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Government Responsibility For Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman Nov 1986

Government Responsibility For Constitutional Torts, Christina B. Whitman

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This essay is about the language used to decide when governments should be held responsible for constitutional torts.' Debate about what is required of government officials, and what is required of government itself, is scarcely new. What is new, at least to American jurisprudence, is litigation against government units (rather than government officials) for constitutional injuries. 2 The extension of liability to institutional defendants introduces special problems for the language of responsibility. In a suit against an individual official it is easy to describe the wrong as the consequence of individual behavior that is inconsistent with community norms; the language …


Draft Of The Incoherence Of Intentional Torts And Section 1983 - 1986, Wendy J. Gordon Jul 1986

Draft Of The Incoherence Of Intentional Torts And Section 1983 - 1986, Wendy J. Gordon

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The Supreme Court has often faced the question of whether a person who alleges that a state or local official has caused him injury, can bring a constitutional tort action under section 1983 when the state doctrine of sovereign or official immunity makes it impossible for the injured person to prosecute an ordinary tort suit in the relevant state court.