Paying the Piper in Federal Civil Rights Litigation

Abstract

It long has been noted that Americans are prone to litigate almost any dispute, private or public. For the public administrator in the 1980s, there will be little cause to doubt the accuracy of such a portrait of the American political process. Sweeping changes in the law of government liability which occurred in the 1970s all but guarantee that the current decade will see a continued expansion of suits against governmental entities and officials on a wide variety of issues. From a public manager's viewpoint, it is almost as if the federal courts and Congress have decided to declare an open season on the public treasury. Particularly in a period of declining revenues for many state and local programs, it is imperative that those responsible for the administration of public programs be fully aware of these changes in the law in order to manage their programs effectively to make best use of limited resources. The line of judicial decisions opening the governmental treasury to the grasp of successful plaintiffs has been the subject of analysis in articles by Rosenbloom and Groszyk and Madden which have appeared in Public Administration Review.1 Briefly stated, these articles called attention to the fact that the rulings by the United States Supreme Court in Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services (1978) and Owen v. City of Independence, Missouri (1980) have almost completely redrawn the map of local governmental liability for damages in federal civil rights litigation.2 In what amounted to a 180-degree turnaround, the Court reversed the precedent of Monroe v. Pape (1961),3 which had mandated governmental immunity from suits for money damages under 42 U.S.C. ?1983, and went on to impose strict liability on local governmental units for constitutional rights violations which fairly could be characterized as the result of policy decisions. The result was openly admitted to be a public policy choice that it is better for the taxpayers to become the insurers of the actions of the governmental entity from which they derive benefits than it is for the victim of the constitutional rights violation to go uncompensated when the official actors themselves are immune from liability because they acted in good faith.4 Maine v. Thiboutot (1980) greatly expanded the potential liability under ?1983 by opening the federal courthouse door to suits based on alleged violations of federal statutory rights, and Martinez v. California (1980) sanctioned the use of the state courts as an alternative forum in which a plaintiff could file a ? 1983 claim.5 All of these decisions were premised on statutory interpretation, although they re-