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Full-Text Articles in Law
Alternative State Remedies In Constitutional Torts, John F. Preis
Alternative State Remedies In Constitutional Torts, John F. Preis
Law Faculty Publications
In recent years, a subtle shift in constitutional tort doctrine has quietly begun to take root. In Bivens actions, the Supreme Court has recently implied that constitutional tort plaintiffs must seek relief under state law when it is available, rather than invoke their federal constitutional rights. This marks a dramatic change from past practices. For much of the twentieth century, a central premise in the constitutional tort field has been that the federal remedy is "supplementary" to the state remedy; constitutional tort plaintiffs have therefore been permitted to seek a remedy under federal law without regard to the availability of …
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Michigan Law Review
Federal law provides a cause of action for individuals who are the target of adverse state action taken in retaliation for their exercise of First Amendment rights. Because these constitutional torts are "easy to allege and hard to disprove," they raise difficult questions concerning the proper balance between allowing meaningful access to the courts and protecting government agents from frivolous and vexatious litigation. In its recent decision in Hartman v. Moore, the U.S. Supreme Court tipped the scales in favor of the state in one subset of First Amendment retaliation actions by holding that plaintiffs in actions for retaliatory …