Weir v. Muller
| Decision Date | 25 February 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 74--3348,74--3348 |
| Parties | 76-1 USTC P 9303 Laurel G. WEIR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Charles MULLER et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Laurel G. Weir, pro se.
Robert E. Hauberg, U.S. Atty., Jackson, Miss., Scott P. Crampton, Gilbert E. Andrews, Chief App. Section, Bennet N. Hollander, Libero Marinelli, Jr., Jonathan S. Cohen, Attys., Tax Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississppi.
Before WISDOM, GEWIN and AINSWORTH, Circuit Judges.
Laurel Weir, the plaintiff-appellant, was indicted on four counts of income tax evasion for the years 1966 through 1969. He pleaded nolo contendere to one count and was sentenced to one year of imprisonment (suspended), fined $6000, and placed on probation for six months. The other three counts were dismissed.
Weir later sued ten federal officials and two federal agencies for $25,000,000, contending that they had deprived him of various constitutional rights in their investigation leading to his prosecution and in the prosecution itself. The district court, in an opinion issued from the bench, held, first, that the complaint failed to state a cause of action because the defendants were protected by the doctrine of official immunity. Then, seemingly on the basis of that holding, the court dismissed the action because there was no federal jurisdiction.
Reading the complaint liberally, as we must, Conley v. Gibson, 1957, 355 U.S. 41, 47--48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80, we find that Weir has alleged deprivations of his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law. The jurisdictional issue here is entirely separate from the questions whether the complaint states a claim on which relief can be granted, whether damages are recoverable for Fifth Amendment violations, and whether the defendants in this case are immune from suit. Bell v. Hood, 1946, 327 U.S. 678, 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939; cf. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 1971, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619. We hold that the district court has federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and should not have dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. See Mark v. Groff, 9 Cir. 1975, 521 F.2d 1376.
We intimate no view on whether the complaint states a cause of action or on the extent to which the defendants are protected by the official immunity doctrine. We note, however, that if the district court should hold that the complaint states a cause of action, an evidentiary hearing will probably be necessary to resolve the factual issues on which the qualified immunity doctrine is based. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 1974, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90; Mark v. Groff. 1
Reversed and remanded for proceedings...
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