Opinion ID: 77060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Brazier/Carringer

Text: 23 Robertson urges us to resolve her claim using a different analytical framework. She argues her claim is controlled by Brazier v. Cherry, 293 F.2d 401 (5th Cir.1961), 7 and Carringer v. Rodgers, 331 F.3d 844 (11th Cir.2003). Because those cases involve the application of 42 U.S.C. § 1988, it will be helpful for us to first briefly discuss how § 1988 works before explaining why Brazier and Carringer are not relevant to Robertson's claim. 24 The Supreme Court has recognized that inevitably existing federal law will not cover every issue that may arise in the context of a federal civil rights action. Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 702, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 1792, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973) (footnote omitted). This is where 42 U.S.C. § 1988 comes into play. Section 1988 provides in part: 25 The jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters conferred on the district courts by [the Civil Rights Acts] for the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and for their vindication, shall be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States, so far as such laws are suitable to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where they are not adapted to the object, or are deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies . . . the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the State wherein the court having jurisdiction of such civil . . . cause is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern the said courts in the trial and disposition of the cause. . . . 26 42 U.S.C. § 1988(a). 27 [A]s is plain on the face of the statute, [§ 1988] is intended to complement the various acts which do create federal causes of action for the violation of federal civil rights. Moor, 411 U.S. at 702, 93 S.Ct. at 1792 (footnote omitted). If federal law is not adapted to the object or is deficient, federal courts must look to state law to fill the gaps. The Supreme Court has explained: 28 The importation of the policies and purposes of the States on matters of civil rights is not the primary office of the borrowing provision in § 1988; rather, the statute is designed to assure that neutral rules of decision will be available to enforce the civil rights actions, among them § 1983. Congress surely did not intend to assign to state courts and legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal cause of action. 29 Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 269, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1943, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985), superceded by statute on other grounds as recognized in Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369, 377-81, 124 S.Ct. 1836, 1842-45, 158 L.Ed.2d 645 (2004). 30 Brazier and Carringer were both instances where state law was used to fill gaps in federal law through § 1988's borrowing provision. Robertson would have us also look to state law through § 1988's borrowing provision to decide her case. Her argument misses the dispositive difference between Brazier and Carringer and our case. In those cases, the plaintiffs were seeking vindication of the decedent's rights under § 1983. Here, Robertson alleges a violation of her rights. Regardless of whose rights are being asserted, before § 1983 and § 1988 can come into play, the plaintiff must still establish the existence of a federal right. Because Robertson has failed to establish a federal right, we never reach § 1983, let alone § 1988 and state law. 31 In Brazier, the plaintiff alleged her husband was beaten to death by Georgia police officers, in violation of his rights and privileges of being secure in his person, of due process and equal protection of the law. 293 F.2d at 402. 8 The question the former Fifth Circuit needed to answer was whether death resulting from violation of the Civil Rights Statutes give[s] rise to a federally enforceable claim for damages sustained by the victim during his lifetime, by his survivors, or both. Id. 32 The court spent the bulk of its opinion addressing the incorporation of Georgia's survival statute, which allowed the decedent's claims to survive his death, but it also incorporated Georgia's wrongful death statute, a separate and distinct cause[ ] of action allowing certain survivors to recover the full value of the life of the decedent, id. at 407 n. 15, because regard has to be taken of both classes of victims. Id. at 409. The incorporation of Georgia's wrongful death statute was not done in response to a violation of the wife's rights: it was done to remedy the violation of the decedent's rights. See id. at 408-09. 33 In Carringer, the plaintiff's son was shot and killed by the son's wife, a police officer, with her service revolver. The decedent's mother brought a § 1983 claim for the wrongful death of the decedent whose constitutional rights were violated. 331 F.3d at 848. There, we followed Brazier and incorporated Georgia's wrongful death statute into federal law, holding that Carringer, as a parent, has standing to assert a § 1983 claim for the wrongful death of her son in violation of his constitutional rights. Id. at 850 (emphasis added and footnote omitted). 34 The plaintiffs in Brazier and Carringer passed the first hurdle of bringing a § 1983 suit—identifying a federal right—by relying on the rights of the decedent. Cf. Steven H. Steinglass, Wrongful Death Actions and Section 1983, 60 Ind. L.J. 559, 621 (1985) (Wrongful death statutes permit survivors to sue when a killing violated their decedent's rights. . . . [B]oth survival and wrongful death actions assert the identical legal rights of the decedent.). In essence, they were bringing wrongful death suits under federal law. Although the survivors' claims were separate from the claims of the decedents' estates, the Brazier and Carringer plaintiffs' claims necessarily required a finding that the decedents' deaths were wrongful in some way. Conversely, whether the decedent's rights in our case were violated has no bearing on the ability of his mother to argue a loss of companionship, because her alleged cause of action is based on a violation of rights personal to her, not rights personal to the decedent. For that reason, Brazier and Carringer are not controlling. 9