Court Opinion

ID: 9495800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:10:38.678141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:12.049726
License: Public Domain

SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I.
If there is a first principle among canons of statutory interpretation, it is that a statute is to be enforced according to the plain meaning of its terms. See United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 241, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989); Vergos v. Gregg’s Enters. Inc., 159 F.3d 989, 990 (6th Cir.1998). To some extent, though, the plain meaning rule is a tautology: “Words should be read as saying what they say.” See Reed DicxeRSON, THE INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION OF STATUTES 229 (Little, Brown & Co.1975). In other words, “[t]he rule tells us to respect meaning but it does so without disclosing what the specific meaning is.” Id. Thus, as one commentator has observed:
At best, [the plain meaning rule] reaffirms the preeminence of the statute over materials extrinsic to it. In its negative aspect, on the other hand, the rule has sometimes been used to read ineptly expressed language out of its proper context, in violation of established principles of meaning and communication. To this extent it is an impediment to interpretation.

Id.

Like most rules in law, however, this bedrock principle of statutory construction is qualified, as reflected in an early invocation of the doctrine:
If the words convey a definite meaning, which involves no absurdity, nor any contradiction of other parts of the instrument, then that meaning, apparent on the face of the instrument, must be accepted, and neither the courts nor the *836legislature have the right to add to it or take from it.
Lake County v. Rollins, 130 U.S. 662, 670, 9 S.Ct. 651, 32 L.Ed. 1060 (1889). In other words, the plain meaning command of literalness is nonetheless subject to both internal and external context. Dickerson, supra, at 230 (stating that the plain meaning rule does “[n]ot quite” demand literalness, “because internal context is not excluded and external context may be taken into account to the extent of weighing the chances of absurdity”).
The majority acknowledges that the “plain language” rule is subject to exceptions. See Maj. Op. at 829-30. It sees no need to resort to those exceptions, however, because it finds that § 1981 is unambiguous in that subsection (c) states that the rights protected by this section are “protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination,” and one of the rights enumerated in subsection (a) “explicitly protects the right ‘to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.’ ” From this the majority infers that this right is “ ‘protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination.’” Id. Because I believe that such a literal interpretation of the statute creates internal inconsistencies, is inconsistent with the legislative history, and leads to absurd results, see Vergos, 159 F.3d at 990 (listing situations when courts may look beyond language of the statute), I DISSENT.
II.
A.
“In all cases of statutory construction, the starting point is the language employed by Congress.” Vergos, 159 F.3d 989, 990 (6th Cir.1998) (internal quotations marks omitted). Section 1981, as amended in 1991, reads as follows:
(a) Statement of equal rights
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and ex-actions of every kind, and to no other.
(b) “Make and enforce contracts” defined
For purposes of this section, the term “make and enforce contracts” includes the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms and conditions of the contractual relationship.
(e) Protection against impairment
The rights protected by this section are protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination and impairment under color of State law.
42 U.S.C.A. § 1981 (West 1994) (emphasis added). Congress amended § 1981 in 1991 by adding subsections (b) and (c) and designating the original section as subsection (a). Pub.L. 102-166, § 101, 105 Stat. 1071 (1991).
1.
Chapman’s argument hinges on subsection (c). I do not disagree that subsection (c), standing alone, plainly states “[t]he rights protected by this section are protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination.” Read in isolation, subsection (c) is unambiguous. But subsection (c) requires one to look elsewhere-presumably subsection (a)-to determine which “rights” are protected from nongov*837ernmental discrimination. Cf. Lief H. CaRter & Thomas F. Burke, reason in law 74-75 (Longman 6th ed. 2002) (“Even when words in isolation do seem unambiguous, the process of coordinating them with the facts of a particular case may make them unclear.”).
The rights in subsection (a) are not all of the same ilk, however; some protect against infractions that may be committed by both public and private actors and some protect against conduct that necessarily invokes any state action. For example, both private and public beings may enter into contracts. In fact, “[i]t is usually with another individual, not the state, that a black person would seek to make a contract; it is that other individual’s racially motivated refusal to make a contract which can cause harm to the black person.” Mahone v. Waddle, 564 F.2d 1018, 1029 (3d Cir.1977) (dicta). Thus, subsection (c) may logically apply to the contract clause of (a).
Yet it cannot so easily be said that subsection (c) applies to the equal benefit clause of (a). As aptly stated by the Third Circuit:
The words “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property” (emphasis supplied), on the other hand, suggest a concern with relations between the individual and the state, not between two individuals. The state, not the individual, is the sole source of law, and it is only the state acting through its agents, not the private individual, which is capable of denying to blacks the full and equal benefit of the law. Thus, while private discrimination may be implicated by the contract clause of section 1981, the concept of state action is implicit in the equal benefit clause.
Id. at 1029 (dicta).
Every court of appeals that has considered this issue, both prior and subsequent to the 1991 amendment, has shared the Mahone court’s view. See Youngblood v. Hy-Vee Food Stores, Inc., 266 F.3d 851, 855 (8th Cir.2001) (stating that “[b]ecause the state is the sole source of the law, it is only the state that can deny the full and equal benefit of the law”; internal quotation omitted, citing, inter alia, Mahone), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1017, 122 S.Ct. 1606, 152 L.Ed.2d 621 (2002); Adams ex rel. Harris v. Boy Scouts of Am.-Chickasaw Council, 271 F.3d 769, 777 (8th Cir.2001) (same, citing Youngblood and Mahone); Brown v. Philip Morris Inc., 250 F.3d 789, 799 (3d Cir.2001) (dicta) (stating that “even if were to consider them, such ‘full and equal benefit’ claims would fail in light of a substantial line of authority holding that only state actors can be sued under the ‘full and equal benefit’ clause of Section 1981”; citing Mahone)-, Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 785 F.2d 523, 525-26 (4th Cir.1986) (holding that it agreed “with the Third Circuit’s interpretation of the ‘full and equal benefit’ clause ... and conclude that state action is required in order to assert a claim under that statute”; citing Mahone), rev’d in part on other grounds, 481 U.S. 615, 107 S.Ct. 2019, 95 L.Ed.2d 594 (1987). Similarly, a number of other courts that have considered the issue, both before and after the 1991 amendment, have followed the reasoning of Mahone. See, e.g., Muick v. Wicks, No. 3:01-CV-0130-M, 2001 WL 1006059, at 4 (N.D.Tex. July 24, 2001) (“absent state action, Plaintiffs Section 1981 claim [under the full and equal benefit clause] is untenable and as a result, it is frivolous”); Sterling v. Kazmierczak, 983 F.Supp. 1186, 1192 (N.D.Ill.1997); Lewis v. J.C. Penney Co., 948 F.Supp. 367, 371 (D.Del.1996); Spencer v. Casavilla, 839 F.Supp. 1014, 1018 (S.D.N.Y.1993) (“Most of the decisions ... have held that state action is required to state a claim under the ‘equal *838benefit’ and ‘like punishment’ clauses of § 1981.”); Brooks v. ABC, Inc., 737 F.Supp. 431, 440 (N.D.Ohio 1990), vacated in part on other grounds, 932 F.2d 495 (6th Cir.1991); Rochon v. Dillon, 713 F.Supp. 1167, 1172 (N.D.Ill.1989); Thompson v. Wise General Hosp., 707 F.Supp. 849, 853 (W.D.Va.1989), aff'd, 896 F.2d 547 (4th Cir.1990); Provisional Gov’t of Republic of New Afrika v. ABC, Inc., 609 F.Supp. 104, 109 (D.D.C.1985); Eggleston v. Prince Edward Volunteer Rescue Squad, Inc., 569 F.Supp. 1344, 1353 (E.D.Va.1983), aff'd, 742 F.2d 1448 (4th Cir.1984); Williams v. Northfield Mount Hermon Sch., 504 F.Supp. 1319, 1332 (D.Mass.1981). But see Franceschi v. Hyatt Corp., 782 F.Supp. 712, 724 (D.P.R.1992) (allowing a cause of action under the equal benefit clause against a private hotel for denial of accommodation based on race); Carey v. Rudeseal, 703 F.Supp. 929, 930 n. 1 (N.D.Ga.1988) (permitting a cause of action under the equal benefit clause against members of the Ku Klux Klan for assault); Hawk v. Perillo, 642 F.Supp. 380, 392 (N.D.Ill.1985) (allowing a cause of action under the equal benefit clause against police officers who beat minority victims).
As the Mahone court’s comments make clear, a plain reading of subsection (c) is inconsistent with § 1981’s equal benefit clause, which implicitly incorporates the concept of state action. Only the state can prescribe laws, and only the state can deprive an individual of the benefit of those laws. An act by a private individual which violates the legal rights of another is not the equivalent of a deprivation of the full and equal benefit of the law violated. Stated differently, an individual is only deprived of the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings if he or she is impaired or prevented from enforcing through legal process his or her established rights. To read the statute any differently is simply illogical.
If the majority’s view is correct, however, one must also read subsection (c) as applying to the third clause of subsection (a), the like punishment clause. It provides that “[a]ll persons ... shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, license, and exactions.” No one can argue seriously that an individual can subject another individual to unequal punishment or taxes.1 As the Mahone court remarked: “Only the state imposes or requires ‘taxes, licenses, and exactions’ and the maxim noscitur a sociis suggests that the ‘punishment, pains [and] penalties’ to which the clause refers are those imposed *839by the state.” Mahone, 564 F.2d at 1029-30. A treatise has similarly observed: “Whether this clause of section 1981 is limited to state action, it is virtually inevitable that any claim based upon ‘like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, license, and exactions of every kind,’ •will involve a governmental entity.” Joseph g. COOK & JOHN L. SOBIESKI, JR., 2 CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIONS, ¶ 5.03(D) (Matthew Bender & Co.2001).
The majority’s reading is internally inconsistent unless one reads subsection (c) as applying to every clause of subsection (a). This in turn leads to the equally absurd result of holding that the like punishment clause applies to private conduct as well as state action.
2.
The majority claims that Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971), precludes a finding that subsection (c)’s plain language is inconsistent with the statute’s equal benefit provision. In Griffin, the Supreme Court held that 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) does not require state action but reaches private conspiracies. Section 1985(3) provides a cause of action where “two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire, or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, 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.” 42 U.S.C.A. § 1985(3) (West 1994). The majority notes that the Griffin Court expressly rejected the notion that the concept of state action is implicit in an equal protection provision, relying on the following excerpt: “A century of Fourteenth Amendment adjudication has ... made it understandably difficult to conceive of what might constitute a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws by private persons. Yet there is nothing inherent in the phrase that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State.” Griffin, 403 U.S. at 97, 91 S.Ct. 1790.
To begin, the language of the two provisions are not identical. Significantly, § 1985(3) expressly references “two or more persons.” Section § 1981(a) does not contain a similar reference, but simply states that “all persons shall have the same right ... to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.” See Spencer, 839 F.Supp. at 1020 n. 10 (“Unlike § 1981, however, § 1985(3) contains express language encompassing ‘two or more persons’ who ‘go on the highway’ to deprive others of equal protection.”); see also Stevens v. Tillman, 855 F.2d 394, 403 (7th Cir.1988) (observing that “[t]his statute addresses private acts-going ‘in disguise on the highway’ is a reference to the M.O. of the Ku Klux Klan-yet condemns only deeds that ‘deprive’ the victim of the ‘equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws’, something within the domain of government exclusively. This admixture of private and public action has befuddled courts ever since.”). This distinction is important, and key to the analysis here, as the following passage from Griffin reveals:
We turn, then, to an examination of the meaning of § 1985(3). On their face, the words of the statute fully encompass the conduct of private persons. The provision speaks simply of “two or more persons in any State or Territory” who “conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another.” Going in disguise, in particular, is in this context an activity so little associated with official action and so commonly connected with private marauders that this clause could almost never be applicable under the artificially restrictive construction of Collins [341 U.S. 651, 71 *840S.Ct. 937, 95 L.Ed. 1253 (1951) ]. And since the “going in disguise” aspect must include private action, it is hard to see how the conspiracy aspect, joined by a disjunctive, could be read to require the involvement of state officers.
The provision continues, specifying the motivation required “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.” This language is, of course, similar to that of § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which in terms speaks only to the States, and judicial thinking about what can constitute an equal protection deprivation has, because of the Amendment’s wording, focused almost entirely upon identifying the requisite “state action” and defining the offending forms of state law and official conduct. A century of Fourteenth Amendment adjudication has, in other words, made it understandably difficult to conceive of what might constitute a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws by private persons. Yet there is nothing inherent in the phrase that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State. See, e.g., United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 643, 1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290 [1883].... Indeed, the failure to mention any such requisite can be viewed as an important indication of congressional intent to speak in § 1985(3) of all deprivation of “equal protection of the laws” and “equal privileges and immunities under the laws,” whatever their source.
The approach of this Court to other Reconstruction civil rights statutes in the years since Collins has been to “accord [them] a sweep as broad as [their] language.” ... Moreover, very similar language in closely related statutes has early and late received an interpretation quite inconsistent with that given to § 1985(3) in Collins. In construing the exact criminal counterpart of § 1985(3), the Court in United States v. Harris, supra, observed that the statute was “not limited to take effect only in case [of state action],” id., at 639, 1 S.Ct. 601, ... but “was framed to protect from invasion by private persons the equal privileges and immunities under the laws of all persons and classes of persons,” id., at 637, 1 S.Ct. 601.... In United States v. Williams, 341 U.S. 70, 95, 71 S.Ct. 581, 95 L.Ed. 758 ..., the Court considered the closest remaining criminal analogue to § 1985(3), 18 U.S.C. § 241. Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s plurality opinion, without contravention from the concurrence or dissent, concluded that “if language is to carry any meaning at all it must be clear that the principal purpose of [§ 241], unlike [18 U.S.C. § 242], was to reach private action rather than officers of a State acting under its authority. Men who ‘go in disguise upon the public highway, or upon the premises of another’ are not likely to be acting in official capacities.” 341 U.S., at 76, 71 S.Ct. 581.... “Nothing in [the] terms [of § 241] indicates that color of State law was to be relevant to prosecution under it.” Id., at 78, 71 S.Ct. 581.
Griffin, 403 U.S. at 96-98, 91 S.Ct. 1790 (footnotes omitted; emphases added) (overruling Collins, which construed § 1985(3) as requiring presence of state action).
When read in full context, rather than the selective excerpt provided by the majority, it is clear that the explicit mention of private persons on the face of the statute was critical to the Griffin court’s holding that § 1985(3) applies to private action. That is, unlike § 1981, § 1985(3) expressly applies to private action by explicitly referring to “two or more persons” who con*841spire.2 Therefore, if one adheres to a plain meaning analytical framework, analogy to Griffin directs that private action would not be read into § 1981.
3.
The majority also claims that nothing in the legislative history of the 1991 amendments prevents this Court from applying subsection (c)’s plain language. Granted, Congress did not say that “by adding this subsection we mean that the equal benefit clause applies only to state and not private action.” However, we can glean what the legislature intended from what it actually said:
This section amends 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (commonly referred to as “Section 1981”) to overturn Patterson v. McLean Credit Union and to codify Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160, 96 S.Ct. 2586, 49 L.Ed.2d 415,....
Subsection (c) Prohibiting discrimination in private contracting. — This subsection is intended to codify Runyon v. McCrary. In Runyon, the Court held that Section 1981 prohibited intentional racial discrimination in private, as well as public, contracting. The Committee intends to prohibit racial discrimination in all contracts, both public and private.
H.R.Rep. No. 102-40(II), at 35, 37 (1991), reprinted in 1991 U.S.C.C.A.N. 549, 731 (emphasis added).3
Congress’s intent in enacting subsection (c) could not have been any clearer. It intended to prohibit racial discrimination “in all contracts,” because that is what is said, and only contracts, because that is all it wrote. The title of the amendment is also telling. See generally I.N.S. v. Nat'l Center for Immigrants’ Rights, Inc., 502 U.S. 183, 189, 112 S.Ct. 551, 116 L.Ed.2d 546 (1991) (stating that “the title of a statute or section can aid in resolving an ambiguity in the legislation’s text”). The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is entitled as follows: “Restoring Prohibition Against All Racial Discrimination in the Making and Enforcement of Contracts.” H.R.Rep. No. 102-40(II), at 35 (emphasis added).
In short, we can determine what Congress intended from what it told us and from what it did not tell us. I am not aware of, and the majority does not cite, any statutory canon which requires a court to read a positive right, “and x,” unless the legislature expressly proclaims “and not x,” especially when “and x” is conceptually impossible. Contrary to what the majority says, that silence is not “equivocal.” And it is certainly not a tabula rasa for courts to create rights.
*8424.
The majority’s interpretation of subsection (c) with respect to the equal benefit clause also has the “absurd” result of federalizing state tort law. The majority opines that “it is unlikely that application of subsection (c)’s plain language will unleash the flood of cases Dillard’s predicts ... [because] [t]he language surrounding the ‘full and equal benefit’ clause serves to cabin both the number and nature of claims that may be brought under its ambit.” Maj. Op., at 832-33. That is, the majority believes that the right is sufficiently limited because the language “for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens” limits the potential class of cases that may be brought under the equal benefit provision. One need look no further than the opening pages of prosser on torts to understand that this “limitation” is not that because it encompasses, inter alia, all of tort law:
Included under the head of torts are miscellaneous civil wrongs, ranging from simple, direct interferences with the person, such as assault, battery and false imprisonment, or with property, as in the case of trespass or conversion, up through various forms of negligence, to disturbances of intangible interests, such as those in good reputation, or in commercial or social advantage.
There remains a body of law whch [sic] is directed toward the compensation of individuals, rather than the public, for losses which they have suffered within the scope of their legally recognized interests generally, rather than one interest only, where the law considers that compensation is required. This is the law of torts.
The law of torts, then, is concerned with the allocations of losses arising out of human activities; and since they cover a wide scope, so does this branch of law. Arising out of the various and ever-increasing clashes of the activities of persons living in a common society, carrying on business in competition with fellow members of that society, owning property whch [sic] may in any of a thousand ways affect the persons or property of others-in short, doing all the things that constitute modern living-there must of necessity be losses, injuries, of many kinds sustained as a result of the activities of others. The purpose of the law of torts is to adjust these losses, and to afford compensation for injuries sustained by one person as a result of the conduct of another.
PROSSER & KEETON ON THE LAW OP TORTS, § 1 (W. Page Keeton, et. al, West Publishing Co. 5th ed.1984).
Under the majority’s interpretation, the equal benefit clause conceivably can be applied to every garden-variety state tort law claim where the parties are of different races. If this is not federalization of tort law, I do not know what is. See Spencer, 839 F.Supp. at 1019 (“Reading the clause to encompass this kind of conduct, however, risks creating a section 1981 action whenever a white man strikes a black man in a barroom brawl.... Extending the ‘equal benefit’ clause to private conduct would have the effect of federalizing all racially-motivated state-law torts that implicate ‘the security of persons and property.’ ”). As the Supreme Court stated in Patterson, “[although we must do so when Congress plainly directs, as a rule we should be ... ‘reluctant to federalize’ matters traditionally covered by state common law.” Patterson, 491 U.S. at 183, 109 S.Ct. 2363 (quoting Santa Fe Indus., Inc. v. Green, 430 U.S. 462, 479, 97 S.Ct. 1292, 51 L.Ed.2d 480 (1977)). As explained above, Congress did not plainly direct that § 1981 apply to state tort law (like it did for contracts). In its zeal to expand the *843scope of federal law, the majority has ignored Patterson’s cautionary words.
III.
In sum, I would hold that nongovernmental actors may not be sued under the equal benefit clause of 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a), which applies only to state action. Therefore, I would hold that Chapman faded to state a cognizable § 1981 claim because the alleged private discrimination she suffered is not within the purview of the equal benefit clause. I concur in the majority’s analysis of Chapman’s claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, because I believe there is a question of fact as to whether Dillard’s may be considered a state actor under the nexus test.
For this reason, I respectfully DISSENT as to the § 1981 claim.

. Ironically, the majority actually makes an attempt. See Maj. Op. at 830, n. 2 ("Although not germane to Chapman's claim under section 1981's equal benefit clause, one could make a similar argument on the basis of subsection (a)'s like punishment clause.”). The majority then posits that "[tjhere is nothing unworkable, however, about the proposition that a given statute may proscribe conduct beyond that which all of those persons the statute regulates are actually capable of engaging in,” and provides the example of an industrial dump-truck driver who may be incapable of violating a high-speed limit. The majority’s argument is fallacious. Here, unlike the individual industrial dump-truck driver whose truck might not be able to exceed 75 miles per hour, private individuals are conceptually incapable of imposing taxes, licenses, and punishments, and are equally incapable-logically and categorically — of depriving another of the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property. Only governmental actors are capable of that.
State actors and private actors are different species in the eyes of the law, with dissimilar legal properties. Thus, laws that regulate one of these groups or classes usually are inapplicable to the other group. That is precisely the situation in this case. Just because Congress did not expressly state this does not mean it isn't so. Congress also did not state that § 1981 does not apply to animals, but I do not think anyone would-or has at least as of yet-suggested that it does.

. In other words, rather than being proscriptive like § 1985(3) (providing a cause of action "[i]f two or more persons ... conspire, or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving ... any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws”), § 1981 confers a right upon "[a]ll persons” and does not speak in terms of prohibiting private individuals from certain conduct.

. As stated, the amendment was in direct response to the Supreme Court's opinion in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989). Patterson held that § 1981 prohibited discrimination only in the making and enforcement of contracts, and did not extend to problems arising from conditions of continuing employment. In the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Congress explicitly reversed this aspect of Patterson by adding subsection (b) to § 1981, which states that "the term ‘make and enforce contracts' includes the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms and conditions of the contractual relationship.” 42 U.S.C.A. § 1981(b) (West 1994).