Opinion ID: 2974124
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying Smith v. Robinson’s Two-Prong Test

Text: In Smith, the Supreme Court established a two-prong test for determining whether § 1983 claims predicated on constitutional rights are precluded by statute: first, courts must address whether the rights underlying the § 1983 claim are “virtually identical” to the rights in the relevant statute; second, courts must address whether Congress intended the statute to be the “exclusive avenue” for asserting those rights. 468 U.S. at 1009. As discussed, I believe the rights conferred 2 The defendants in Lillard argued that due process claims brought pursuant to § 1983 should be precluded by Title IX under the Sea Clammers doctrine. The Lillard court pointed out that Sea Clammers did not apply to the preclusion of constitutional claims, only the preclusion of statutory claims, stating: There are two important distinctions that make the National Sea Clammers doctrine inapposite here. First, and most crucial, is the fact that in National Sea Clammers, the plaintiffs’ section 1983 action sought to enforce the rights created by federal statutes which did not provide for a private right of action, while here, the plaintiffs’ section 1983 claims are premised on alleged constitutional violations. Thus, while in National Sea Clammers, allowing the section 1983 action to enforce the rights at issue would have effectively circumvented the implicit congressional intention to foreclose private rights of action, here, the plaintiffs’ section 1983 action does not attempt either to circumvent Title IX procedures, or to gain remedies not available under Title IX...Instead, the plaintiffs seek to enforce wholly independent, and totally distinct, substantive due process rights. Lillard, 76 F.3d at 722-723 (citation omitted). No. 02-1127 Communities for Equity v. Michigan Page 23 High School Athletic Ass’n in Title IX - to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex - are virtually identical to those granted in the Equal Protection Clause. The next issue then, and the one requiring further analysis, is whether Congress intended Title IX to be the “exclusive avenue” for bringing those gender-based equal protection claims. In other words, by enacting Title IX, did Congress intend to preclude reliance on § 1983, a separate statute, to remedy an equal protection violation? Smith, 468 U.S. at 1012. As a preliminary matter, I want to express my disagreement with the rationale behind one holding in Lillard that Title IX does not supplant due process claims brought pursuant to § 1983. The court reasoned that because the private right of action was implied rather than express, Congress did not intend it to be the exclusive avenue for bringing constitutional claims. I find this reasoning unpersuasive for two reasons. First, I believe it undermines the Supreme Court’s decision in Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677 (1979). In Cannon, the Court found Congress intended to create a private judicial remedy in Title IX and we should not second-guess that holding. The intent found by the Supreme Court, although implied, should be given the same weight as expressed intent. Second, the opinion in Lillard is silent with respect to the fact that after the Supreme Court’s holding in Cannon, but prior to the decision in Lillard, Congress essentially ratified the Supreme Court’s holding in Cannon by subsequently enacting two legislative provisions which did not interfere with the implied right, the Civil Restoration Act of 1987 and the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1986. This point was acknowledged by the Supreme Court in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, where the Court held a person could receive both compensatory and punitive damages in a private action for sex discrimination. Franklin, 503 U.S. 60, 72 (1992). The Court noted that while Congress had an opportunity to abrogate the implied right of action found in Cannon, it remained silent stating, “[o]ur reading of the two amendments to Title IX enacted after Cannon leads us to conclude that Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a suit brought under Title IX,” id., and later that: In seeking to correct what it considered to be an unacceptable decision on our part in Grove City College v. Bell, Congress made no effort to restrict the right of action recognized in Cannon and ratified in the 1986 Act or to alter the traditional presumption in favor of any appropriate relief for violation of a federal right. We cannot say, therefore, that Congress has limited the remedies available to a complainant in a suit brought under Title IX. Id. at 73. Thus, I am not persuaded by the argument that because the private right of action in Title IX was implied by the Supreme Court, this court is prevented from finding Congress intended Title IX to supplant gender-based equal protection claims. With this in mind, I now address whether Congress intended to preclude equal protection gender-based §1983 claims. In ascertaining Congress’ intent in this case, I believe we should first look to the decision the Supreme Court asked us to consider on remand, Rancho Palo Verdes. 125 S.Ct. 1453 (2005). I agree with the majority’s finding that the case before us is a Smith case rather than a Sea Clammers case in that it deals with both constitutional and statutory rights. Further, I agree that Rancho is a Sea Clammers decision. However, I still believe that we should consider the Court’s holding in Rancho, specifically, the potential reach of the Court’s holding. Prior to Rancho, courts applied no inference regarding congressional intent. The Court in Rancho changed that and, where a judicial remedy exists in a statute, made it much easier to infer that Congress intended to preclude reliance on § 1983. While the Court declined to hold that the “availability of a private judicial remedy...conclusively establishes a congressional intent to preclude § 1983 relief,” id. at 1459, the Court did state that the availability of such a remedy in the statute would give rise to an, “ordinary inference that the remedy provided in the statute is exclusive,” but No. 02-1127 Communities for Equity v. Michigan Page 24 High School Athletic Ass’n such an inference, “can surely be overcome by textual indication, express or implicit, that the remedy is to complement, rather than supplant, § 1983” id. at 1459 (emphasis added). Again, I recognize that factually Rancho is analogous to Sea Clammers in that it involved two statutes. However, worth mentioning, is the fact that the reasoning behind this inference was not limited to Sea Clammers cases. Rather, the Court spoke at length about both Sea Clammers and Smith in articulating this rule: We have found § 1983 unavailable to remedy violations of federal statutory rights in two cases: Sea Clammers and Smith. Both of those decisions rested upon the existence of more restrictive remedies provided in the violated statute itself... The Government as amicus, joined by the City, urges us to hold that the availability of a private judicial remedy is not merely indicative of, but conclusively establishes, a congressional intent to preclude § 1983 relief. We decline to do so. Rancho Palos Verdes, 125 S.Ct. at 1459 (citations omitted). Because the Court analyzed Sea Clammers (only statutory claims) and Smith (statutory and constitutional claims) and their progeny and found that in both types of cases the pivotal issue was whether the statute at issue provides for a private judicial remedy, the discussion leading up to the establishment of the inference adopted in Rancho suggests that it does not apply solely to Sea Clammers cases. There is an argument that such an inference applies to Smith cases as well. Yet, as this case can be decided under the standard set forth in Smith, I find it unnecessary to apply the Rancho holding to decide this case; however, I believe the reasoning in Rancho suggests we should conclude that Congress, by enacting Title IX, intended to preclude reliance on § 1983 as a remedy for an equal protection claim. Again, under the test in Smith, we must ask whether Congress intended Title IX to be the “exclusive avenue” through which a plaintiff may assert an equal protection claim. I believe we must address this question with the relevant Supreme Court decisions in mind. In Cannon, the Supreme Court applied the four-factor test of Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 78 (1975), to hold that Title IX created a private right of action. The second Cort factor asks whether “any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create a remedy or deny on” exists. Id. The court in Cannon found that,“[f]ar from evidencing any purpose to deny a private cause of action, the history of Title IX rather plainly indicates that Congress intended to create such a remedy.” Cannon, 441 U.S. at 694. In Franklin, the Court went on to hold that “Congress did not intend to limit the remedies available in a suit brought under Title IX.” Franklin, 503 U.S. at 72. Finally, in Rancho the Court established the above-discussed inference. Again, while we need not extend the Rancho holding to Smith cases, I believe the reasoning sheds some light on how we should dispose of the case before us. As emphasized by the Supreme Court, the central issue in both Smith and Sea Clammers cases has been, and is, whether the statute at issue provides for a judicial remedy: [I]n all of the cases in which we have held that § 1983 is available for a violation of a federal statute, we have emphasized that the statute at issue, in contrast to those in Sea Clammers and Smith, did not provide a private judicial remedy (or, in most cases, even a private administrative remedy) for the rights violated. Rancho, 125 S.Ct. at 1459. Title IX, like the statutes at issue in Sea Clammers and Smith, does provide for both a private right of action and for damages. Thus, because the Supreme Court has held Congress intended to create a private judicial remedy in Title IX, and because the non-existence of such a remedy has repeatedly given rise to a finding that Congress did not intend to preclude relief sought through § 1983, I would hold that Congress did intend for Title IX to be the “exclusive avenue” through which a plaintiff may assert a gender-based equal protection claim.