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Full-Text Articles in Torts

Governmental Inaction As A Constitutional Tort: Deshaney And Its Aftermath, Thomas A. Eaton, Michael Wells Jan 1991

Governmental Inaction As A Constitutional Tort: Deshaney And Its Aftermath, Thomas A. Eaton, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services is the Supreme Court's first major effort to define the scope of state and local governments' affirmative obligations under the fourteenth amendment. The Court rejected liability against a county welfare agency and a caseworker for failing to prevent a father from severely beating his four-year-old son. The Court intimated that constitutional affirmative duties exist only where the plaintiff is in the state's custody. Scholarly commentary reads the case as announcing a sweeping prohibition against the imposition of affirmative duties in other contexts. Professors Eaton and Wells demonstrate that the DeShaney opinion is …


Section 1983 And The Parratt Doctrine After Zinermon V. Burch: Ensuring Due Process Rights Or Turning The Fourteenth Amendment Into A Font Of Tort Law, Paul F. Wingenfeld Jan 1991

Section 1983 And The Parratt Doctrine After Zinermon V. Burch: Ensuring Due Process Rights Or Turning The Fourteenth Amendment Into A Font Of Tort Law, Paul F. Wingenfeld

Cleveland State Law Review

Over the last thirty years, the Court has decided a number of cases which illustrate an on-going struggle to find the proper place for section 1983 in the federal court system and, consequently, what ultimately qualifies as adequate procedural due process within the context of the statute. This note will examine the history of Court decisions involving section 1983 in order to provide the proper background for examining the Court's most recent decision in Zinermon v. Burch, a case which itself has added to an already confusing field of legal study. Within this historical background, however, the Court has actually …


Section 1983 And The Parratt Doctrine After Zinermon V. Burch: Ensuring Due Process Rights Or Turning The Fourteenth Amendment Into A Font Of Tort Law, Paul F. Wingenfeld Jan 1991

Section 1983 And The Parratt Doctrine After Zinermon V. Burch: Ensuring Due Process Rights Or Turning The Fourteenth Amendment Into A Font Of Tort Law, Paul F. Wingenfeld

Cleveland State Law Review

Over the last thirty years, the Court has decided a number of cases which illustrate an on-going struggle to find the proper place for section 1983 in the federal court system and, consequently, what ultimately qualifies as adequate procedural due process within the context of the statute. This note will examine the history of Court decisions involving section 1983 in order to provide the proper background for examining the Court's most recent decision in Zinermon v. Burch, a case which itself has added to an already confusing field of legal study. Within this historical background, however, the Court has actually …