Court Opinion

ID: 9463327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:03:03.222407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:01.790135
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge,
with whom BROWN, Chief Judge and GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge, join, dissenting:
Five years ago the Supreme Court revived 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) from quiescence in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971). During the intervening years, litigation over the scope of the provision has centered upon its motivation requirement, and more particularly upon the nature of the “class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus” that must be alleged.
Today the en banc court unveils a wholly new requirement for § 1985(3) liability. It declares that the intended conduct of conspiring defendants must be violative of some law other than § 1985(3) before the conspiracy can be actionable under § 1985(3). This theory has not been discussed at any earlier stage of this litigation, has been neither briefed nor argued by the parties, and has not been perceived by any other circuit in previous § 1985(3) cases.1 Nevertheless, the majority spins out the new standard at length. Then, surprisingly, the en banc court declines to apply this theory to the case before us. Instead it falls back on the more familiar stance of holding that the plaintiff has not satisfied the class-based animus requirement.
Although the majority’s discussion of the independent illegality test is really only an advisory opinion, courts will no doubt be urged to follow that test just as if it had been the subject of a holding. For that reason I will devote Part I of this dissent to discussing the unsoundness of the independent illegality standard.
In Part II, I will discuss the majority’s disposition of the class-based animus requirement, although my comments will be brief because I have already treated this subject in my opinion for the panel majority-
Finally, Part III will address what I regard as the real motivation behind the majority’s decision — a fear that § 1985(3) threatens to mushroom into “a general federal tort law.” The guiding spirit of today’s decision is not methodical and dispassionate legal reasoning but unarticulated judicial distrust of Griffin v. Breckenridge, crystallized into a firm resolve that the reach of the statute and of Griffin must be strictly curbed. Thus, in Part III I will discuss some of the restraints that validly limit the sweep of § 1985(3). This discussion, I hope, will ameliorate judicial fears that Griffin will give rise to a new body of federal tort law, uncertain in dimension.
I. Independent Illegality
As the majority recognizes, the starting point for analysis must be the statute itself. Griffin listed four elements essential to a cause of action under § 1985(3). These requirements, paraphrased directly from the statute, are as follows:
To come within the legislation a complaint must allege that the defendants did (1) “conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another” *935(2) “for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws.” It must then assert that one or more of the conspirators (3) did, or caused to be done, “any act in furtherance of the object of [the] conspiracy,” whereby another was (4a) “injured in his person or property” or (4b) “deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States.”
403 U.S. at 102-03, 91 S.Ct. at 1798-99, 29 L.Ed.2d at 348.
The majority does not deny that three of the four elements are present in the instant case. McLellan has alleged a conspiracy, an act in furtherance of that conspiracy, and a resulting injury. Our sole concern is whether defendants’ alleged conspiracy meets criterion (2), the motivation requirement of § 1985(3). Was the conspiracy formed “for the purpose of depriving [McLellan], either directly or indirectly of the equal protection of the laws”?2 This brings us to the point at which I part company with the majority: whether, within the meaning of § 1985(3), the defendant conspirators could seek to deprive McLellan of the equal protection of the laws if their intended action was not illegal under some other law. With all deference, I am convinced that there is no requirement of independent illegality.
Certainly there is nothing on the face of the statute that would lend support to the majority’s interpretation. In speaking of a conspiracy aimed at “depriving [the plaintiff] of the equal protection of the laws,” the provision unambiguously directs attention to the plaintiff’s rights under the law. It does not touch upon the particular defendant s duties under the law, except insofar as the plaintiff’s rights may determine them. If it is true that the defendant’s alleged activity must amount to a violation of the law independently of § 1985(3), that requirement must derive from a source outside the statutory text.3
The case law is equally unhelpful to the majority’s view. When the Supreme Court in Griffin turned to the matter of whether the petitioners’ complaint satisfied the motivation requirement of § 1985(3), it did not deal at all with the defendants’ liability vel non under Mississippi law. Instead it discussed the plaintiffs’ rights, and particularly their rights to “free speech, assembly, association, and movement.” The Court did not intimate that the defendants’ interferences with these federal rights could lead to § 1985(3) liability only because those interferences were independently illegal. When the Court referred to defendants’ alleged, “detention, threats, and battery” as establishing a cause of action, 403 U.S. at 103, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d at 349, it was discussing only the third criterion of the § 1985(3) cause of action, i. e., the necessity of an act in furtherance of the conspiracy. No one denies that the third criterion is met in the instant case.
As for lower court cases, Judge Tjoflat quotes from Lopez v. Arrowhead Ranches, 523 F.2d 924 (CA9, 1974). The complete relevant passage (indeed, even the portion quoted by Judge Tjoflat) is not phrased at all in terms of independent illegality of the conspirators’ conduct but wholly in terms of the legal rights of the plaintiffs:
[Pjlaintiffs have no legal right or entitlement either tó be hired by the private employers, or to be free of discrimination on the basis of alienage when seeking private employment. The sole potential source of such a legal right of which we *936are aware, Title VII’s proscription of private employment discrimination on the basis .of national origin, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l), has been held not to bar discrimination on the basis of alienage. Having no legal right per se to be free of the discrimination, the conspiracy not to hire plaintiffs’ class does not deprive them of the protection of the laws, and hence is not per se actionable under § 1985(3).
Id. at 927 (cite omitted; footnote omitted). The majority, by some alchemy of reading between the lines, transmutes this precise reference to an absence of rights in the plaintiff into a “thrust” defining the nature of defendants’ breach, i. e., the breach must violate some other law.4
With due respect, I think the majority employs Lopez (and, on this point, Griffin as well) purely as a makeweight. The true crux of the suggested independent illegality test is its reliance upon a dictum in U. S. v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290 (1883). In Harris the Supreme Court struck down Rev.Stat. § 5519, a statute governing the same conduct as § 1985(3) but imposing criminal rather than civil penalties. In the discussion on which the majority focuses, the Court was arguing that § 5519 could not be sustained in its entirety under the Thirteenth Amendment. I give the complete argument here, italicizing the sentences quoted by Judge Tjoflat:
There is another view which strengthens this conclusion [that § 5519 cannot be sustained under the Thirteenth Amendment]. If Congress has constitutional authority, under the Thirteenth Amendment, to punish a conspiracy between two persons to do an unlawful act, it can punish the act itself, whether done by one or more persons.
A private person cannot make constitutions nor laws, nor can he with authority construe them, nor can he administer or execute them. The only way, therefore, in which one private person can deprive another of the equal protection of the laws is by the commission of some offense against the laws which protect the rights of persons, as by theft, burglary, arson, libel, assault or murder. If, therefore, we hold that section 5519 is warranted by the Thirteenth Amendment, we should, by virtue of that amendment, accord to Congress the powér to punish every crime by which the right of any person to life, property or reputation is invaded. Thus, under a provision of the Constitution which simply abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, we should, with few exceptions, invest Congress with power over the whole catalogue of crimes. A construction of the Amendment which leads to such a result is clearly unsound.
106 U.S. at 642-43, 1 S.Ct. at 612, 27 L.Ed. at 295 (emphasis added).
*937Although the majority characterizes the italicized language as a holding, it is apparent that these two sentences are something less than directly controlling authority for our purposes. They were pronounced in the course of a constitutional discussion, and there are no constitutional issues in controversy here.5 Moreover, they were not directed at the conspiracy provisions (§ 5519 and § 1985(3)), but instead at a hypothetical statute punishing “the act itself.” The en banc court must be saying that this passage, even if not technically binding, should be respected and followed as the Supreme Court’s definitive explanation of how “one private person can deprive another of the equal protection of the laws.” For several reasons, however, I cannot accept even that more modest position.
First, even on its face the Harris opinion belies any assumption that these two sentences were a carefully considered construction of Rev.Stat. § 5519. The Justices had little incentive to develop a workable interpretation of the statutory wording, since they were striking down the statute as unconstitutional anyway. These two sentences were merely passing observations penned as part of a reductio ad absurdum constitutional argument built upon rigid and now-obsolete juridical premises.6 Such offhand remarks should not be confused •with a serious effort to impart permanent meaning to Congress’ phraseology.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the Harris Court’s theory had a rather short life span in the Supreme Court. Less than nine months later, the Court evidently changed its mind and indicated that committing a private crime against another person is not the same thing as depriving him of equal protection under the laws. See Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883)7
More fundamentally, the Harris dictum is obsolete because of its incompatibility with the spirit of Griffin v. Breckenridge. This passage reflects the highly unsympathetic approach to the Reconstruction civil rights statutes that was typical of Supreme Court opinions in the late nineteenth century. Griffin is a clear indication that the Court is prepared to take a more expansive view of § 1985(3) and would not follow Harris’s crabbed construction today.
A further reason I cannot accept the theory that depriving a person of “equal pro*938tection of the laws” entails committing a private crime or tort is that the equation is so illogical. Common sense tells us that private individuals can, without breaking any specific law, place cognizable obstacles in the path of someone’s “equal enjoyment of legal rights.” I believe that § 1985(3) was enacted to provide redress where legal rights are thus endangered.
In response to my “common sense” argument it may be suggested that to “deprive” a person of legal rights, as the term is used in § 1985(3), means something more than mere interference or obstruction. Yet, putting aside the conspicuous fact that the statute specifies that the deprivation may occur “either directly or indirectly,” I do not believe that the connotations of “deprive” necessarily lead us to the conclusion that § 1985(3) liability depends on a violation of other law. The case law under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 calls for an opposite conclusion. Section 1983 imposes liability on every person who, under color of law, “subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws . . . .” It seems fair to assume that the word “deprive” is used with a single meaning in these two statutes, since they were enacted simultaneously.8 And under the precedents a private person can be held to have caused a § 1983 “deprivation” of legal rights without regard to whether his acts are independently illegal. Adickes v. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 171-72, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142, 162 (1970); Smith v. Brookshire Brothers, Inc., 519 F.2d 93 (CA5, 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 915, 96 S.Ct. 1115, 47 L.Ed.2d 320 (1976).9
The decision of the en banc court does have its historical ironies. Over the decades one focal point in controversies over the Reconstruction civil rights statutes has been whether other state or federal remedies will adequately protect plaintiffs’ interests, or whether, instead, those remedies need to be supplemented by federal civil rights remedies. See, e. g., Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973) (§ 1983 versus other federal remedies); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961) (§ 1983 versus state remedies); Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.S. 651, 71 S.Ct. 937, 95 L.Ed. 1253 (1950) (§ 1985); U. S. v. Waddell, 112 U.S. 76, 5 S.Ct. 35, 28 L.Ed. 673 (1884) (§ 241). Now the prevailing opinion suggests that existence of independent illegality, presumably carrying with it some alternative remedy, is a prerequisite for § 1985(3) recovery. I would have thought that the strongest, not the weakest, case for application of § 1985(3) is presented when no other law protects the exercise of an important right.
Thus it appears that the majority’s theory, although extensively researched, has serious analytic defects. Some will perhaps defend it on the ground that, whatever its deficiencies, at least it provides a means of keeping the statute within manageable bounds. I do not regard the supposed spectre of sweeping § 1985(3) liability as very menacing, for reasons that will be explained in Part III of this opinion. Assuming the need for some new limitation, however, the independent illegality test does *939not commend itself as a very workable proposal. The uncertainties it embodies become apparent when the majority tries to apply it to McLellan’s complaint. After surveying a number of possible theories that might suffice to make the defendants’ alleged conduct illegal, the majority finds most of these theories wanting. But the analysis of the various ways in which McLellan does not qualify under this standard turns out to be unimportant, because in one way he does qualify. His complaint alleges that the defendants, in conspiring to bring about his discharge, intended to act in violation of their duties under the contract of employment. I see no reason why this allegation should not satisfy the independent illegality test as the en banc court has outlined it,10 and Judge Tjoflat does not seriously argue that the allegation is insufficient.11
The unwieldiness of the majority’s gloss on § 1985(3) is manifest. Before the test can affect a given plaintiff, the court must canvass every law that might be thought to prohibit the defendants’ intended conduct. The court must even survey the laws of the state where the claim arose, although federal judges are not experts on state law, and although one would not initially think that § 1985(3) liability should depend on what conduct the state has chosen to proscribe.
II. Class-Based Animus
In my opinion for the panel majority, I discussed in detail my reasons for believing that McLellan satisfied the “class-based añimus” requirement sufficiently to survive a motion to dismiss. The problem, as I see it, involves ascertaining the strength and scope of the federal policy of solicitude for bankrupts or potential bankrupts. Since, as the panel opinion observed, this is a complicated and close question, I can understand why the en banc court has struck a different balance on that narrow subject. I am concerned, however, about some of the broader principles that the majority has invoked to bolster its position. In my view they are misconceived and call for comment.
Judge Tjoflat draws attention to the “lawless conditions existing in the South” that prompted enactment of the Ku Klux Klan Act. This historical account is apparently mentioned as a means of contrasting those conditions with the gravamen of McLellan’s complaint. But since the majority has seen fit to draw its legislative history almost exclusively from Justice Douglas’ summary of the congressional debates in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), we would do well to remember Justice Douglas’ remark about the limited relevance of that history: “Although the legislation was enacted because of the conditions that existed in the South at that time, it is cast in general language . . . .” 365 U.S. at 183, 81 S.Ct. at 482, 5 L.Ed.2d at 502-03 (emphasis added).
On the specific question of whether the class-based animus requirement limits § 1985(3) to remedying the problems that *940were uppermost in the Forty-second Congress’ mind, the Supreme Court has already hinted at an expansive approach. In Griffin the Court observed that the record before it did not present an issue of whether nonracial animus would be covered by the statute. At the same time the Court cited a remark of Senator Edmunds (one of the managers of the bill) as bearing on the issue, 403 U.S. at 102 n. 9, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 348 n. 9. That remark is as follows:
We do not undertake in this bill to interfere with what might be called a private conspiracy growing out of a neighborhood feud of one man or set of men against another to prevent one getting an indictment in the State courts against men for burning down his barn; but, if in a case like this, it should appear that this conspiracy was formed against this man because he was a Democrat, if you please, or because he was a Catholic, or because he was a Methodist, or because he was a Vermonter, (which is a pretty painful instance that I have in mind in the State of Florida within a few days where a man lost his life for that reason,) then this section could reach it.
42d Cong., 1st Sess. 567 (1871), reprinted in A. Avins, The Reconstruction Amendments’ Debates 547 (1967). I take it that the significance of Senator Edmunds’ comment is that § 1985(3) reaches beyond racially based conspiracies12 and beyond the problems perceived to be pressing in 1871. At a minimum it supports the majority’s intimation that the provision is open-ended rather than static in the rights it protects.
I also take issue with the majority’s tentative attempt to equate the rights protected by § 1985(3) with the familiar yet vague category of “fundamental rights.” This sounds like the language associated with “strict scrutiny” under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the panel opinion I have suggested that a class need not be a Fourteenth Amendment “suspect group” in order to qualify for protection under § 1985(3). 526 F.2d at 877-78 n. 15. The same reasoning is applicable here.
It is not clear to me whether the majority would agree with what has been said in this section. If it would, then perhaps we disagree only on the relationship between § 1985(3) and the right to file in bankruptcy. On that score the panel opinion speaks for itself and I am content to rest on what it says.
III. A “General Federal Tort Law”?
The majority’s suggestion of engrafting the independent illegality test upon § 1985(3), together with its possibly too narrow application of the class-based animus requirement, can be traced to a fear of allowing a “general federal tort law” to creep into our civil rights jurisprudence. The fear is unnecessary. The construction of the statute enunciated in the panel opinion does not imply unacceptably broad liability. There are several constraining factors that will tend to keep the statute within manageable bounds in any event.
First, there must be a conspiracy. Without committing myself at this time to its correctness, I call attention to the Seventh Circuit’s holding that a corporation cannot conspire with itself, for purposes of § 1985. Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190 (CA7, 1972). Thus, for example, if McLellan had not succeeded in joining his union as a party defendant (under a ruling of the panel that is not affected by today’s decision), he would have been out of court under the Dombrowski test.
Second, under Griffin the animus behind the conspiracy must be “class-based”. One *941who reads the reported cases on this statutory provision will notice that courts have readily dispensed with most § 1985(3) claims upon finding that the alleged deprivation was attributable to the plaintiff’s individual situation rather than his class membership. See, for example, the cases discussed in the panel opinion, 526 F.2d at 877.
Third, as illustrated by today’s holding, not every class is necessarily protected from discrimination under § 1985(3). Even if the en banc court had agreed with the panel that a class of bankrupts falls within the statutory coverage, other protected classes would have had to be determined as the cases presented them for decision.
Fourth, the panel decision specifically observed that under Griffin the plaintiff would have to prove that the alleged discriminatory intent was “invidious”. 526 F.2d at 879. Thus, contrary to what the majority seems to think, 545 F.2d at 927 n. 33, the panel did not contemplate that the animus requirement would be satisfied simply by a showing that the defendants’ conspiracy was directed against a protected class. Because of the “invidiousness” criterion, legitimate commercial practices would not have been jeopardized by the panel’s construction. Although the en banc court indicates that it might have been willing to hold that “discrimination practiced against bankrupts is not the type of ‘invidious’ animus envisioned by the [Supreme] Court,” id. at 933 n. 81,1 would not have reached such a conclusion on the bare record presented by this appeal. I believe the panel’s decision to remand for factual exploration of the propriety of MPL’s policy was sounder.
Fifth, even a plaintiff who meets all of Griffin’s prerequisites for a prima facie case must contend with the possibility that the defendant will raise affirmative defenses. The Supreme Court has held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 does not abolish all common-law defenses but rather is to be read in light of the principles of official immunity discernible in “the background of tort liability” in this country. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967). It is' reasonable to suppose that § 1985(3), enacted as part of the same piece of legislation, is confined within similar bounds. Indeed, the first Supreme Court case sustaining an official immunity defense under § 1983, Tenny v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 783, 95 L.Ed. 1019 (1951), also involved a § 1985(3) claim, which the Court treated identically. More recently, this court has specifically held that some of the immunity defenses available under § 1983 are also available under § 1985.13
Sixth, any § 1985(3) case potentially raises a question of Congress’ constitutional power to impose liability for the conduct alleged. The Court in Griffin explicitly declined to hold that § 1985(3) could constitutionally be applied to every conspiracy falling within the statute’s terms. 403 U.S. at 104, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d at 349.
In view of all these factors, I see no justification for the majority’s discussion of placing an arbitrary barrier in the path of § 1985(3) plaintiffs. For the reasons stated here and in the panel opinion, I dissent.

. Like the majority, I leave aside the language referring to “equal privileges and immunities under the laws”, since the case can be decided without it.

. The prevailing opinion does not say, nor could it, that the limiting amendment added to § 1985(3) during congressional debate is relevant to the present argument. The, limiting amendment was construed in Griffin to mean that “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus” must be alleged. As the majority recognizes, however, the application of the animus requirement raises entirely separate issues.

. In fact, the Lopez court left open the possibility that the defendants’ conduct was violative of at least one law, namely 8 U.S.C. § 1324. The court held that § 1324, being solely a penal provision, vested no legal rights in the plaintiffs and thus could not support their complaint. 523 F.2d at 926. Place v. Shepherd, 446 F.2d 1239 (CA6, 1971), also cited by the majority, was similar to Lopez. The court denied relief on the theory that the plaintiff’s claimed right to employment, allegedly infringed by the defendants’ conspiracy, was not a “federal civil right.”
Although the majority ultimately states that § 1985(3) is essentially a remedial statute and creates no rights of its own force, 545 F.2d at 927 n.32, it declines to rely on earlier authorities that have considered the validity of that proposition, id. at 925 n. 22. I agree that those authorities are not apposite here. The central question with which they have dealt is whether or not § 1985(3) protects Fourteenth Amendment interests by proscribing activities that, owing to their wholly private nature, do not fall within § 1 of the Amendment itself. See Cohen v. Illinois Institute of Technology, 524 F.2d 818 (CA7), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 943, 96 S.Ct. 1683, 48 L.Ed.2d 187 (1976); Bellamy v. Mason’s Stores, Inc., 508 F.2d 504 (CA4, 1974); Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F.2d 190 (CA7, 1972). See also U. S. v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 754-55, 86 S.Ct. 1170, 16 L.Ed.2d 239, 247 (1966) (same issue resolved as to § 241). A holding that § 1985(3) does reach that far could raise the further issue of whether Congress has the constitutional power to enact such a statute under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Compare Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 18-19, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835, 842 (1883), with U. S. v. Guest, supra. Since the present case does not involve any Fourteenth Amendment claims, these issues are not at stake here.

. In its brief before the en banc court, MPL “admits that ample constitutional power has existed for Congress to protect bankrupts from discharge.” Brief at 11.

. As Judge Tjoflat notes, the jurisprudence of that era dictated that a statutory provision could not be upheld if any of its possible applications exceeded Congress’ legislative powers under the Constitution.

. The Court there said:
“In this connection it is proper to state that civil rights, such as are guarantied by the Constitution against State aggression, cannot be impaired by the wrongful acts of individuals, unsupported by State authority in the shape of laws, customs or judicial or executive proceedings. The wrongful act of an individual, unsupported by any such authority, is simply a private wrong, or a crime of that individual; an invasion of the rights of the injured party, it is true, whether they affect his person, his property or his reputation; but if not sanctioned in some way by the State, or not done under State authority, his rights remain in full force, and may presumably be vindicated by resort to the laws of the State for redress. An individual cannot deprive a man of his right to vote, to hold property, to buy and sell, to sue in the courts or to be a witness or a juror; he may, by force or fraud, interfere with the enjoyment of the right in a particular case; he may commit an assault against the person, or commit murder, or use ruffian violence at the polls, or slander the good name of a fellow citizen; but, unless protected in these wrongful acts by some shield of State law or State authority, he cannot destroy or injure the right; he will only render himself amenable to satisfaction or punishment; and amenable therefor to the laws of the State where the wrongful acts are committed.”
109 U.S. at 17, 3 S.Ct. at 25, 27 L.Ed. at 8
I do not mean to suggest that the Civil Rights Cases' interpretation of a deprivation of legal rights would be considered correct today. The Court was apparently saying that in the absence of state action private individuals cannot bring about a deprivation of legal rights at all. The specific holding of Griffin repudiated that position. See 403 U.S. at 97, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d at 345. I call attention to this passage *938merely to show (1) that whatever a “deprivation of the equal protection of the laws” may be, it cannot logically be equated with committing an illegal act, and (2) that the Supreme Court has by no means decisively committed itself to the fallacy of equating them.

. Section 1983 and § 1985 were, respectively, § 1 and § 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

. In Adickes it was conceded that the defendant had also violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the Court emphasized that this fact played no part in its analysis. 398 U.S. at 150 n.5, 90 S.Ct. 1598. In Smith we noted that the defendant might be liable in tort “depending on the state’s false imprisonment standard,” but we left that issue open.
Adickes and Smith involved defendants who, in the words of Harris, did not “make nor . construe . . . nor administer or execute” the laws. The defendants were held to have acted “under color of law” only because they had conspired with state authorities. Therefore, these cases have a direct bearing on the question of whether the Harris theory has any vitality today.

. By its references to Prosser’s torts treatise, 545 F.2d at 926 n. 26, the majority indicates that the requisite “independent violation of law” need not stem from the Constitution or a statute, but may instead be derived from the common law.

. The majority opinion drops a few hints as to why a breach of contract claim would not meet the standard, but I find none of them persuasive. I cannot accept the suggestion that McLellan’s complaint might be inadequate because he “does not allege that the defendants contemplated depriving him of the operation of any state law — substantive or procedural— available to anyone seeking, as he is, the enforcement of contract rights.”- If this remarkable intimation were taken seriously, it would mean that the majority was adopting the old Civil Rights Cases definition of a deprivation of legal rights (see note 7, supra). The notion that § 1985(3) requires interference with the state’s remedial machinery is not only inconsistent with the dictum in U. S. v. Harris from which the majority derives its “independent illegality” test; it is also impossible to reconcile with the facts of Griffin v. Breckenridge, where a complaint was upheld without any hint that the alleged conspiracy had aimed at an impairment of the plaintiffs’ access to governmental remedies for their injuries. As Griffin pointed out, Congress dealt with this kind of conduct in an entirely different clause of § 1985(3), not before us today. 403 U.S. at 99, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d at 346.

. Another reason for not confining § 1985 to racial contexts is that it seems much more closely related to § 1983, which has been expanded beyond the area of race, than to §§ 1981 and 1982, which have not. The latter two sections make specific references to race, ' whereas §§ 1983 and 1985 do not. Furthermore, the historical background of §§ 1981 and 1982 is somewhat different from that of the Act which included §§ 1983 and 1985. See generally District of Columbia v. Carter, 409 U.S. 418, 93 S.Ct. 602, 34 L.Ed.2d 613 (1973).

. City of Safety Harbor v. Birchfield, 529 F.2d 1251 (CA5, 1976) (legislative immunity); Hill v. McClellan, 490 F.2d 859 (CA5, 1974) (judicial immunity). See also Waits v. McGowan, 516 F.2d 203 (CA3, 1975); Dotlich v. Kane, 497 F.2d 390 (CA8, 1974); Hampton v. City of Chicago, 484 F.2d 602 (CA7, 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 917, 94 S.Ct. 1413, 39 L.Ed.2d 471 (1974).