Court Opinion

ID: 9586920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:16:28.766882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:56.078772
License: Public Domain

HARTZ, Judge (specially concurring). I concur in the result and join in Judge Apodaca’s opinion except for the discussion of damages. Before stating where I disagree with the other members of the panel regarding damages, I should note that we agree on a number of matters. First, federal law “governs the determination of damages” in actions under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (1982), Busche v. Burkee, 649 F.2d 509, 518 (7th Cir.1981), although federal law may draw from state sources. See Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U.S. 229, 90 S.Ct. 400, 24 L.Ed.2d 386 (1969); 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1982). Second, damages for emotional distress may be awarded under Section 1983 even without proof of physical injury. See Stallworth v. Shuler, 777 F.2d 1431, 1435 (11th Cir.1985); Williams v. Board of Regents of Univ. Sys. of Ga., 629 F.2d 993 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 926, 101 S.Ct. 3063, 69 L.Ed.2d 428 (1981); Brule v. Southworth, 611 F.2d 406 (1st Cir.1979); Donovan v. Reinbold, 433 F.2d 738 (9th Cir.1970); James v. Board of School Comm’rs of Mobile County, Ala., 484 F.Supp. 705, 714 (S.D.Ala.1979). Third, emotional distress can be established without expert testimony. Fourth, one whose first amendment rights have been violated is not entitled to damages measured by the abstract value or importance of the first amendment, because such damages are not compensatory. Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 309 n. 13, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 2544 n. 13, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986). Fifth, defendants have not challenged the size of the award for emotional distress. The issue that divides us is whether there.was sufficient evidence at trial to support the district court’s finding of emotional distress. I agree with Judge Bivins that Jacobs provided no direct evidence of emotional distress caused by defendants’ violation of his constitutional rights; that is, no one testified that Jacobs suffered, or appeared to suffer, such distress. Jacobs’ only testimony concerning emotional distress, which is quoted by Judge Bivins, concerned distress caused by loss of income. Yet, the district court denied Jacobs’ proposed finding that defendants caused him loss of income. Thus, the second link is missing in the chain of causation from (1) defendants’ violation of Jacobs’ rights, to (2) Jacobs’ loss of income caused by that violation, to (3) Jacobs’ distress from lost income. The only emotional distress for which Jacobs can recover is distress flowing directly from the refusal to rehire him. Judge Bivins believes that Stachura and Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978) hold that Jacobs cannot recover for emotional distress under Section 1983 in the absence of direct testimony of that distress by Jacobs or an observer (such as a spouse or psychiatrist). I respectfully disagree. Stachura did not address the type of proof necessary to prove damages. It held only that noncompensatory damages are not recoverable under Section 1983. The Supreme Court reversed an award of damages that was based on a perceived value of the first amendment rather than on injury to the plaintiff. Carey, on the other hand, addressed the question of proof. The plaintiffs had been suspended from school without being afforded a hearing. Both parties, and the Court, agreed that the plaintiffs could not recover damages for injuries caused by the suspension if they “ ‘would have been suspended even if a proper hearing had been held.’ ” Id. at 260, 98 S.Ct. at 1050 (quoting Court of Appeals opinion in Piphus v. Carey, 545 F.2d 30, 32 (7th Cir.1976)). The issue was whether the plaintiffs could recover for the violation of procedural due process in itself. The plaintiffs contended that they could recover under Section 1983 for denial of procedural due process without having to prove damages. They argued: (1) Damages should be awarded for deprivation of a constitutional right regardless of whether the deprived person suffered any injury, and (2) Every deprivation of procedural due process should be presumed to cause some injury. 435 U.S. at 254, 98 S.Ct. at 1047. In response to the first argument, the Court held, as it did later in Stachura, that only compensatory damages are awardable under Section 1983. Id. at 255-57, 98 S.Ct. at 1047-49. As for the second argument, the Court disagreed with the plaintiffs’ claim that “deprivation of protected interests without procedural due process, even where the premise for the deprivation is not erroneous, inevitably arouses strong feelings of mental and emotional distress....” Id. at 261, 98 S.Ct. at 1051. The Court held that the plaintiffs should be “put to their proof on the issue.” Id. at 262, 98 S.Ct. at 1051. In explaining why the rationale for presumed damages for defamation per se was not applicable to a violation of procedural due process, the Court wrote: First, it is not reasonable to assume that every departure from procedural due process, no matter what the circumstances or how minor, inherently is as likely to cause distress as the publication of defamation'per se is to cause injury to reputation and distress. Where the deprivation of a protected interest is substantively justified but procedures are deficient in some respect, there may well be those who suffer no distress over the procedural irregularities. Indeed, in contrast to the immediately distressing effect of defamation per se, a person may not even know that procedures were deficient until he enlists the aid of counsel to challenge a perceived substantive deprivation. Moreover, where a deprivation is justified but procedures are deficient, whatever distress a person feels may be attributable to the justified deprivation rather than to deficiencies in procedure. But as the Court of Appeals held, the injury caused by a justified deprivation, including distress, is not properly compensable under § 1983. This ambiguity in causation, which is absent in the case of defamation per se, provides additional need for requiring the plaintiff to convince the trier of fact that he actually suffered distress because of the denial of procedural due process itself. [Emphasis in original; footnote omitted.] Id. at 263, 98 S.Ct. at 1052. Then, after pointing out that “[distress is a personal injury familiar to the law,” id., and should not pose any particular problems of proof, the Court concluded: [Although mental and emotional distress caused by the denial of procedural due process itself is compensable under § 1983, we hold that neither the likelihood of such injury nor the difficulty of proving it is so great as to justify awarding compensatory damages without proof that such injury actually was caused. Id. at 264, 98 S.Ct. at 1052. I read the Court’s approach in Carey as follows: First, the Court employed analysis that any court might employ under the common law to determine whether the nature of the wrong itself — deprivation of procedural due process — was such as to justify a presumption that emotional distress would result from the infliction. The Court found that the likelihood of emotional distress was too small to justify a presumption. Then, perhaps to allay concern that absence of a presumption would result in inability to recover for the constitutional wrong, the Court noted that proof of actual injury should be readily available. I do not read Carey as imposing in Section 1983 cases any requirements for proof of damages that are stricter than common law principles would demand. On the contrary, the heart of the opinion’s analysis was that the common law of torts should be the starting point in “defining the elements of damages and the prerequisites for their recovery” under Section 1983. Id. at 257-58, 98 S.Ct. at 1048-50. The holding of Carey was that there is no need in procedural due process cases to ease traditional requirements of proof, not that particularly strict requirements are necessary. Moreover, the Carey holding that damages would not be presumed was limited to violations of procedural due process. The Court cautioned that “the elements and prerequisites for recovery of damages appropriate to compensate injuries caused by the deprivation of one constitutional right are not necessarily appropriate to compensate injuries caused by the deprivation of another.” Id. at 264-65, 98 S.Ct. at 1052-53. The circumstances of this case are sufficiently different from Carey to require an independent analysis. Unlike in Carey, there is an undoubted substantive deprivation from the constitutional violation — Jacobs lost his job. The above-quoted discussion from Carey regarding the problems with inferring distress from a violation of procedural due process is inapposite for two reasons. First, it is reasonable to infer that one who involuntarily loses a long-term job will suffer distress. Second, in this case one need not distinguish between distress felt from violation of one’s rights and distress felt from loss of one’s job, because distress from either cause is recoverable; we have affirmed the district court’s decision that Jacobs lost his job because of defendants’ violation of his constitutional rights. Moreover, we have specific information about Jacobs that suggests how he would react to loss of his job. One reasonably could infer from the record that Jacobs labored vigorously to change the university that he hoped to make his home into an institution that met his standards. It is hardly unreasonable to conclude, as the district court apparently did, that he would be profoundly distressed at losing that hope because of those very efforts, particularly when the reasons given for the failure to rehire him were pretextual. A leading treatise on evidence recognizes that one can draw inferences about a person’s mental state from the surrounding circumstances. The treatise states the general principle that “[t]he modes of inference circumstantially to a human quality or condition [include] (a) [f]rom circumstances tending to excite, stimulate, or bring the emotion in question into play[.]” 2 J. Wig-more, Evidence § 387, at 416 (Chadbourn rev. 1979). The treatise expounds on the matter: The general inquiry is, What circumstances tend probably to excite a given emotion? Obviously, the whole range of human affairs is involved. It would be idle to attempt to catalog the various facts of human life with reference to their potency to excite a given emotion. Such an attempt would exhibit two defects. It would be pedantic, because it is impossible to suppose that the operation of human emotions can be reduced to fixed rules, and that a given fact can have an unvarying quantity of emotional potency. It would be useless, because the emotional effect of any fact must depend so often on the surrounding circumstances that no general formula could provide for the infinite combinations of circumstances. Courts have therefore always been agreed that in general no fixed negative rules can be made; that no circumstance can be said beforehand to be without the power of exciting a given emotion; and that, in general, any fact may be offered which by possibility can be conceived as tending with others towards the emotion in question[.] [Emphasis in original.] Id., § 389, at 416-17. See 1A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 190, at 1855 (Tillers rev. 1983). Of course, there is a distinction between the admissibility of evidence and its sufficiency. Evidence of surrounding circumstances, even though admissible, may not be sufficient to support a finding that a particular mental state was caused by those circumstances. For example, the treatise notes that to sustain a finding of insanity, proof of circumstances calculated to induce insanity is not enough; there must also be evidence of a diseased mental condition. 2 J. Wigmore, supra, § 231, at 21. This rule with respect to proof of insanity, however, is merely a matter of common observation. Most people do not go insane under stress. Although the existence of certain circumstances may provide additional support for the conclusion that an individual went insane, those circumstances alone would not be enough to establish a probability that the individual in fact went insane. On the other hand, often one could conclude from the circumstances that an individual probably experienced distress. Juries draw such conclusions all the time with respect to pain and suffering. A conscious person trapped in a burning building is bound to suffer. Someone who believes that he and his spouse are about to die in a plane crash will surely experience anguish concerning his own situation and the prospect that his children will become orphans. See Solomon v. Warren, 540 F.2d 777, 792 (5th Cir.1976), cert. dismissed, 434 U.S. 801, 98 S.Ct. 28, 54 L.Ed.2d 59 (1977). In discussing proof of harm to body, feelings or reputation, the Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 912 comment b (1979) recognizes that proof of distress may be purely circumstantial, stating: In these cases the trier of fact can properly award substantial damages as compensation for harms that normally flow from the tortious injury even without specific proof of their existence, such as pain from a blow or humiliation from a scar. Evidence to prove that the harm is greater or less than that which ordinarily follows is admissible. This statement accords with the general rule that circumstantial evidence can be sufficient to prove a fact. See SCRA 1986, 13-308 (Uniform Jury Instruction stating, “A fact may be proved by circumstantial evidence.”). Also, although I have not found a Section 1983 case in which a court has . stated explicitly that circumstantial proof of distress is adequate, at least two reported opinions, Williams v. Board of Regents of Univ. Sys. of Ga., 629 F.2d at 1005 and Donovan v. Reinbold, 433 F.2d at 743, have affirmed awards of emotional distress without concerning themselves with whether there has been direct testimony of the distress. See Sykes v. McDowell, 786 F.2d 1098, 1105 (11th Cir.1986) (“In a small community ‘where each resident knows the neighbors,’ the humiliation of a public firing is evident,” [quoting Baskin v. Parker, 602 F.2d 1205, 1210 (5th Cir.1979) (“real injury could be inferred from the facts”)]. Cf. Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. at 264 n. 22, 98 S.Ct. at 1053 n. 22 (quoting Seaton v. Sky Realty Co., 491 F.2d 634, 636 (7th Cir.1974) that “ ‘[humiliation can be inferred from the circumstances as well as established by the testimony’ ”). Finally, although the fact finder may infer from the failure of a plaintiff to testify as to his emotional distress that the plaintiff’s distress was slight or nonexistent, I see no reason to compel such an inference. Plaintiff’s counsel may decide that the claims can be presented more effectively through circumstantial evidence (“People turn their heads when they see the scar on my face.”), particularly since direct testimony may be discounted by the jury as histrionics. Or, as here, the fact finder may decide the case on unexpected grounds; Jacobs’ counsel probably thought that any damage award would include loss of income. Competent counsel may not anticipate every decision of the fact finder. Courts should not impose an artificial penalty in such circumstances.