Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/409/718/121065/
Timestamp: 2020-07-07 12:55:05
Document Index: 677795883

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1331', '§ 1331', '§ 1346', '§ 1331', '§ 1983', '§ 2520', '§ 2518', '§ 1331', '§ 1983', '§ 1343', '§ 1343']

Webster Bivens, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Defendants-appellees, 409 F.2d 718 (2d Cir. 1969) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Second Circuit › 1969 › Webster Bivens, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics,...
Webster Bivens, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Defendants-appellees, 409 F.2d 718 (2d Cir. 1969)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit - 409 F.2d 718 (2d Cir. 1969) Argued January 16, 1969
Stephen R. Felson, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C. (Edwin L. Weisl, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Robert V. Zener, Dept. of Justice, Joseph P. Hoey, U. S. Atty. for Eastern Dist. of New York, on the brief), for appellees.
The district court dismissed the complaint partly upon the ground that it lacked jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331,1 which grants to the district courts jurisdiction over actions which arise under "the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States." But under Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S. Ct. 773, 90 L. Ed. 939 (1946), it is clear that the district court had jurisdiction under § 1331 to determine whether this complaint, unambiguously founded upon the Fourth Amendment, states a good federal cause of action. See Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647, 649, 83 S. Ct. 1441, 10 L. Ed. 2d 605 (1963). The district court, in the alternative, did validly rest its disposition on the merits for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted. It is on this ground that we affirm.
The view that statutory authority is a prerequisite for a federal cause of action for damages, even though the wrong complained of is the violation of a constitutional right, has been adopted by all of the courts which have examined this question recently. See United States v. Faneca, 332 F.2d 872, 875 (5th Cir. 1964), cert. denied 380 U.S. 971, 85 S. Ct. 1327, 14 L. Ed. 2d 268 (1965); Johnston v. Earle, 245 F.2d 793, 796-797 (9th Cir. 1957); Koch v. Zuieback, 194 F. Supp. 651, 656 (S.D. Cal. 1961), aff'd 316 F.2d 1 (9th Cir. 1963); Garfield v. Palmieri, 193 F. Supp. 582, 586 (E.D.N.Y. 1960), aff'd per curiam, 290 F.2d 821 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 368 U.S. 827, 82 S. Ct. 46, 7 L. Ed. 2d 30 (1961); Bell v. Hood, 71 F. Supp. 813 (S.D. Cal. 1947). It must be said that few of these opinions have given extensive consideration to the problem, and that only the district court opinion in Bell v. Hood, supra, does so in the context of a claim founded upon the Fourth Amendment. However, we do not agree with the reasoning of this latter decision, which the district court below impliedly adopted by quoting an extensive passage in its memorandum.
The history of the Fourth Amendment provides no sure answer to our inquiry, but we find it suggestive. The Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure had its origin in several English cases which were damage actions for trespass. Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell's State Trials 1029 (1765); see Huckle v. Money, 95 Eng. Rep. 768 (1763); Wilkes v. Wood, 98 Eng.Rep. 489 (1763). These cases, and the common law doctrine they evolved, were well known at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 626-627, 630, 6 S. Ct. 524, 29 L. Ed. 746 (1886). From this fact plaintiff argues that the drafters of the Amendment must have intended that the constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure could be enforced by the courts through the medium of private damage actions.
But acceptance of this proposition hardly leads to the conclusion that the private damage action the drafters had in mind was a wholly new federal cause of action founded directly on the Fourth Amendment. It seems more likely that the medium contemplated was the same as that employed in Entick v. Carrington, supra, i. e., the common law action of trespass, administered in our judicial system by the state courts. The Amendment serves to increase the efficacy of the trespass remedy by preventing federal law enforcement officers from justifying a trespass as authorized by the national government. Cf. Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U.S. 647, 652, 83 S. Ct. 1441, 10 L. Ed. 2d 605 (1963); Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell's State Trials 1029 (1765), quoted in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 627, 6 S. Ct. 524, 29 L. Ed. 746 (1886).
One precedent cited by plaintiff for such an implication is Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U.S. 363, 63 S. Ct. 573, 87 L. Ed. 838 (1943), where the Court acted because of the need for a uniform national rule governing transactions in the commercial paper of the United States. Similar considerations have justified decisions preempting the application of state laws, and adopting a uniform rule of federal common law in their stead, in the fields of admiralty, see e. g., Pope & Talbot, Inc. v. Hawn, 346 U.S. 406, 74 S. Ct. 202, 98 L. Ed. 143 (1953), and regulation of interstate commerce. See generally Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 141-152, 83 S. Ct. 1210, 10 L. Ed. 2d 248 (1963). The Supreme Court has also indicated that the need for the courts of this country to speak with a united voice on matters of foreign policy renders the area of international law appropriate for preemption. Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 423-427, 84 S. Ct. 923, 11 L. Ed. 2d 804 (1964); see Republic of Iraq v. First National City Bank, 353 F.2d 47, 50-51 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied 382 U.S. 1027, 86 S. Ct. 648, 15 L. Ed. 2d 540 (1966) See generally Hill, The Law-Making Power of the Federal Courts: Constitutional Preemption, 67 Colum. L. Rev. 1024 (1967).
Cf. Ivy Broadcasting Co. v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 391 F.2d 486, 490-491 (2d Cir. 1968); McFaddin Express Inc. v. Adley Corp., 346 F.2d 424, 425-426 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied 382 U.S. 1026, 86 S. Ct. 643, 15 L. Ed. 539 (1966).
It is now clear that there is an implied injunctive remedy for threatened or continuing constitutional violations. See Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684 & n. 4, 66 S. Ct. 773, 90 L. Ed. 939 (1946); Larson v. Domestic and Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U.S. 682, 696-697, 69 S. Ct. 1457, 93 L. Ed. 1628 (1949); Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S. Ct. 441, 52 L. Ed. 714 (1908); United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 1 S. Ct. 240, 27 L. Ed. 171 (1882). This exercise of the general equity powers of the federal court initially may have developed in part because of the lack of an equity jurisdiction in many of the states. See Hart & Wechsler, supra, at 578, 650-651. But injunctive relief also seems to be an essential corollary to the power of judicial review established by Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803). The power to declare an action of the legislative or executive branch unconstitutional is an empty one if the judiciary lacks a remedy to stop or prevent the action. Few more unseemly sights for a democratic country operating under a system of limited governmental power can be imagined than the specter of its courts standing powerless to prevent a clear transgression by the government of a constitutional right of a person with standing to assert it. Cf. Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22, 56-61, 52 S. Ct. 285, 76 L. Ed. 598 (1932). Thus, even if the Constitution itself does not give rise to an inherent injunctive power to prevent its violation by governmental officials there are strong reasons for inferring the existence of this power under any general grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts by Congress.
The case of Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13, 54 S. Ct. 26, 78 L. Ed. 142 (1933), cited by plaintiff, may present a purer example of a constitutional right with a necessarily implied remedy. The construction of a dam by the government caused repeated overflows onto the plaintiff's land which the court found to constitute a taking of private property for a public use within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. It may be doubted whether plaintiff could have sued for just compensation absent the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(a) (2), 1491, which grants to the district courts and the Court of Claims jurisdiction over claims against the government "founded on the Constitution," and on an implied contract. But given this general jurisdictional grant, analogous to § 1331 in our case, the damage remedy was implied from the constitutional right itself. The right to just compensation can scarcely be vindicated other than by securing just compensation. Thus the Court read the Fifth Amendment as self-executing, creating a duty to pay upon the government even in the absence of specific statutory authorization for suits to enforce the right to just compensation. 290 U.S. at 16, 54 S. Ct. 26. See Battaglia v. General Motors Corp., 169 F.2d 254, 257 (2d Cir.) (dictum), cert. denied 335 U.S. 887, 69 S. Ct. 236, 93 L. Ed. 425 (1948); see generally Developments in the Law — Remedies against the United States and Its Officials, 70 Harv. L. Rev. 827, 876-79 (1957).
A third example of an implied constitutional remedy is the exclusionary rule declared by Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652 (1914), and applied to the states by Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961). While not supported by so ready an inference as that underlying the injunctive power, the exclusionary rule provides a strong analogy to it. In allowing the state courts to admit unconstitutionally seized evidence prior to Mapp the federal courts were not declaring themselves powerless to prevent violations of the Fourth Amendment; the injunctive power and state trespass actions provided some sanctions for its enforcement. But the courts were allowing state governments to benefit in a real way from the violation of constitutional rights. This situation seems only slightly less offensive to the rule of law than the total absence of injunctive power. Thus the Court viewed the exclusionary rule as necessarily implied in the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, since without this remedy the right remained only a "form of words." 367 U.S. at 655, 81 S. Ct. 1684.
The Court in both cases seemed to consider only the question addressed in Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S. Ct. 773, 90 L. Ed. 939 (1946) — whether the suits fell within the grant of federal question jurisdiction to the federal courts by virtue of involving the construction and application of the Constitution. See Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U.S. 487, 491-492, 494, 22 S. Ct. 783, 46 L. Ed. 1005 (1902). The Court's attention was not called to the novelty of implying a damage remedy from a constitutional right, in the absence of a specific statutory foundation for the suit, and thus the cases are not persuasive authority for the legitimacy of such a course. It is noteworthy that the damage claims were in fact authorized by a section of the Civil Rights Act, now 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and that the court cited as a precedent a criminal case decided under that Act. Ex Parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 4 S. Ct. 152, 28 L. Ed. 274 (1884). Later cases involving civil actions for denial of a federal right to vote also explicitly rested on that statute. See, e. g., Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475, 484-485, 23 S. Ct. 639, 47 L. Ed. 909 (1903) (citing Wiley and Swafford). Thus the two decisions may have rested on a similar, although implicit, basis. But see Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536, 540, 47 S. Ct. 446, 71 L. Ed. 759 (1927) (suggesting the common law as a basis).
Only last year, in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, P.L. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197, Congress recognized the need for the creation of a private damage remedy for an unauthorized interception of private communications by such means as wiretapping or the use of electronic eavesdropping devices. Section 802 of the Act, 18 U.S. C.A. § 2520 (Supp. 1969), provides that a person victimized by such an unauthorized interception is entitled to recover actual damages at a rate of not less than $100 per day for each day of interception, or a total of $1000 if this is greater, and also may recover punitive damages, and a reasonable attorney's fee together with other litigation costs. By providing a mandatory minimum recovery Congress avoids the danger that the damage remedy will become illusory because of the possible reluctance of juries to return more than trivial judgments against law enforcement officers. Yet Congress also provides some protection to these officers by declaring that proof of a good faith reliance on a court order, or on an order of emergency authorization issued by a prosecuting attorney under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2518(7) (Supp. 1969), is a complete defense to a damage action.
The complaint advances several bases for jurisdiction apart from § 1331, but they are inapposite. Only action taken under color of state law is reached by 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3). To come within 28 U.S.C. § 1343(4) plaintiff must be seeking relief "under any Act of Congress." In this case plaintiff seeks relief which is not extended by an Act of Congress, and for action by federal, not state, officials