Court Opinion

ID: 9439999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 07:06:40.708957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:56.052911
License: Public Domain

SELYA, Circuit Judge (concurring in the judgment).
Having determined that the defendants’ actions did not deprive the plaintiff of pro*51cedural due process — a determination with which I agree — the majority then proceeds, in the last four paragraphs of an otherwise exemplary opinion, to explain why those actions probably were random and unauthorized. Whether the majority’s rumination is right, wrong, or somewhere in between — a matter on which I take no view — I object to the inclusion of these comments in the opinion for two reasons. First, they are wholly unnecessary to the result. Second — and more important — the status of the Parratt-Hudson line of cases, in the albedo of Zinermon, is at best uncertain. It would be one thing if the exigencies of Ms. O’Neill’s appeal required us to enter that doctrinal swamp in advance of clarification by the Supreme Court. It is quite another thing to plunge gratuitously into it. Because I believe that we should refrain from such excursions, I respectfully disassociate myself from section III(B) of the court’s opinion.