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

Heading: Pleading Unconstitutional Motive

Text: 117 Harlow focused on the need to enable courts to dismiss insubstantial lawsuits before discovery and trial, and it adjusted the qualified immunity defense to facilitate that goal. The kind of case we confront today, involving allegations of unconstitutional motive, offers to litigants a possible means to circumvent the new rule, simply by pleading that any act was performed with an intent to violate clearly established constitutional rights and thereby surmounting the threshold test set out in Harlow. We recognize that in some instances, plaintiffs might allege facts demonstrating that defendants have acted lawfully, append a claim that they did so with an unconstitutional motive, and as a consequence usher defendants into discovery, and perhaps trial, with no hope of success on the merits. The result would be precisely the burden Harlow sought to prevent. Accordingly, in cases involving a claim that defendants acted with an unconstitutional motive, we will require that nonconclusory allegations of evidence of such intent must be present in a complaint for litigants to proceed to discovery on the claim. The allegations on this issue need not be extensive, but they will have to be sufficiently precise to put defendants on notice of the nature of the claim and enable them to prepare a response and, where appropriate, a summary judgment motion on qualified immunity grounds. 118 As a general proposition, the problem we address is not a new one. In Butz v. Economou the Supreme Court apparently recognized that general conclusory allegations that Government actors had breached constitutional rights could unduly enmesh them in burdensome litigation, and it called for a firm application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for dismissal of insubstantial claims on summary judgment. 86 Similarly, every other circuit has articulated a requirement of particularity in pleading for civil rights complaints. In one formulation, the Second Circuit adheres to the following rule: 119 [C]omplaints containing only conclusory, vague, or general allegations of a conspiracy to deprive a person of constitutional rights will be dismissed.... Diffuse and expansive allegations are insufficient.... In this case, appellants' unsupported allegations, which fail to specify in detail the factual basis necessary to enable appellees intelligently to prepare their defense, will not suffice to sustain a claim of governmental conspiracy to deprive appellants of their constitutional rights. 120 Ostrer v. Aronwald, 567 F.2d 551, 553 (2d Cir.1977) (citations omitted); see also Contemporary Mission, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 648 F.2d 97, 106-07 (2d Cir.1981) (Where a plaintiff fails to produce any specific facts whatsoever to support a conspiracy allegation, a district court may, in its discretion, refuse to permit discovery and grant summary judgment.... Courts must be particularly cautious to protect public officials from protracted litigation involving specious claims.). Moreover, every other circuit follows suit in requiring that civil rights complaints be pleaded with at least a minimum of specificity. 87 Nor is the principle unknown in this Circuit. See Lombard v. United States, 690 F.2d 215, 227 (D.C.Cir.1982) (applying the Second Circuit's Ostrer rule to claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 3086, 77 L.Ed.2d 1347 (1983). 121 The test articulated by the Second Circuit is more than adequate to address the Harlow concerns to which we have referred. We simply remind our trial courts that some factual allegations must support claims of unconstitutional motive. Plaintiffs who fail to allege any specific facts to support a claim of unconstitutional motive cannot expect to involve Government actors in protracted discovery and trial. On receipt of such a complaint, Government defendants might move for dismissal or, alternatively, for summary judgment. Then plaintiffs must produce some factual support for their claim to avert dismissal. 122 In so holding we do not forget that in some circumstances plaintiffs are able to paint only with a very broad and speculative brush at the pre-discovery stage, and that overly rigid application of the rule we articulate could lead to dismissal of meritorious claims. 88 Thus, while we hasten to add that district court judges must act cautiously in this regard, and freely give leave to amend an inadequate complaint, we conclude that Harlow requires that merely conclusory allegations of unconstitutional motive, devoid of factual support, must be found lacking and be dismissed. 123 Applying these principles, we find plaintiffs' complaint 89 was drafted with sufficient specificity to withstand dismissal in this case. Plaintiffs not only alleged specific kinds of disruptive activity that could have had no other purpose than to disrupt, but also alleged facts describing the COINTELPRO program designed to conduct surveillance and cause disruption of plaintiffs' activities. These allegations clearly were neither general, conclusory, nor devoid of factual support and would have sufficed to survive a motion for dismissal under the standards we articulate today.