Opinion ID: 437447
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of Section 1985(3) to the District of Columbia and Its Employees

Text: 55 The District of Columbia argues that section 1985(3) does not apply to the District of Columbia or its employees. For this proposition it offers no analytical support, but rather rests on a passing and conclusory remark in an opinion from this Circuit to the effect that section 1985 has never been applicable to District employees. 45 We disagree. Nothing in the statute or in Supreme Court opinions supports the view put forth by defendants. For the following reasons, we hold that the District and its employees may be sued for damages under section 1985(3). 46 56 The District defendants do not offer any rationale for their proposed limitation on the reach of section 1985(3), and we therefore must undertake an independent inquiry into the possible bases for that argument. The proposed limitation has two possible sources: either it is an interpretation of the geographical limit contained in that section--the section by its terms encompasses conspiracies acted upon in any State or Territory--which, arguably, was intended to eliminate from the scope of the statute all conspiracies formed in the District of Columbia; or it might be a confused analogy to section 1983 case law, holding that the District of Columbia is not a State or Territory within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. 47 57 The Supreme Court has twice construed the phrase any [or every] State or Territory as used in the civil statutes of the 1860s and early 1870s. In Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24, 31, 68 S.Ct. 847, 851, 92 L.Ed. 1187 (1948), the Court ruled that the phrase, as used in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1982 (1976), includes the District of Columbia. That section, which first appeared as section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, provides: 58 All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. 48 59 In District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973), the Court reached the opposite conclusion when construing 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (current version at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (Supp. V 1981)). At the time, 49 that section provided in pertinent part, Every person who, under color of any statute ... of any State or Territory .... The Court concluded that the District of Columbia was not a State or Territory within the meaning of that language. 60 To determine the meaning of the phrase State or Territory as it is used in section 1985(3), we track the analysis in District of Columbia v. Carter and test for divergence. Initially, however, it is crucial to note that section 1985(3) is facially more akin to section 1982--which has been construed to encompass the District--than to section 1983. Sections 1982 and 1985(3) both use the State or Territory phrase as a geographical limit (unlike section 1983); consequently, to exclude the District of Columbia from their scope is to create an inexplicable safe haven in the District for persons--both private and official--who would be liable elsewhere. In contrast, the color of law requirement in section 1983 (which is not found in either sections 1982 or 1985(3)) implicates federalism issues not relevant to our inquiry; therefore the case law construing section 1983 offers a less compelling analogy. In other words, to draw lines on the basis of source of authority is to recognize a coherent distinction, whereas to draw lines on the basis of place of action is to be impractical, as Hurd v. Hodge made clear. 61 The issue is somewhat complicated, however, by the fact that sections 1982 and 1983 originated in two different acts, each with a different purpose. Section 1985(3) first appeared in the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, 50 as did section 1983, whereas section 1982 appeared earlier, in the Civil Rights Act of 1866. 51 This difference in origin was central to the Carter Court's analysis of sections 1982 and 1983. Thus, after explaining that section 1982 was enacted to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment's nationwide prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude, the Court explained, 62 The situation is wholly different, however, with respect to Sec. 1983. Unlike Sec. 1982, which derives from the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Sec. 1983 has its roots in Sec. 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, Act of Apr. 20, 1871, Sec. 1, 17 Stat. 13. This distinction has great significance, for unlike the 1866 Act, which was passed as a means to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment, the primary purpose of the 1871 Act was to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. 17 Stat. 13; ... And it has long been recognized that [d]ifferent problems of statutory meaning are presented by two enactments deriving from different constitutional sources. 63 409 U.S. at 423, 93 S.Ct. at 605. Since section 1985(3) also derives from the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, arguably the same limits apply to its interpretation as to that of section 1983, in particular the limits imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In that case, it might be contended that the District of Columbia would not be within section 1985(3)'s purview, as it was not within that of section 1983, simply because the District is not a State within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499, 74 S.Ct. 693, 694, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954); see also Morgan v. District of Columbia, 550 F.Supp. 465, 470 (D.D.C.1982) (reaching this conclusion), aff'd without opinion, 725 F.2d 125 (D.C.Cir.1983). If we were to read into section 1985(3) the limits imposed by Fourteenth Amendment analysis, as the Carter Court read them into section 1983, the result would be to remove from the scope of section 1985(3) all conspiracies acted upon in the District, by whomever planned, not simply or even necessarily conspiracies in which the District or its employees participate. The problem with this analysis is that there is no more reason to read the word state as being limited by the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment than there is to read the nature of the conspiracies described in section 1985(3) as limited by that concept--so that only conspiracies under color of state law would be covered. The two would seem to go pari passu. But the latter interpretation has been conclusively rejected by the Supreme Court. See Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971). 64 By interpreting section 1985(3) to encompass private conspiracies, the Court in Griffin necessarily eschewed an extension of the Fourteenth Amendment's limitations to section 1985(3). The holding in Griffin is wholly inconsistent with the limited commands of the Fourteenth Amendment, which constrain only the States and those acting under color of State authority. Similarly, in Scott the Court explicitly reaffirmed the proposition that section 1985(3) encompasses wholly private conspiracies and unequivocally stated that the section is not limited by the constraints of the Fourteenth Amendment. 52 Accordingly, while the Carter Court found persuasive section 1983's Fourteenth Amendment origins, and relied on those origins to read into section 1983 limitations on its reach, Supreme Court decisions construing section 1985(3) point in precisely the opposite direction. With express Supreme Court direction not to apply Fourteenth Amendment analysis to the construction of section 1985(3), we can perceive no reason to interpret the provision as the Court interpreted section 1983, where a contrary rule controlled. 65 Nor do we find persuasive for our purposes any other argument put forth in Carter to limit section 1983's reach in the District. In fact, the remaining factors point toward construing section 1985(3) to cover District employees. The Carter Court observed that unlike section 1983, section 1982 was intended to reach private parties, to act as an 'absolute' bar to all such discrimination, private as well as public, federal as well as state. 409 U.S. at 422, 93 S.Ct. at 605. With this in mind, the Court concluded, it would be anomalous indeed if Congress chose to carve out the District of Columbia as the sole exception to an act of otherwise universal application, id., particularly when the dangers of private discrimination ... were, and are, as present in the District of Columbia as in the States. Id. Precisely the same analysis applies to section 1985(3), which applies to all conspiracies, whether public or private, and the Carter argument quite clearly counsels against carving out the District of Columbia. We have no reason to believe private persons in the District are any less capable than persons elsewhere of participating in conspiracies of the kind addressed in section 1985(3). 66 On the basis of the Court's analysis in Carter, we conclude that none of the reasons offered for eliminating the District from the scope of section 1983 applies to section 1985(3) or counsels reaching the same result. In light of the Supreme Court's direction not to read Fourteenth Amendment restraints into section 1985(3), we would be remiss to limit the reach of that section and exempt the District and its employees. In the firm belief that Hurd v. Hodge and the analysis contained therein controls this case, we reject defendants' proposed limitation on section 1985(3). 67