Collins v. Hardyman/Dissent Burton

by Harold Hitz Burton

United States Supreme Court

341 U.S. 651

Collins  v.  Hardyman

 Argued: Jan. 8, 9, 1951. --- Decided: June 4, 1951

Mr. Justice BURTON, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS concur, dissenting.

I cannot agree that the respondents in their complaint have failed to state a cause of action under R.S. § 1980(3), 8 U.S.C. § 47(3), 8 U.S.C.A. § 47(3).

The right alleged to have been violated is the right to petition the Federal Government for a redress of grievances. This right is expressly recognized by the First Amendment and this Court has said that 'The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances.' United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 552, 23 L.Ed. 588, and see In re Quarles and Butler, 158 U.S. 532, 535, 15 S.Ct. 959, 960, 39 L.Ed. 1080. The source of the right in this case is not the Fourteenth Amendment. The complaint alleges that petitioners 'knowingly' did not interfere with the 'many public meetings' whose objectives they agreed with, but that they did conspire to break up respondents' meeting because petitioners were opposed to respondents' views, which were expected to be there expressed. Such conduct does not differ materially from the specific conspiracies which the Court recognizes that the statute was intended to reach.

The language of the statute refutes the suggestion that action under color of state law is a necessary ingredient of the cause of action which it recognizes. R.S. § 1980(3) speaks of 'two or more persons in any State or Territory' conspiring. That clause is not limited to state officials. Still more obviously, where the section speaks of persons going 'in disguise on the highway * * * for the purpose of depriving * * * any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws,' it certainly does not limit its reference to actions of that kind by state officials. When Congress, at this period, did intend to limit comparable civil rights legislation to action under color of state law, it said so in unmistakable terms. In fact, R.S. § 1980(3) originally was § 2 of the Act of April 20, 1871, and § 1 of that same Act said 'That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject * * * any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall * * * be liable to the party injured * * *.' (Emphasis added.) 17 Stat. 13.

Congress certainly has the power to create a federal cause of action in favor of persons injured by private individuals through the abridgment of federally created constitutional rights. It seems to me that Congress has done just this in R.S. § 1980(3). This is not inconsistent with the principle underlying the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment prohibits the respective states from making laws abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States or denying to any person within the jurisdiction of a state the equal protection of the laws. Cases holding that those clauses are directed only at state action are not authority for the contention that Congress may not pass laws supporting rights which exist apart from the Fourteenth Amendment.

Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Notes