Opinion ID: 505504
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rode's Section 1985 Claim

Text: 52 Finally, Rode attempts to arrange her constellation of allegations to structure a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985(2). In count II of her complaint, Rode asserts that [t]he harassment of and disciplinary actions against [her] resulted from a conspiracy of the Defendants to deter Plaintiff Hileman by intimidation and threat from appearing in the legal action of Lieutenant Clanagan or in any other legal action against the PSP. In this arrangement of the facts, Rode's relationship with Hileman, although unprotected, provides the motivation for the defendants' alleged harassment. 53 Neither the district court nor the parties apparently considered the validity of Rode's section 1985 claim independently from her section 1983 claim. The court disposed of both the equal protection and the section 1985 counts because Rode suffered no deprivation of property under the fourteenth amendment. Rode, 646 F.Supp. at 879-80. The parties have not independently briefed this issue on appeal. 54 We treat Rode's section 1985 claim separately because it invokes a different analysis. Consideration of the claim requires us to determine whether Rode has standing to assert a claim under section 1985 when she was neither a party nor a witness in the Clanagan action. We conclude that Rode cannot assert an action under section 1985(2) as a matter of law. 55 Section 1985 was passed as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and like its better known cousin, section 1983, it lay dormant until recent years. Section 1985(2) states in part that a cause of action will lie 56 [i]f two or more persons ... conspire to deter, by force, intimidation, or threat, any party or witness in any court of the United States from attending such court, or from testifying to any matter pending therein, freely, fully, and truthfully, or to injure such a party or witness in his person or property on account of his having so attended or testified. 57 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985(2). The remedial portion of section 1985 is actually found in subdivision (3): 58 [I]n any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do ... any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, ... the party so injured ... may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation against any one or more of the conspirators. 59 See Kush v. Rutledge, 460 U.S. 719, 724, 103 S.Ct. 1483, 1487, 75 L.Ed. 413 (1983) (the civil remedy for a violation of any of the subsections is found at the end of Sec. 1985(3)). 60 Section 1985(2) provides a cause of action based on the intimidation of witnesses in a federal court action. 61 [T]he essential allegations of a 1985(2) claim of witness intimidation are (1) a conspiracy between two or more persons (2) to deter a witness by force, intimidation or threat from attending court or testifying freely in any pending matter, which (3) results in injury to the plaintiffs. 62 Malley-Duff & Associates v. Crown Life Ins. Co., 792 F.2d 341, 356 (3d Cir.1986) (quoting Chahal v. Paine Webber, 725 F.2d 20, 23 (2d Cir.1984)), aff'd, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 2759, 97 L.Ed.2d 121(1987). The provision applies to discovery proceedings as well as to an actual trial. 7 Malley-Duff, 792 F.2d at 355. 63 Prior interpretations of section 1985(2) have been almost uniformly limited to situations in which a party sought to recover for the intimidation of his or her witnesses. In Brawer v. Horowitz, for example, the plaintiffs were individuals who had been convicted in a prior criminal trial in which, they alleged, the prosecution had conspired with others to present perjured testimony. 535 F.2d at 832. In Malley-Duff, a plaintiff sought recovery for the intimidation of its witnesses. 792 F.2d at 355; see also Kush, 460 U.S. at 719, 103 S.Ct. at 1483 (plaintiff in federal action claims that defendants engaged in conspiracy to intimidate his witnesses); Chahal, 725 F.2d at 24 (plaintiff claims intimidation of expert witness); McCord v. Bailey, 636 F.2d 606 (D.C.Cir.1980) (defendant in prior criminal case sues prior attorneys for witness intimidation), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 983, 101 S.Ct. 2314, 68 L.Ed.2d 839 (1981). 64 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has relied upon the Chahal summary of section 1985(2) to hold that an intimidated witness could not bring an action for damages under that section because she was not a party: 65 Allegations of witness intimidation under Sec. 1985(2) will not suffice for a cause of action unless it can be shown the litigant was hampered in being able to present an effective case. Since David has not shown she was a party to the actions in which she was intimidated, she can show no injury under Sec. 1985(2). 66 David v. United States, 820 F.2d 1038, 1040 (9th Cir.1987); but see Hoopes v. Nacrelli, 512 F.Supp. 363, 368 (E.D.Pa.1981) (intimidated witness has standing); Kelly v. Foreman, 384 F.Supp. 1352, 1353 (S.D.Texas 1974) (same); Crawford v. City of Houston, 386 F.Supp. 187, 192 (S.D.Texas 1974) (same). 67 Rode, however, was neither a witness nor a litigant in a proceeding in the federal court. Moreover, she makes no claim that she was intimidated or hampered from being a witness. She contends only that she suffered an injury in the course of a conspiracy to intimidate Hileman indirectly as a witness in the Clanagan case. She does not allege that Clanagan sustained any injury as a result of her alleged harassment or that the integrity of the federal court proceedings has been impugned or affected by the alleged conspiracy. To accord Rode standing under such circumstances would require us to extend section 1985(2)'s protection beyond the parties or even the witnesses to the federal suit. We are not cited to, nor does our own independent research reveal, any authority to justify the adoption of such a broad interpretation of section 1985(2) and we decline to do so. Rode's section 1985(2) cause of action thus must be rejected as a matter of law. 8