Court Opinion

ID: 9723861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:36:30.901577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:52.912931
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting, with whom Lynch, J., joins). I do not agree that G. L. c. 12, § 11I, imposes liability on a defendant whose intentional conduct unintentionally causes interference with a plaintiff’s secured right. The language of the statute and its purpose as evidenced by legislative history demonstrate that a plaintiff’s right of recovery is contingent on a showing of the defendant’s specific intent.
To understand c. 12, § 11I, one must appreciate the distinction between intent and motive — a distinction our law, particularly our criminal law, frequently makes. A man motivated by hostility may strike another man, intending to inflict pain. A second man, harboring no ill will toward the victim but only motivated by a desire to please third persons, may also strike another man, intending to inflict pain. Both actors have the specific intent to inflict pain although their motives are differ*103ent. The relevancy of the distinction between intent and motive will become apparent later in this opinion.
Also, to understand c. 12, § 11I, one must be aware that an act may have many natural, even inevitable, effects, and that the actor may intend only some of those effects without intending the others no matter how clearly he foresees them. The surgeon, for example, treats his patient with the specific intent to improve the patient’s health. The surgeon knows that the treatment unavoidably will cause pain; yet he does not intend the pain since it is not the pain that produces the desired result. Of course, as an evidentiary matter, a fact finder is warranted in finding that a defendant specifically intended the natural consequences of his voluntary act, but that inference is not required and frequently, as illustrated by the example of the surgeon, is inappropriate.
Another illustration of an act having multiple effects comes to mind. It may be that the BSO’s cancellation of the performances of “Oedipus Rex” had several effects that were both natural and specifically intended, such as the removal of the risk of injury to performers and to the audience and the prevention of disruption that could destroy an artistic performance. Another natural effect of the BSO’s act might have been the chilling of Redgrave’s right on a future occasion to express her political views, but that effect may not have been intended by the BSO since the assurance of safety and the prevention of disruption at the time of the intended performance would not be advanced by the chilling of Redgrave’s rights of political speech in the future. It may be that the BSO intended only to exercise its constitutional right not to present an inartistic performance and not to subject its performers and audience to danger, and that it had no interest in silencing Redgrave’s future political expressions.
General Laws c. 12, § 11I, provides injunctive and monetary relief for interference or attempted interference with secured rights “by threats, intimidation or coercion.” As the Chief Justice’s opinion observes ante at 99, civil rights statutes should be liberally construed to accomplish their remedial purpose, Batchelder v. Allied Stores Corp., 393 Mass. 819, 822 *104(1985) (Batchelder II); 3A C. Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 74.05, at 650 (4th ed. 1986), but as the Chief Justice’s opinion also notes, ante at 98-99, quoting Glasser v. Director of the Div. of Employment Sec., 393 Mass. 574, 577 (1984), the court’s primary function in interpreting any statute is to ascertain “the intent of the Legislature, as evidenced by the language used, and considering the purposes and remedies intended to be advanced.” Having stated those relevant principles, the Chief Justice’s opinion omits any discussion of the usual meaning given to the words, “threats, intimidation, or coercion,” and it fails to consult legislative history as a source of information concerning the objective the statute was designed to achieve. A proper response to the certified questions is impossible without consideration of these matters.
A threat is commonly understood to be a wilful expression of intention to inflict injury or damage on another. Intimidation ordinarily means putting in fear for the specific purpose of compelling or deterring another’s conduct. Coercion is the intentional restraint or domination of another’s will. Presumably, the statutory word “coercion” in the term “threats, intimidation or coercion,” refers to a type of restraint other than the restraint accomplished by means of fear. “Coercion” appears to refer to restraint accomplished by physical force. Certainly, the three words together connote the deliberate use of force, moral or physical, to control another’s conduct. Therefore, in order to recover damages under G. L. c. 12, § 11I, construed according to the ordinary usage of its language, a plaintiff must prove the defendant’s specific intent to interfere with the plaintiff’s secured rights.
That the Legislature intended specific intent to interfere with secured rights as an essential element of a cause of action under G. L. c. 12, § 11I, is made abundantly clear by the Governor’s legislative file on House Bill No. 3135, Chapter 801 of the Acts of 1979, in the State Archives. Before enactment, §§ 11H and 11I were part of that House Bill. Batchelder II, supra at 821. The file contains the “history of . . . [the] enactment process and various statements concerning the nature and effect of the proposed law. As such, the file is ‘an instruc*105tive source, indicative of what meaning the legislature intended.’ 2A C. Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 48.04, at 300 (4th ed. 1984).” Batchelder II, supra at 821 n.3.
In Batchelder II, supra at 821, we said: “The Legislature passed this statute to respond to a need for civil rights protection under State law. Deprivations of secured rights by private individuals using violence or threats of violence were prevalent at the time that the Legislature considered G. L.c. 12, §§ 11H and 11I. See Boston City Council Resolution of November 14, 1979, endorsing House Bill No. 3135 noting ‘serious problems of racial harassment.’ Aggrieved parties often could not succeed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Supp. V 1981), because the Federal statute requires ‘State action. ’ See Williams v. Hot Shoppes, Inc., 293 F.2d 835, 836, 837 (D.C. Cir. 1961), cert. denied, 370 U.S. 925 (1962). Criminal prosecutions under State law were also unsatisfactory; convictions were difficult and the victim was not compensated for the harm.” Other documents in the Governor’s legislative file, far too numerous to identify, much less quote, demonstrate beyond reasonable question that c. 12, § 11I, was enacted in response to a concern about the inadequacy of then current law to deal generally with discrimination against minority groups, and more specifically, to deal with racial violence. Racial discrimination and violence involve conduct that is specifically designed to interfere with secured rights, and it is that kind of conduct that the Legislature made the basis of civil liability.
We said as much in Bell v. Mazza, 394 Mass. 176 (1985). In that case, we held that a complaint under G. L.c. 12, § 11I, was sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss. We pointed out that the complaint alleged that one of the defendants “threatened to do anything at any cost to prevent the plaintiffs’ construction of [a] tennis court. The plaintiffs alleged that shortly after this threat they received a letter which stated all the defendants had joined in an association to prevent the plaintiffs from constructing the tennis court.” Id. at 183-184. “From these allegations,” we said, “it could be inferred that the defendants engaged in a joint venture with the goal of interfering with the plaintiffs’ property rights. . . . The plain*106tiffs sufficiently alleged threats, intimidation, or coercion in their complaint.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 184. Hence in Bell v. Mazza, supra, the court focused on the defendants’ specific intent to prevent the plaintiffs’ exercise of their constitutional rights as support for the court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs had stated a claim under c. 12, § 11I. As the court put it, “[t]he interpretation of G. L. c. 12, § 11I, that we adopt today does not result in creating a vast constitutional tort. The Legislature explicitly limited this remedy to situations where the derogation of secured rights occurs by ‘threats, intimidation or coercion.’ ” Id. at 182.
The language of G. L. c. 12, § 11I, its legislative history, precedent, and the undesirability of expanding a reasonable statute into one that would create a vast and uncontrollable constitutional tort forcefully demonstrate that the statute is properly interpreted to provide for liability only when the defendant interferes with a plaintiff’s secured rights with the specific intent to do so. That specific intent is required is also supported by another consideration. The Chief Justice’s opinion recognizes, ante at 97, that its answers to the certified questions may implicate serious constitutional questions stemming from the BSO’s constitutional right not to speak (i.e., perform), and not to be civilly liable for not speaking. Those constitutional questions are reduced or altogether removed by construing § Illas imposing liability only on a defendant who specifically intends to interfere with another’s secured rights. “It is our duty to construe statutes so as to avoid . . . constitutional difficulties, if reasonable principles of interpretation permit.” Langone v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 388 Mass. 185, 190 (1983), appeal dismissed, 460 U.S. 1057, quoting School Comm. of Greenfield v. Greenfield Educ. Ass’n, 385 Mass. 70, 79 (1982).
The Chief Justice’s opinion’s conclusion that c. 12, § 11I, does not require specific intent effectively converts the statute, into one that provides for liability whenever there is a causal connection between the defendant’s intentional act (without reference to the actor’s goal) and an interference with a secured right of the plaintiff, thus depriving the words “threats, intimi*107dation or coercion” of any meaning. This is contrary to accepted principles of statutory construction. In arriving at that conclusion, the Chief Justice’s opinion notes that specific intent is not a prerequisite to a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) and relies on our statement in Batchelder II, supra at 822-823, that “the Legislature intended to provide a remedy under G. L. c. 12, § 11I, coextensive with 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Supp. V 1981), except that the Federal statute requires State action whereas its State counterpart does not.” Ante at 98. The question in Batchelder II was whether the plaintiff had “prevailed” within the meaning of G. L. c. 12, § 11I, in an earlier case in this court, Batchelder v. Allied Stores Int'l, Inc., 388 Mass. 83 (1983) (Batchelder I), a case in which the defendant’s specific intent was clear. The court noted that § 1II “is similar to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 to the extent that both statutes use the term ‘prevail’ to determine a party’s right to attorneys’ fees,” Batchelder II, supra at 821, and the court concluded that, just as the plaintiff would have been entitled to attorneys’ fees under the Federal statute in the circumstances of Batchelder /, if the Federal statute applied to private action, so too he was entitled to attorneys’ fees under § 111. It was in that context that the court said that the remedy under the Federal and State statutes is coextensive. The court understandably did not say that because 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) has no specific intent requirement, neither does c. 12, § 111, have such a requirement. Not only is 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) concerned only with State action, but also § 1983 does not contain the language “threats, intimidation or coercion” or words of similar import. The statutes can be given the same meaning only by ignoring critical differences in their language and their purposes.
The Chief Justice’s opinion finds support for its conclusion that §§ 11H and 111 contain no state of mind prerequisite for recovery by contrasting those sections with G. L. c. 265, § 37 (1984 ed.), which imposes criminal penalties for civil rights violations and was enacted at the same time §§ 11H and 11I were enacted. St. 1979, c. 801, §§ 1,2. General Laws c. 265, § 37, provides that “[n]o person . . . shall by force or threat of force, willfully injure, intimidate or interfere with . . . any *108other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right. . . .” Threats, intimidation, and coercion, as commonly understood, are wilful. The fact that the Legislature refrained from using redundant language in §§ 11H and 11I although such redundancy appears in the criminal statute (“willfully” and words of similar import are frequently used in criminal statutes), should not lead the court to construe §§ 11H and 11I in a way that distorts the ordinary meaning of the statutory language, disregards the legislative history indicating the legislative concern prompting enactment of those sections, disregards precedent, and leads to the creation of a vast new constitutional tort.
In his brief as amicus curiae, the Attorney General argues for the statutory construction adopted by the court. His position appears to result from his failure to make the very important distinction between specific intent and motive. He tells us of the numerous injunctions he has obtained prohibiting defendants individually and in groups from engaging in threats, intimidation, or coercion that would deprive others of rights secured by State or Federal law. The Attorney General describes those cases as follows: “All of the cases brought by Attorney General Bellotti under G. L. c. 12, § 11H have involved severe deprivations of basic rights, by means including physical assault, property vandalism, and threats to safety. Several of the cases have involved defendants engaged in group conduct.” The Attorney General argues that “[separating out individual motivation would be virtually impossible in such group cases. In these circumstances, especially where defendants are youthful and part of a ‘gang’, peer pressure is as powerful a force as individual invidious intent. G. L. c. 12, § llHis an invaluable law enforcement tool for the preservation of civil rights in the Commonwealth. It would be eviscerated were the Attorney General required to prove such personal motivation in each case” (emphasis added). The Chief Justice’s opinion exhibits both a concern and a misunderstanding similar to those of the Attorney General, when it says that “[w]hether the issue is phrased in terms of the existence of a specific intent requirement under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act or a third-party pres*109sure exemption from the statute, recognizing such an exemption would tend to eviscerate the statute and defeat the legislative policies behind the statute.” Ante at 100.
The concerns of the Attorney General and the plurality are met by § § 11H and 11I even though those sections are construed to require specific intent. Surely, the Attorney General as well as a private individual should be entitled to relief without having to prove that the defendant’s purposeful conduct was motivated by his hatred or intolerance, rather than his acquiescence to third-party pressure, but it is not necessary to read the requirement of specific intent out of the statute in order to accomplish that result. If a defendant is shown to have used threats, intimidation, or coercion for the purpose of interfering with secured rights, whether he knows they are secured or not, relief is appropriate without a further showing of why the defendant formed that purpose. Nothing in the statute requires proof of motive in addition to specific intent.
The first certified question asks whether, under c. 12, § § 11H and 111, a defendant may “be held liable for interfering with the rights of another person, by ‘threats, intimidation, or coercion’, if the defendant had no personal desire to interfere with the rights of that person but acquiesced to pressure from third parties who did wish to interfere with such rights.” This question reasonably may be understood as assuming that the statute requires proof of a specific intent to interfere with secured rights as a prerequisite to recovery (in accordance with the plain meaning of the words “threats, intimidation or coercion”), and as inquiring whether such intentional interference may be the basis of liability although it is motivated by third-party pressure rather than by the defendant’s personal animosity toward the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s exercise of secured rights. The second question then inquires whether, if intentional interference with secured rights may be the basis of liability although it was motivated by third-party pressure, the defendant may nevertheless be exempt from liability by showing that “its actions were independently motivated by additional concerns, such as the threat of extensive economic loss, physical safety, or particular concerns affecting the defendant’s course of busi*110ness.” I believe that the certified questions focus on motive, not on intent. Interpreting the questions that way, I agree with the Chief Justice’s opinion that the answer to the first question is “Yes,” and the answer to the second question, is “No.” On the other hand, if the first question is not construed as assuming that the statute imposes liability only on proof of the defendant’s specific intent to interfere with the plaintiff’s secured rights, I would answer that a defendant may be liable only if his specific intent be established, but if the defendant’s specific intent is established, the defendant is not excused by having been motivated by third-party pressure. I would answer the second question by saying that the defendant’s intentional interference with secured rights would not be excused by the fact that the defendant was motivated not only by third-party pressure but also by additional concerns such as the threat of extensive economic loss, physical safety, or concerns affecting the defendant’s course of business.
In my view, discussion of one further matter is appropriate, even though it is not required by the certified questions apart from the context in which they arose. Redgrave has not identified the secured right with which the defendant has allegedly interfered. Her brief appears to characterize the cancellation of “Oedipus Rex” as punishment for her earlier political statements. Punishment for the exercise of a right in the past is not, by itself, interference with the right. Interference requires that there be a limitation on the present or future exercise of the right. At best, cancellation of “Oedipus Rex” in response to third-party pressure may have conveyed a message to Redgrave that in the future other performances may be cancelled, but the conveyance of that message did not amount to threat or intimidation unless it suggested that the BSO itself intended to take future harmful action against her. Mere cancellation of the performances would not appear to convey the message that the BSO intended to take any future action. Furthermore, cancellation of the performance, at which no political speech was expected, did not constitute interference with secured rights by coercion. Thus, it is doubtful that in this case, interference with secured rights by threats, intimidation, or coercion was shown even if no specific intent was required.