Court Opinion

ID: 9934036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 18:42:51.706791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:19.714707
License: Public Domain

Although recused in Carter v. City of Birmingham,444 So.2d 373 (Ala. 1983), I do not agree with the Court's holding in that case and its continued use as precedent (that an Alabama municipality is exempt from a wrongful death action under42 U.S.C. § 1983 because state law recognizes an analogous cause of action). Under this rule of law, to this extent, we give § 1983 no field of operation, and we invite reckless conduct by a municipality, which need not fear the sanction of § 1983 for wrongful death. As Justice Jones states in his dissent inCarter, "[w]e should either fashion a remedy allowing recovery of compensatory damages, or we should resort to the federal common law of survival, which allows compensatory damages as the appropriate relief." Carter, 444 So.2d at 380. *Page 278