First Amendment Retaliatory Prosecutions, Arrests and Civil Proceedings: The Eleventh Circuit Gets It Wrong Does the Court’s retaliatory arrest-First Amendment decision in Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715 (2019), which ruled that such plaintiffs must allege and prove the absence of probable cause as an element of the claim (and that probable cause is […]…

Section 1983 damages liability for constitutional violations depends on the threshold existence of a defendant’s state action within the meaning of the 14th Amendment and on the related statutory requirement of color of law. Fortunately, the general rule about the relationship between state action and color of law may be simply put: where there is […]…

The Intervention Question Suppose a police officer continues to use life-endangering force even after it is obvious that a misdemeanor arrestee (who has no weapon) is under control and not a danger to others, including police officers. As a result of this use of excessive force, the arrestee dies. This is a violation of clearly […]…

The Background: The Supreme Court’s Janus Decision Recall the Supreme Court’s blockbuster decision in Janus v. AFSCME, 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018)(Janus I), overruling Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Educ., 431 U.S. 209 (1977), and holding that it now violates the First Amendment rights of union nonmembers for state and local governments, and for public […]…

Some time ago I posted about the need for attorneys to understand the crucial distinction between individual and official capacity claims brought under section 1983. Here is that post: https://nahmodlaw.com/2018/05/31/attorneys-must-at-their-peril-understand-the-official-individual-capacity-distinction-in-section-1983-damages-cases/ This crucial distinction emerged in a somewhat unusual Third Circuit decision involving removal and attorney’s fees, but this time in a non-section 1983 prospective relief […]…

There is a special, and quite complicated, accrual rule, set out in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), that applies where the section 1983 plaintiff has a prior conviction whose validity might be implicated by a successful section 1983 damages action. In such cases, the section 1983 claim does not accrue until the underlying […]…

Whose Decisions Determine Clearly Settled Federal Constitutional Law? We all know that in order for a state or local government official to be liable for damages in his or her individual (not official) capacity under section 1983, that official must have violated clearly settled federal constitutional law as of the time of the challenged conduct. […]…