Court Opinion

ID: 9463326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:03:03.216958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:01.784712
License: Public Domain

RONEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority. In doing so, however, I find myself in tentative agreement with Part I of Judge Godbold’s dissent. Although I would not decide this unbriefed and unargued issue of independent illegality in this case, if. it is to be decided, there seems little in the statute or the current law which would support a requirement that to establish § 1985(3) liability, one must show the conspirators conspired to commit an act independently illegal under state law. The statute condemns a conspiracy to achieve a result, not the precise means by which that result is to be accomplished.
Search as I may, however, I have been unable to find anything which would indicate that Congress intended to include the economic act of filing for bankruptcy among the rights protected from economic *934sanction by section 1985(3). Interestingly, Judge Godbold’s analysis depends entirely upon filing for bankruptcy. If McLellan had been fired because he failed to pay his debts, nothing in Judge Godbold’s reasoning would afford any basis for a federal damage suit. And yet, when McLellan files for bankruptcy, demonstrating clearly that he never intends to pay his debts, he somehow becomes, a member of a protected class.
The implication of any rule contrary to the Court’s decision here could have such potentially far-reaching effects that it should not be imposed upon the commercial world without clear, constitutional, legislative action. Construing civil rights acts broadly to cover the wrongs and protect the rights at which Congress was aiming is one thing. To use that principle to create laws that Congress neither spoke to nor thought of is quite another.
I would affirm the dismissal of the § 1985(3) claim.