Williams v. Brown

• Decision Date: 16 June 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74 C 3166.,74 C 3166.
• Citation: 398 F. Supp. 155
• Parties: Mary L. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. William W. BROWN, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

398 F. Supp. 155

Mary L. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, v. William W. BROWN, Defendants.

No. 74 C 3166.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

June 16, 1975.

Robert N. Schlesinger, St. Paul, Minn., Robert C. Howard, Chicago, Ill. for plaintiff.

Kenneth J. Cortesi, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

MARSHALL, District Judge.

Plaintiff, Mary L. Williams, alleges that defendants, William W. Brown and Michael L. Colon, in their capacity as police officers and agents of defendant, The City of Chicago, unlawfully arrested and confined her against her will, depriving her of rights guaranteed her by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. She seeks money damages from the defendant officers as well as the defendant, City of Chicago.

The City moved to dismiss the complaint against it on the ground that it is not a "person" under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The motion was denied without opinion for the reason that the complaint against the City is based not on § 1983 but on the Fourteenth Amendment and 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and on state law.

The City then requested reconsideration of its motion, filing additional briefs in support of its contention that while a number of courts have upheld Fourteenth Amendment damage claims against municipalities "because of the actions of municipal employees in carrying out the functions of the municipality" "it doesn't seem" that the doctrine of respondeat superior exists under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), established that the Constitution itself gives a person deprived of his constitutionally guaranteed rights a cause of action in damages to redress that deprivation without regard to any statutorily created cause of action such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Such a cause of action "arises under the Constitution . . . of the United States", 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and is cognizable in federal court when more than $10,000 is in controversy. 403 U.S. at 398, 91 S.Ct. 2005 (Harlan, J., concurring).

In Bivens the Court held that the plaintiff's allegation that his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated by the actions of federal narcotics agents who searched his apartment and arrested him without a search warrant or probable cause, "states a cause of action under the Fourth Amendment" and that Bivens was "entitled to recover money damages for any injuries he has suffered as a result of the agents' violation of the Amendment." 403 U.S. at 397, 91 S.Ct. at 2005.

In light of Bivens, plaintiff's allegations that she was deprived of her Fourteenth Amendment rights when police officers and agents of the City of Chicago unlawfully arrested and confined her clearly state a cause of action under the Fourteenth Amendment. The only question is whether she is entitled to recover money damages from the City for injuries she suffered because of the police officers' violations of the Amendment. I have concluded that she can.

This result is based on two propositions: first, that the theory of Bivens supplies relief in damages for violations of Fourteenth as well as Fourth Amendment rights; and second, that the cause of action created by Bivens runs against the City, which employed and empowered the police officers, as well as against the wrongdoing officers. These propositions, it seems to me, follow from the clear principles of Bivens and Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U.S. 507, 93 S.Ct. 2222, 37 L.Ed.2d 109 (1973) and from long recognized principles of federal jurisprudence.

In Kenosha v. Bruno, supra, the Supreme Court, relying on Bivens, held that municipalities can be held liable for violations of constitutional rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In Bruno, plaintiff brought an action under § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment against the City of Kenosha for injunctive relief from a violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Court first held, reaffirming Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), that a municipality cannot be sued under § 1983. The Court did not, however, hold that no federal cause of action could be maintained against the City, but rather remanded for verification of the jurisdictional amount, noting that the plaintiff had claimed jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 as well as under § 1343 and had claimed more than $10,000 in damages.

The three-judge district court in Bruno had said below, "were not civil rights jurisdiction proper, each of the plaintiffs herein would be able to assert the necessary amount in controversy requirement of Title 28 U.S.C. § 1331." But the majority of the Supreme Court declined to confirm jurisdiction over the action because the record did not clearly establish the required $10,000 in controversy: "Since . . . no stipulation as to the amount in controversy was filed, we cannot say on this state of the record whether or not jurisdiction was affirmatively established." 412 U.S. at 514, 93 S.Ct. at 2227.

In thus remanding the case for verification of jurisdictional amount, the clear implication of the majority opinion is that § 1331 jurisdiction is available when a claim against a municipality is made directly under the Fourteenth Amendment and $10,000 in controversy is established. Justice Brennan, in a concurrence joined by Justice Marshall, was explicit:

"If appellees can prove their allegation that at least $10,000 is in controversy, then § 1331 jurisdiction is available. Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678 66 S.Ct. 773, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946); Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed. 2d 619 (1971)." 412 U.S. 516, 93 S. Ct. 2228 (1973).

Following Bivens and Bruno, I have held that there is a federal cause of action against a municipal corporation directly under the Fourteenth Amendment and that the action is cognizable under § 1331. Robinson, et al. v. Conlisk, et al., 385 F.Supp. 529, 536 (N.D.Ill.1974). The Fifth Circuit agrees that Bruno recognizes that a claim can be maintained against a municipality directly under the Fourteenth Amendment and § 1331 in United Farmworkers of Florida v. City of Delray Beach, 493 F.2d 799, 802 (5th Cir. 1974).¹

Given that the instant complaint states a violation of plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment rights and that she has a cause of action against the municipality under the Fourteenth Amendment to vindicate those rights, does she have a remedy in damages?

". . . It is . . . well settled that where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides a general right to sue for such invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done." Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 684, 66 S.Ct. 773, 777, 90 L.Ed. 939 (1946).² There can be no question that the complaint adequately alleges a violation of plaintiff's rights; that 28 U.S.C. § 1331 gives a general right to sue; and that, as previously shown in this memorandum, there is a cause of action against a municipality directly under the Fourteenth Amendment to remedy violations of the Amendment by its agents.

In light of the unquestioned availability of injunctive relief, it can hardly be said that relief in damages cannot be awarded "to make good the wrong done" to plaintiffs. Justice Harlan made this clear in his concurrence in Bivens.

". . . the presumed availability of federal equitable relief against threatened invasions of constitutional interests appears entirely to negate the contention that the status of an interest as constitutionally protected divests federal courts of the power to grant damages absent express Congressional authorization.

* * *

". . . If a general grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts by Congress is thought to be adequate to empower a federal court to grant equitable relief for all areas of subject matter jurisdiction enumerated therein, see 28 U.S.C. § 1331(a), then it seems to me that the same statute is sufficient to empower a federal court to grant a traditional remedy at law."

Bivens, 403 U.S. at 404, 405, 91 S.Ct. at 2009.

Indeed, as Justice Harlan's remarks indicate, in light of the traditional notion that an injunction is an extraordinary remedy, to be granted only in exceptional circumstances, if any remedy were to be deemed unavailable without explicit Congressional authorization, it would more appropriately be the injunction than damages, the traditional remedy at law. "Historically, damages have been regarded as the ordinary remedy for an invasion of personal interests in liberty. See . . . Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U.S. 487 22 S. Ct. 783, 46 L.Ed. 1005 (1902); Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58 21 S.Ct. 17, 45 L.Ed. 84 (1900)." Bivens, supra, at 395-96, 91 S.Ct. at 2004.³ In the present case damages are the obvious remedy. The kind of abuse of police authority alleged here was recognized in Monroe v. Pape, supra, as properly compensable in damages.

Since Bivens and Bruno,⁴ a number of courts have found damages available in actions against municipalities or other state corporate entities directly under the Fourteenth Amendment for violations by their employees of the plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

In Skehan v. Board of Trustees, 501 F.2d 31 (3d Cir. 1974), the plaintiff challenged his discharge from the faculty of a state college for violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process and sought back pay. The action was brought both under § 1983, basing jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. § 1343, and under the Fourteenth Amendment directly, basing jurisdiction on § 1331. The court expressed some doubt as to whether the college was a person for the purposes of § 1983, but said that "because the requisite jurisdictional amount of § 1331 is pleaded, the fact that the College is not a `person' within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is not significant." 501 F.2d at 44.

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