Section 1983 Litigation/Section 1983 Plaintiffs
Persons Entitled to Bring Suit Under § 1983[edit | edit source]
The right to bring suit under § 1983 is available to a wide range of plaintiffs. This right is not limited to U.S. citizens. Legal and even illegal aliens are entitled to sue under § 1983.[1] Nor is the right to sue limited to individuals. Both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations may sue under § 1983.[2] However, the Supreme Court held that a Native American tribe that sought to vindicate its sovereign status was not entitled to sue under § 1983 to assert the claim.[3] The Court reasoned “[s]ection 1983 was designed to secure private rights against government encroachment,. . . not to advance a sovereign’s prerogative to withhold evidence relevant to a criminal investigation.”[4]
Standing[edit | edit source]
Whether the plaintiff is a “person” entitled to sue under § 1983 is a question separate and distinct from whether the plaintiff has standing to sue. For example, Michael Newdow, who sought to challenge the constitutionality of a school policy requiring teacher-led recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, was clearly a “person” entitled to sue under § 1983, but the Supreme Court held that he lacked standing to assert the claim.[5] The Court decided that Newdow could not assert the rights of his daughter because the girl’s mother, and not Newdow, had legal custody over her.
Article III has three standing requirements: (1) an actual or a threatened injury; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct; and (3) a sufficient likelihood that a favorable decision on the merits will redress the injury.[6] In addition, the Supreme Court has formulated “prudential” standing requirements. The most important of the prudential rules is the rule against third-party standing that generally requires the plaintiff to assert her own rights and not the rights of a third party.[7]
The Supreme Court has established a specific standing doctrine when the plaintiff seeks injunctive relief. In City of Los Angeles v. Lyons,[8] a § 1983 action, the plaintiff sought both damages for a choke hold applied by a Los Angeles police officer during a traffic stop, and a permanent injunction against the City of Los Angeles to ban its police officers from using choke holds on him unless the officer is threatened with serious harm.[9] The Court determined that the plaintiff had standing to seek damages from the choke hold during the traffic stop, but did not have standing to seek prospective injunctive relief.[10]
To establish standing for prospective relief, the Court declared that Lyons must demonstrate a realistic probability that he will again be subjected to the same injurious conduct.[11] The Supreme Court held that standing for injunctive relief depended on whether police officers were reasonably likely to use a choke hold on Lyons in the future.[12] The fact that Los Angeles police officers had used a choke hold on Lyons and others in the past was not dispositive of whether there was a sufficient probability that Lyons would be subjected to it in the future.[13] Nor was Lyons’ subjective fear that he would again be choked without justification sufficient to confer standing.[14]
Speculation or conjecture that officers might subject Lyons to the choke hold in the future did not demonstrate a “real or immediate threat that the plaintiff [would] be wronged again.”[15] Furthermore, the Court explained that the plaintiff could litigate the legality of the challenged conduct on his claim for damages. Thus, the Court discerned that the injury Lyons allegedly suffered would not go uncompensated; for that injury Lyons had an adequate remedy at law.[16]
The Court explained that to establish standing to seek injunctive relief, Lyons would have had to allege not only that he would have another encounter with the police, but also to make the incredible assertion either that “all police offices in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter,” or that “the City ordered or authorized police officers to act in such manner.”[17] Because Lyons did not demonstrate a sufficient likelihood that he would again be subjected to the choke hold, the Court determined that he lacked standing to seek prospective relief.
When a § 1983 plaintiff seeks to enjoin a threatened criminal prosecution, to establish Article III standing, the plaintiff has to demonstrate (1) an intent to engage in the type of conduct governed by the contested penal statute; and (2) a credible threat of prosecution.[18]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ See, e.g., Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365 (1971) (legal aliens); Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) (illegal aliens). See also 1 Martin A. Schwartz, Section 1983 Litigation: Claims and Defenses § 2.02 (4th ed. 2014).
- ↑ See discussion in 1 Schwartz, supra note 206, § 2.02. Although labor unions have been permitted to sue under § 1983, the Tenth Circuit held that an unincorporated association may not sue under § 1983. Lippoldt v. Cole, 468 F.3d 1204 (10th Cir. 2006).
We conclude . . . that the Dictionary Act of 1871, the common understanding regarding unincorporated associations in 1871, and the legislative history of Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 fail to indicate a congressional intent to include unincorporated associations within the ambit of the term “person” set forth in 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Id. at 1216.
- ↑ Inyo Cnty., Cal. v. Paiute-Shoshone Indians, 538 U.S. 701, 712 (2003) (citing Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 66 (1989)).
- ↑ Id. See also Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Okla. Tax Comm’n, 611 F.3d 1222, 1234–36 (10th Cir. 2010) (Indian Tribe’s challenge to Oklahoma cigarette tax enforcement scheme not cognizable under § 1983: tribe sought to vindicate its sovereign immunity and thus was not “person” entitled to sue under § 1983; “. . . a ‘person’ within the meaning of § 1983 possesses neither “sovereign rights’ nor ‘sovereign immunity.’”); Keweenaw Bay Indian Cmty. v. Rising, 569 F.3d 589, 596 (6th Cir. 2009) (claim by Indian tribe (the “Community”), arising out of Michigan’s withholding of federal funds owed to Community, which state offset from back taxes it said Community owed, and seeking to prohibit defendants, state officials, from imposing sales and use taxes on tribe’s property and services; Sixth Circuit remanded case to district court “to determine whether the Community was entitled to the federal funds (a) only as a result of its sovereignty, or (b) simply because it provides certain social services. If it is the latter, then Community’s § 1983 suit would not be in any way dependent on its status as a sovereign, and it should be considered a ‘person’ within the meaning of that statute, so long as other private, nonsovereign entities could likewise sue under § 1983.”); Skokomish Indian Tribe v. United States, 410 F.3d 506, 514–15 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (holding tribe can’t assert treaty-based rights against United States under § 1983 because it’s not a “person” entitled to sue under § 1983 for violation of sovereign prerogative; nor were tribe members entitled to sue because asserted fishing treaty rights were communal, even though individual members benefit from them).
- ↑ Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 17–18 (2004).
- ↑ See, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751 (1984); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498–500 (1975). Accord Ariz. Christian Sch. Tuition Org. v. Winn, 131 S. Ct. 1436, 1442 (2011); Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560–61 (1992); Daimler Chrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 342 (2006). The Supreme Court has taken a narrow view of taxpayer standing. Ariz. Christian Sch., 131 S. Ct. at 1442–49 (state taxpayers have standing only when they challenge state spending under Establishment Clause and not, as in instant case, when they challenge tax credit policy).
- ↑ See Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction, § 2.3.4 (5th ed. 2007). Exceptions to the rule against third-party standing allow a party to assert the rights of a third party when the rights of the litigant before the court and the rights of the third party are closely related (e.g., physician and patient) or where an obstacle prevents the third party from asserting her own claim. Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 113–16 (1976).
- ↑ 461 U.S. 95 (1983).
- ↑ Id. at 98.
- ↑ Id. at 113.
- ↑ Id. at 101–02.
- ↑ Id. at 105.
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ Id. at 98.
- ↑ Id. at 111. The Court relied on its prior decisions in O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488 (1974), and Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362 (1976).
- ↑ Lyons, 461 U.S. at 111.
- ↑ Id. at 105, 106.
- ↑ Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, No. 13-193, 2014 WL 2675871 (S. Ct. June 16, 2014).
