Gorham v. Androscoggin County: an Unsettling Decision on Settled Federal Law
| Publication year | 2012 |
Spring 2012 #1. Gorham v. Androscoggin County: An Unsettling Decision On Settled Federal Law
VOLUME 27 , NUMBER 2 , Spring 2012
On May 31, 2011 the Law Court issued a unanimous decision in Gorham v. Androscoggin County.(fn1) Gorham presented to the Court an important question about the intersection of Rule 80B of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (section 1983), a federal civil rights statute, when a plaintiff is claiming a procedural due process violation. The Law Court invited amici participation on the following question: When may a party bring an independent claim under section 1983 for conduct that is reviewable under Rule 80B? While the decision in Gorham does not provide a clear answer to the question, the issue of whether Rule 80B provides the exclusive remedy for a procedural due process violation is in fact a matter of federal law that was resolved by the United States Supreme Court 30 years ago in Parratt v. Taylor.(fn2) This article reviews the purposes underlying section 1983 and its interpretation in courts, the underpinnings of the Parratt decision, and anticipates how Maine courts will address mixed Rule 80B/section 1983 claims in the wake of Gorham.
Background on Section 1983
Section 1983 provides:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.
Like Rule 80B, section 1983 is a procedural statute. It creates no substantive rights, but rather provides a remedy for the violation of rights created by the federal Constitution or federal law.(fn3) Enacted as the first section of the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Act of 1871, section 1983 was intended as a vehicle to remedy the denial to "decent citizens [of] their civil and political rights."(fn4) For the first 90 years after its enactment the statute was rarely used. However, after certain judicial developments expanded its scope, the number of section 1983 claims filed in federal and state courts increased dramatically and continued to climb.(fn5)
Developments resulting from section 1983 litigation included the application of the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court's 1961 decision in Monroe v. Pape, establishing that a section 1983 action was supplementary to available state law remedies.(fn6) The Monroe Court determined that Congress intended to create a federal judicial forum to vindicate federal rights because Congress believed that, due to "prejudice, passion, neglect, [and] intolerance" state courts might not adequately protect Fourteenth Amendment rights.(fn7) While decisions arising out of section 1983 cases spawned important legal rights, the ever-increasing invocation of Section 1983 by plaintiffs caused some courts and commentators to warn that the cause of action was being trivialized and misapplied. As the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals noted in 1972 in Wells v. Ward:
The proliferation of litigation resulting from the expanded use of § 1983 is apparent to anyone familiar with the reported decisions of the courts of the United States. The existence of the § 1983 remedy does not require that federal courts entertain all suits in which unconstitutional deprivations are asserted. A federal constitutional question must exist "not in mere form, but in substance, and not in mere assertion, but in essence and effect."(fn8)
The Parratt v. Taylor Doctrine
The Supreme Court's 1981 decision in Parratt v. Taylor reflected its determination that Congress had never intended the Fourteenth Amendment to be a "font of tort law,"(fn9) diluting the ability of federal courts to vindicate important constitutional rights.(fn10) By limiting the application of section 1983 procedural due process claims, the Supreme Court eased the burden on federal courts caused by Section 1983's overexpan-sion. Accordingly, the Parratt doctrine stemmed the flow of procedural due process cases to federal courts that could be adequately redressed through state law.(fn11)
In Parratt, an inmate ordered a hobby kit worth $23.50 through the prison mail service.(fn12) Because the inmate was in isolation when the materials arrived, he was not allowed to receive them.(fn13) In addition, prison officials did not follow the normal procedures for handling prisoners' mail. As a result the...
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