Opinion ID: 379233
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Clause B

Text: 33 The second clause of Section 1985(2), clause B, creates a cause of action against individuals who conspire to injure a party or witness for having attended or testified in any court of the United States. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants on this clause because plaintiffs did not allege that they were injured because they attended or testified in court, but rather only that they were injured because they filed claims. The district court's conclusion is apparently premised on its belief that the phrase attended or testified requires actual physical presence in a courtroom. We reject such a narrow reading of the statute. 34 Congress recognized that conspiracies designed to injure parties who turn to the courts can only produce a misapplication of the federal judicial system. Congress enacted the first part of Section 1985(2) in order to protect the sanctity of federal court proceedings and prevent miscarriages of justice. The justice provided by our judicial system, however, does not start on the day of trial. The process of obtaining justice in the court system begins long before a case is called to trial it is initiated at the moment a party files a complaint. Congress undoubtedly intended to protect the whole course of justice, not just one segment of the system, the trial process. Thus, for the purposes of Section 1985(2) an individual is deemed to have attended a court of the United States from the moment that the person files a complaint. 35 Congress certainly did not exceed constitutional bounds when it provided that an individual attends federal court when a complaint is filed. U.S.Const. art. III provides for a federal judiciary and U.S.Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 18, provides that Congress shall have the power to make laws necessary and proper for executing all powers vested by the Constitution and the government of the United States. It is beyond question that Congress has the power to do what it did in the first part of Section 1985(2) protect the federal judicial system from efforts to obstruct justice. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 4 W heat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819). 36 Defendants contend that, even if the first part of Section 1985(2) is read expansively, plaintiff is still not entitled to relief for two reasons. Initially, defendants argue that the Griffin requirement of a class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus is also required by Section 1985(2), clause B. A careful reading of Griffin and the statute does not support defendants' argument. 37 The invidious animus requirement of Griffin is a test established for determining whether a conspiracy was designed to deprive any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws, as required by Section 1985(3). Unlike Section 1985(3) and clauses C and D of Section 1985(2), clause B of Section 1985(2) is not limited to conspiracies aimed at the deprivation of equal protection or equal privileges and immunities. There is no reference whatsoever in the first part of Section 1985(2) to the term equal protection. Although defendants urge that we read the Griffin limitation into the first part of Section 1985(2), neither the statute nor the legislative history will support such an interpretation. The presence of the invidious animus requirement in Section 1985(3) and clauses C and D is persuasive evidence that Congress knew how to impose that limitation when it was intended. See, Stern v. United States Gypsum, Inc., 547 F.2d 1329 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 975, 98 S.Ct. 533, 54 L.Ed.2d 467 (1977) (holding Griffin inapplicable to Section 1985(1)). This Court declines to impose the invidious animus requirement where Congress clearly did not intend for it to be applied. 38 Defendants' second contention is that this Court's decision in McLellan v. Mississippi Power & Light Co., 545 F.2d 919 (5th Cir. 1977) (en banc), should be applied in the case at bar. The issue in McLellan was whether an employee who was discharged from private employment because he filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy stated a claim under Section 1985(3). This Court concluded that Section 1985(3) requires that the alleged acts of defendants must be illegal, independent of Section 1985(3). 39 If the object of the defendant's conspiracy did not include a violation of some law (independent of Section 1985(3) itself) which protects the plaintiff, the conspiracy could not have deprived the plaintiff of the protection of the laws. Put more simply, there can only be a deprivation of the rights of a plaintiff when the action of the defendants is otherwise illegal. 40 Id. at 925. Defendants in the case at bar contend that plaintiffs have failed to satisfy the independent illegality requirement of McLellan. 41 This Court need not decide whether these plaintiffs have satisfied the McLellan requirement of independent illegality, because that requirement is not applicable to the first part of Section 1985(2). The McLellan court developed the independent illegality requirement when it examined the language of Section 1985(3) dealing with equal protection of the laws, and concluded that private persons can only deprive others of equal protection of the laws by violating a law already in existence. In the first part of Section 1985(2), as we noted above when discussing the applicability of Griffin, there is no mention of the term equal protection of the laws. This Court must assume that Congress omitted the term equal protection from the first part of Section 1985(2) because it did not intend for the limitations associated with that phrase to be applicable to it. Defendants' argument that McLellan should be applied is rejected. 42 Thus, in order to survive defendants' motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs need only raise a factual question about whether defendants injured them on account of their having attended or testified in court. Plaintiffs have done this. Plaintiffs' summary judgment evidence establishes that defendants refused to hire them because they filed personal injury claims. If the trier of fact accepts plaintiffs' version, plaintiffs would be entitled to relief under Section 1985(2). The district courts grant of summary judgment on this clause was partially inappropriate. See, Part IV.