. The Court of Appeals agreed. 639 F.2d at 1060, and n. 1.
Due process requirements must be satisfied in prejudgment attachment procedures if state officers co...	Facts	Lugar owed a debt to Edmondson Oil Co., which sought a prejudgment attachment of his property when i...