Opinion ID: 1250599
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: is the state a person?

Text: The central issue presented to this Court in both Smith and Will is whether an individual may sue the state for damages pursuant to § 1983 or, more specifically, whether the word person, in § 1983, includes states. Section 1983 provides: Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia. [42 USC 1983.] A brief history of § 1983 is beneficial as background for an analysis of that statutory section. On March 23, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant delivered a message to Congress requesting its immediate attention to legislation aimed at curbing the lawlessness then rampant in the Southern states. In a brief message to Congress, President Grant stated: A condition of affairs now exists in some States of the Union rendering life and property insecure .... That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of State authorities I do not doubt; that the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies is not clear. Therefore, I urgently recommend such legislation as in the judgment of Congress shall effectually secure life, liberty, and property, and the enforcement of law in all parts of the United States. [Cong Globe, 42nd Cong, 1st Sess, 244 (1871).] Congress moved quickly on the President's request. In April of that same year, it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. Although the act generated much controversy and debate, § 1, now codified at 42 USC 1983, caused the least concern, as it only added civil remedies to the criminal penalties established by the 1866 Civil Rights Act. [Note, Developments in the law: Section 1983 and federalism, 90 Harv L R 1133, 1155 (1977).] In fact, § 1 of the act created no new substantive rights. Enacted to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, it merely provid[ed] a remedy for the violation of rights created elsewhere. Day v Wayne Co Bd of Auditors, 749 F2d 1199, 1202 (CA 6, 1984). See, also, Chapman v Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 US 600, 616-618; 99 S Ct 1905; 60 L Ed 2d 508 (1979). As originally enacted, § 1 of the act conferred jurisdiction on federal district and circuit courts to hear claims such as may be brought pursuant to § 1983. [4] Congress recognized the failure of the state courts to adequately protect federal rights and so specifically created a right to sue in federal court for violation of those rights. To the Reconstruction Congress, the need for some form of federal intervention was clear. It was equally clear, however, that Congress had neither the means nor the authority to exert any direct control, on a day-to-day basis, over the actions of state officials. The solution chosen was to involve the federal judiciary. At the time this Act was adopted, it must be remembered, there existed no general federal-question jurisdiction in the lower federal courts. Rather, Congress relied on the state courts to vindicate essential rights arising under the Constitution and federal laws. ... With the growing awareness that this reliance had been misplaced, however, Congress recognized the need for original federal court jurisdiction as a means to provide at least indirect federal control over the unconstitutional actions of state officials. [ District of Columbia v Carter, 409 US 418, 427-428; 93 S Ct 602; 34 L Ed 2d 613 (1973), reh den 410 US 959 (1973).] Therefore, faced with the unwillingness or inability of state courts to vindicate federally guaranteed rights, Congress enacted § 1983 and created a federal avenue of relief. Although the cases before us occur in state court, the Eleventh Amendment of the United States Constitution, which bars suit by a citizen against a state in a federal court, is the backdrop to the development and, to some extent, the confusion in the case law on the meaning of person in § 1983. This Eleventh Amendment issue arises when a § 1983 action is brought in federal, rather than state court; however, as will be seen, the United States Supreme Court eventually merged the question of the effect of Eleventh Amendment immunity on suit against a state in a federal court with the question whether the term person includes a state in a § 1983 action. The Eleventh Amendment is the product of a controversy created by an early United States Supreme Court decision, Chisholm v Georgia, 2 US (2 Dall) 419; 1 L Ed 440 (1793). Chisholm involved a suit brought by a citizen of South Carolina against the State of Georgia to collect a debt incurred by the state during the Revolutionary War. The Supreme Court interpreted the clause in US Const, art III, § 2, extending the judicial power of the United States to Controversies ... between a State and Citizens of another state ... to allow a private citizen to sue another state before the United States Supreme Court. This decision created such controversy that the Eleventh Amendment was proposed and ratified by 1798. The language of the amendment had the technical effect only of reversing the holding of the Chisholm decision by barring those suits brought by citizens of one state against another state. The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. [US Const, Am XI.] But in Hans v Louisiana, 134 US 1; 10 S Ct 504; 33 L Ed 842 (1890), the Court gave an expansive interpretation to the amendment. Hans involved a suit by a citizen of Louisiana against his own state. The Court applied the Eleventh Amendment, holding that its prohibition extended to suits against one's own state as well as against other states. [5] The United States Supreme Court began its struggle with the issue of a state's immunity in federal court in several cases dealing with federal statutes other than § 1983. See Parden v Terminal Railway of Alabama State Docks Dep't, 377 US 184; 84 S Ct 1207; 12 L Ed 2d 233 (1964), reh den 377 US 1010 (1964), and Employees v Missouri Dep't of Public Health & Welfare, 411 US 279; 93 S Ct 1614; 36 L Ed 2d 251 (1973). In Parden, a suit in federal court under the Federal Employers' Liability Act against Alabama's state-owned railroad, the Court gave a somewhat confusing analysis of the question of Congress' power to subject states to suit. The Court held that Congress could subject a state to suit, despite its claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity, because the states, in ratifying the constitution, had surrendered a portion of their sovereignty to the national government. But the Court also required the state's consent before allowing imposition of suit. The Court concluded that Alabama had consented to suit when it began operation of its railroad some twenty years after passage of the FELA. [6] In Employees, a fair labor standards case in federal court, the United States Supreme Court held that, even though the statute literally included the state as an employer, Congress did not by clear language intend to lift the Eleventh Amendment immunity in its adoption of that act. Although Congress possessed the power to abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity, absent evidence indicating Congress' intent to do so, the Court would not allow suit to proceed against a state in federal court. Unlike Parden and Employees, the Court's opinion in Edelman v Jordan, 415 US 651; 94 S Ct 1347; 39 L Ed 2d 662 (1974), reh den 416 US 1000 (1974), on remand Jordan v Trainor, 405 F Supp 802 (ND Ill, 1975), rev'd 551 F2d 152 (CA 7, 1977), on reh 563 F2d 873 (CA 7, 1977), aff'd Quern v Jordan, 440 US 332; 99 S Ct 1139; 59 L Ed 2d 358 (1979), incorporated both Eleventh Amendment and § 1983 issues. Edelman involved a suit in federal court pursuant to the Social Security Act and § 1983 against Illinois state officials responsible for administering one of the Social Security Act's categorical assistance programs, the federal-state program of Aid to the Aged, Blind or Disabled (AABD). The Court reversed that part of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision ordering the payment of retroactive benefits by Illinois state officials, holding that such an award, requiring the payment of funds from the state treasury, constituted an action against the state itself and was barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Moreover, the Court would not allow the state's participation in the AABD program to suffice as evidence of the state's consent to suit in federal court. The Court concluded that it would find a waiver of immunity only where stated by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction. [ Id. at 673. Citation omitted.] The Court then concluded that Congress did not abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity in passing § 1983 and, consequently, that the Eleventh Amendment barred retroactive relief against the state, pursuant to § 1983, in federal court. [I]t has not heretofore been suggested that § 1983 was intended to create a waiver of a State's Eleventh Amendment immunity merely because an action could be brought under that section against state officers, rather than against the State itself. Though a § 1983 action may be instituted by public aid recipients such as respondent, a federal court's remedial power, consistent with the Eleventh Amendment, is necessarily limited to prospective injunctive relief, Ex parte Young, [209 US 123; 28 S Ct 441; 52 L Ed 714 (1908)], and may not include a retroactive award which requires the payment of funds from the state treasury, Ford Motor Co v Dep't of Treasury, [323 US 459; 65 S Ct 347; 89 L Ed 389 (1945)]. [ Edelman, supra at 675-677.] Fitzpatrick v Bitzer, 427 US 445; 96 S Ct 2666; 49 L Ed 2d 614 (1976), added yet another aspect to the analysis of Eleventh Amendment doctrine  the relationship between Congress' enforcement power pursuant to § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the concept of state sovereignty embodied in the Eleventh Amendment. Fitzpatrick involved suit in federal court against the State of Connecticut by a class of male employees alleging sex discrimination pursuant to title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Petitioner employees sought both prospective injunctive relief and a retroactive monetary award. The Court held that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar the collection in federal court of retroactive benefits to petitioners when Congress acted to enforce the substantive guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court recognized that a special relationship existed between Congress' enforcement powers pursuant to § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and a state's sovereignty embodied in the earlier-adopted Eleventh Amendment, and the Court concluded that the enabling provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment limited the scope of the Eleventh Amendment. But we think that the Eleventh Amendment, and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies . .. are necessarily limited by the enforcement provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In that section Congress is expressly granted authority to enforce by appropriate legislation the substantive provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, which themselves embody significant limitations on state authority. When Congress acts pursuant to § 5, not only is it exercising legislative authority that is plenary within the terms of the constitutional grant, it is exercising that authority under one section of a constitutional Amendment whose other sections by their own terms embody limitations on state authority. We think that Congress may, in determining what is appropriate legislation for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, provide for private suits against States or state officials which are constitutionally impermissible in other contexts. See Edelman v Jordan, 415 US 651 (1974); Ford Motor Co v Dep't of Treasury, 323 US 459 (1945). [ Fitzpatrick, supra at 456.] Therefore, without ever explicitly addressing the state's consent to suit, the Court allowed retroactive relief against the state on the basis of congressional abrogation of the state's Eleventh Amendment immunity. See also Atascadero State Hosp v Scanlon, 473 US 234, 237-238; 105 S Ct 3142; 87 L Ed 2d 171 (1985). Then in Monell v New York City Dep't of Social Services, 436 US 658; 98 S Ct 2018; 56 L Ed 2d 611 (1978), the Court held that the term person in § 1983 included local governmental units, thus overruling the Court's earlier decision to the contrary in Monroe v Pape, 365 US 167; 81 S Ct 473; 5 L Ed 2d 492 (1961). Monell involved a suit in federal court against the City of New York by a class of female employees aggrieved by their employer's official pregnancy policy. The employees brought suit pursuant to § 1983, seeking both injunctive relief and back pay for periods of forced leave. The Court's analysis basically consisted of a reexamination of the congressional debates surrounding the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The Court rejected the Monroe Court's conclusion that congressional failure to adopt the first conference revision of the Sherman amendment [7] indicated congressional intent to exclude municipalities from the scope of the term person in § 1983. The Monell Court concluded: [T]he constitutional objections raised against the Sherman amendment  on which our holding in Monroe was based ...  would not have prohibited congressional creation of a civil remedy against state municipal corporations that infringed federal rights. [ Monell, supra at 669.] The Court reached this conclusion by determining that Congress objected to the Sherman amendment because it created new obligations for municipalities, not because it imposed civil liability for the violation of obligations already imposed. Unlike the imposition of financial liability on municipalities, creation of new obligations by the federal government interfered with the state's power to govern itself. [M]unicipalities as instrumentalities through which States executed their policies could be equally disabled from carrying out state policies if they were also obligated to carry out federally imposed duties.... Thus, there was ample support for [the] view that the Sherman amendment, by putting municipalities to the Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying civil damages, attempted to impose obligations on municipalities by indirection that could not be imposed directly, thereby threatening to destroy the government of the States. [ Id. at 678-679.] Moreover, imposition of liability on municipalities did not interfere with the notion of state sovereignty because the federal government, in protecting federal constitutional rights in this manner, did not need to engage the states in any positive action. After concluding that congressional failure to adopt the first conference version of the Sherman amendment did not mean that Congress meant to shield municipalities from financial liability, the Court turned to the question whether the term person in § 1983 included municipalities. The Court noted the remedial nature of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. This act is remedial, and in aid of the preservation of human liberty and human rights. All statutes and constitutional provisions authorizing such statutes are liberally and beneficently construed. [ Monell, supra at 684.] The Court viewed such snippets from the legislative history as indicative of Congress' intent to give the term person in § 1983 a broad interpretation. Consequently, the Court saw no reason not to extend the Dictionary Act's definition of person to the statutory language of § 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act. Congress had passed the Dictionary Act a few months prior to enacting the Ku Klux Klan Act. The Dictionary Act stated that the word `person' may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate.... [ Id. at 688.] Since the phrase bodies politic and corporate applied to municipal corporations in 1871, and since the legislative history indicated Congress desired a liberal construction of § 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act, the Court concluded that the term person in § 1983 included municipalities. The Court, however, expressly limited its holding to local government units not considered part of the State for Eleventh Amendment purposes. Monell, supra at 690, n 54. Hutto v Finney, 437 US 678; 98 S Ct 2565; 57 L Ed 2d 522 (1978), reh den 439 US 1122 (1979), raised two further issues of interest to the development of Eleventh Amendment doctrine and § 1983 case law. First, the Court seemed to soften the strict standard for congressional abrogation of the Eleventh Amendment enunciated in its earlier decision in Edelman. Second, Justice Brennan, in concurrence, raised, but did not answer, the question whether the Court's earlier decisions in Fitzpatrick and Monell left states open to suit for damages pursuant to § 1983. Hutto involved a challenge to conditions in the Arkansas penal system. The federal district court found that conditions in the state prisons constituted cruel and unusual punishment and entered a number of corrective remedial orders. The Commissioner of Corrections and the Arkansas Board of Corrections, challenged an award of attorney fees payable from Department of Correction funds. The commissioner and board argued that a federal court could not, consistent with the Eleventh Amendment, award attorney fees payable from state funds. The Supreme Court, however, found the Eleventh Amendment no bar to an award of fees pursuant to the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 USC 1988. Reiterating the reasoning of its Fitzpatrick decision, the Court held that Congress has plenary power to lift the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity when acting to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. In enacting § 1988 Congress exercised that power and abrogated the states' immunity. The Court then examined whether Congress intended to subject states to the fee award provisions of § 1988. Although the express language of the act did not authorize awards against the states, the legislative history specifically addressed the question of awarding attorney fees against state governments. This failure to satisfy what Justice Powell labeled a clear statement rule, however, did not prevent the Court from awarding fees to the prevailing party. The Attorney General argue[d] that the statute itself must expressly abrogate the States' immunity from retroactive liability.... Even if we were not dealing with an item such as costs, this reliance would be misplaced.... The present Act ... ha[d] a history focusing directly on the question of state liability; Congress considered and firmly rejected the suggestion that States should be immune from fee awards.... [Moreover], the claims asserted in Employees and in Edelman v Jordan ... were based on a statute rooted in Congress' Art I power... In this case, as in Fitzpatrick v Bitzer ..., the claim is based on a statute enacted to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment.... Applying the standard appropriate in a case brought to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, we have no doubt that the Act is clear enough to authorize the award of attorney's fees payable by the State. [ Hutto, supra at 698-699, n 31.] Perhaps of greater interest, however, was the discussion between Justice Brennan, in his concurrence, and Justice Powell, in his partial concurrence and partial dissent, of the effect of the Court's decisions in Fitzpatrick and Monell on the states' liability for damages pursuant to § 1983. Justice Powell argued that the Eleventh Amendment barred any award of attorney fees against a state absent an express statutory waiver of immunity in the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act. Justice Brennan took issue with Justice Powell's claim that § 1988 did not authorize fee awards against the states. Although concurring in the Court's opinion, Justice Brennan issued a separate opinion to address arguments put forth by Justice Powell. Mr. Justice Powell takes the view ... that unless 42 USC § 1983 also authorizes damages awards against the States, the requirements of the Eleventh Amendment are not met. Citing Edelman v Jordan, 415 US 651 (1974), he concludes that § 1983 does not authorize damages awards against the State and, accordingly, that § 1988 does not either. There are a number of difficulties with this syllogism, but the most striking is its reliance on Edelman v Jordan .... [ Hutto, supra at 700.] Justice Brennan questioned the continued vitality of Edelman 's conclusion that § 1983 did not abrogate the states' Eleventh Amendment immunity, expressing the view that the issue whether § 1983 included states as persons was an open question. Justice Brennan, as well as numerous state and lower federal court judges, claimed the Court finally answered this question in Quern v Jordan, supra . Quern was actually a sequel to the Court's earlier decision in Edelman. Quern involved the question whether the Eleventh Amendment precluded a federal court from ordering state officials to mail explanatory notices to plaintiff class members advising them of procedures available to secure a determination of their entitlement to past welfare benefits. The Supreme Court held that it did not, viewing the notice as ancillary to prospective relief already ordered by the lower federal court.