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Section 1983 And Constitutional Torts, Charles F. Abernathy

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We have long recognized that the resurrection of section 1983 converted the fourteenth amendment from a shield into a sword by providing a civil action for vindication of constitutional rights and, to the extent that damages have gradually become the authorized remedy for section 1983 violations, we have easily come to think of such actions as constitutional torts-civil damage remedies for violations of constitutionally defined rights. There is, however, a subtler and greater reality to what has transpired, for the mere procedural vehicle of constitutional enforcement has, in retrospect, changed the substance of constitutional law itself. Section 1983 has not …