Opinion ID: 2481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: (A) State Action

Text: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: [N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. By its terms, private action is immune from the restrictions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Amendment offers no shield against private conduct, `however discriminatory or wrongful.' Jackson v. Metro. Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 349, 95 S.Ct. 449, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974) (quoting Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161 (1948)). The Amendment applies only to state action. Id.; see also Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883). The Fourteenth Amendment, in turn, incorporates the First Amendment, so [t]he Fourteenth Amendment, and, through it, the First ... Amendment[], do not apply to private parties unless those parties are engaged in activity deemed to be `state action.' Nat'l Broad. Co., Inc. v. Commc'ns Workers of Am., AFL-CIO, 860 F.2d 1022, 1024 (11th Cir.1988). Actions of a private entity are attributable to the State if `there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action of the ... entity so that the action of the latter may be fairly treated as that of the State itself.' United States v. Stein, 541 F.3d 130, 146 (2d Cir. 2008) (quoting Jackson, 419 U.S. at 351, 95 S.Ct. 449). The close nexus test `assure[s] that constitutional standards are invoked only when it can be said that the State is responsible for the specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains.' Id. at 146-47 (quoting Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004, 102 S.Ct. 2777, 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982)). However, Supreme Court cases on this issue `have not been a model of consistency.' Id. at 147 (quoting Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 632, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991) (O'Connor, J., dissenting)). Not surprisingly, therefore, there is no single test to identify state actions and state actors. Rather, there are a host of facts that can bear on the fairness of an attribution of a challenged action to the State. Horvath v. Westport Library Ass'n, 362 F.3d 147, 151 (2d Cir.2004) (quotations and citations omitted). A nexus of state action exists... when the state exercises coercive power, is entwined in the management or control of the private actor, ... or when the private actor operates as a willful participant in joint activity with the State or its agents, is controlled by an agency of the State, has been delegated a public function by the state, or is entwined with governmental policies. Stein, 541 F.3d at 147 (quotations, citations, and emphases omitted). However, conduct by a private entity is not fairly attributable to the state merely because the private entity is a business subject to extensive state regulation or `affected with the public interest.' Cranley v. Nat'l Life Ins. Co. of Vermont, 318 F.3d 105, 112 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting Jackson, 419 U.S. at 350, 95 S.Ct. 449). A finding of state action may not be premised solely on the private entity's creation, funding, licensing, or regulation by the government. Id.