United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America, Local 610 v. Scott

463 U.S. 825, 103 S. Ct. 3352, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1049, 1983 U.S. LEXIS 108, 51 U.S.L.W. 5173, 113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3145, 32 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 33,697

Opinions

Justice White,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns the scope of the cause of action made available by 42 U. S. C. §1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V)

Footnotes

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* to those injured by conspiracies formed “for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws.”

A. A. Cross Construction Co., Inc. (Cross), contracted with the Department of the Army to construct the Alligator Bayou Pumping Station and Gravity Drainage Structure on the Taylor Bayou Hurricane Levee near Port Arthur, Tex. In accordance with its usual practice, Cross hired workers for the project without regard to union membership. Some of them were from outside the Port Arthur area. Employees of Cross were several times warned by local residents that Cross’ practice of hiring nonunion workers was a matter of serious concern to many in the area and that it could lead to trouble. According to the District Court, the evidence showed that at a January 15, 1975, meeting of the Executive Committee of the Sabine Area Building and Construction Trades Council a citizen protest against Cross’ hiring practices was discussed and a time and place for the protest were chosen. On the morning of January 17, a large group assembled at the entrance to the Alligator Bayou construction site. In the group were union members present at the January 15 meeting. From this gathering several truckloads of men emerged, drove on to the construction site, assaulted and beat Cross employees, and burned and destroyed construction equipment. The District Court found that continued violence was threatened “if the nonunion workers did not leave the area or concede to union policies and principles.” Scott v. Moore, 461 F. Supp. 224, 227 (ED Tex. 1978). The violence and vandalism delayed construction and led Cross to default on its contract with the Army.

The plaintiffs in this case, after amendment of the complaint, were respondents Scott and Matthews — two Cross employees who had been beaten — and the company itself. The Sabine Area Building and Trades Council, 25 local unions, and various individuals were named as defendants. Plaintiffs asserted that defendants had conspired to deprive plaintiffs of their legally protected rights, contrary to 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V). The case was tried to the court. A permanent injunction was entered, and damages were awarded against 11 of the local unions, $5,000 each to the individual plaintiffs and $112,385.44 to Cross, plus attorney’s fees in the amount of $25,000.

In arriving at its judgment, the District Court recognized that to make out a violation of § 1985(3), as construed in Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S. 88, 102-103 (1971), the plaintiff must allege and prove four elements: (1) a conspiracy; (2) for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; and (3) an act in furtherance of the conspiracy; (4) whereby a person is either injured in his person or property or deprived of any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States. The District Court found that the first, third, and fourth of these elements were plainly established. The issue, the District Court thought, concerned the second element, for in construing that requirement in Griffin, we held that the conspiracy not only must have as its purpose the deprivation of “equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws,” but also must be motivated by “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action.” Id., at 102. Griffin having involved racial animus and interference with rights that Congress could unquestionably protect against private conspiracies, the issue the District Court identified was whether private conspiratorial discrimination against employees of a nonunionized entity is the kind of conduct that triggers the proscription of §1985(3). The District Court concluded that the conspiracy encompassed violations of both the civil and criminal laws of the State of Texas, thus depriving plaintiff of the protections afforded by those laws, that § 1985(3) proscribes class-based animus other than racial bias, and that the class of nonunion laborers and employers is a protected class under the section. The District Court believed that “men and women have the right to associate or not to associate with any group or class of individuals, and concomitantly, to be free of violent acts against their bodies and property because of such association or non-association.” 461 F. Supp., at 230. The conduct evidenced a discriminatory animus against nonunion workers; hence, there had been a violation of the federal law.

The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, except for setting aside for failure of proof the judgment against 8 of the 11 local unions, affirmed the judgment of the District Court. Scott v. Moore, 680 F. 2d 979 (CA5 1982). The Court of Appeals understood respondents’ submission to be that petitioners’ conspiracy was aimed at depriving respondents of their First Amendment right to associate with their fellow nonunion employees and that this curtailment was a deprivation of the equal protection of the laws within the meaning of § 1985(3). The Court of Appeals agreed, for the most part, holding that the purpose of the conspiracy was to deprive plaintiffs of their First Amendment right not to associate with a union. The court rejected the argument that it was necessary to show some state involvement to demonstrate an infringement of First Amendment rights. This argument, it thought, had been expressly rejected in Griffin, and it therefore felt compelled to disagree with two decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit espousing that position. Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, 543 F. 2d 1189 (1976); Dombrowski v. Dowling, 459 F. 2d 190 (1972). The Court of Appeals went on to hold that §1985(3) reached conspiracies motivated either by political or economic bias. Thus petitioners’ conspiracy to harm the nonunion employees of a nonunionized contractor embodied the kind of class-based animus contemplated by §1985(3) as construed in Griffin. Because of the importance of the issue involved, we granted certiorari, 459 U. S. 1034. We now reverse.

I — 1 I — l

We do not disagree with the District Court and the Court of Appeals that there was a conspiracy, an act done in furtherance thereof, and a resultant injury to persons and property. Contrary to the Court of Appeals, however, we conclude that an alleged conspiracy to infringe First Amendment rights is not a violation of § 1985(3) unless it is proved that the State is involved in the conspiracy or that the aim of the conspiracy is to influence the activity of the State. We also disagree with the Court of Appeals’ view that there was present here the kind of animus that § 1985(3) requires.

A

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any State from denying any person the equal protection of the laws. The First Amendment, which by virtue of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment now applies to state governments and their officials, prohibits either Congress or a State from making any “law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Had § 1985(3) in so many words prohibited conspiracies to deprive any person of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment or of freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, it would be untenable to contend that either of those provisions could be violated by a conspiracy that did not somehow involve or affect a State.

“It is a commonplace that rights under the Equal Protection Clause itself arise only where there has been involvement of the State or of one acting under the color of its authority. The Equal Protection Clause ‘does not . . . add any thing to the rights which one citizen has under the Constitution against another.’ United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 554-555. As Mr. JUSTICE Douglas more recently put it, ‘The Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.’ United States v. Williams, 341 U. S. 70, 92 (dissenting opinion). This has been the view of the Court from the beginning. United States v. Cruikshank, supra; United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3; Hodges v. United States, 203 U. S. 1; United States v. Powell, 212 U. S. 564. It remains the Court’s view today. See, e. g., Evans v. Newton, 382 U. S. 296; United States v. Price, post, p. 787.” United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 755 (1966).

The opinion for the Court by Justice Fortas in the companion case characterized the Fourteenth Amendment rights in the same way:

“As we have consistently held ‘The Fourteenth Amendment protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.’ Williams I, 341 U. S., at 92 (opinion of Douglas, J.)” United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 799 (1966).

In this respect, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit was thus correct in holding that a conspiracy to violate First Amendment rights is not made out without proof of state involvement. Murphy v. Mount Carmel High School, supra, at 1193.

Griffin v. Breckenridge is not to the contrary. There we held that § 1985(3) reaches purely private conspiracies and, as so interpreted, was not invalid on its face or as there applied. We recognized that the language of the section referring to deprivations of “equal protection” or of “equal privileges and immunities” resembled the language and prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that if § 1985(3) was so understood, it would be difficult to conceive of a violation of the statute that did not involve the State in some respect. But we observed that the section does not expressly refer to the Fourteenth Amendment and that there is nothing “inherent” in the language used in § 1985(3) “that requires the action working the deprivation to come from the State.” 403 U. S., at 97. This was a correct reading of the language of the Act; the section is not limited by the constraints of the Fourteenth Amendment. The broader scope of § 1985(3) became even more apparent when we explained that the conspiracy at issue was actionable because it was aimed at depriving the plaintiffs of rights protected by the Thirteenth Amendment and the right to travel guaranteed by the Federal Constitu tion. Section 1985(3) constitutionally can and does protect those rights from interference by purely private conspiracies.

Griffin did not hold that even when the alleged conspiracy is aimed at a right that is by definition a right only against state interference the plaintiff in a § 1985(3) suit nevertheless need not prove that the conspiracy contemplated state involvement of some sort. The complaint in Griffin alleged, among other things, a deprivation of First Amendment rights, but we did not sustain the action on the basis of that allegation and paid it scant attention. Instead, we upheld the application of § 1985(3) to private conspiracies aimed at interfering with rights constitutionally protected against private, as well as official, encroachment.

Neither is respondents’ position helped by the assertion that even if the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide authority to proscribe exclusively private conspiracies, precisely the same conduct could be proscribed by the Commerce Clause. That is no doubt the case; but § 1985(3) is not such a provision, since it “provides no substantive rights itself” to the class conspired against. Great American Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Novotny, 442 U. S. 366, 372 (1979). The rights, privileges, and immunities that § 1985(3) vindicates must be found elsewhere, and here the right claimed to have been infringed has its source in the First Amendment. Because that Amendment restrains only official conduct, to make out their § 1985(3) case, it was necessary for respondents to prove that the State was somehow involved in or affected by the conspiracy.

The Court of Appeals accordingly erred in holding that § 1985(3) prohibits wholly private conspiracies to abridge the right of association guaranteed by the First Amendment. Because of that holding the Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to determine whether respondents’ action could be sustained under § 1985(3) as involving a conspiracy to deprive respondents of rights, privileges, or immunites under state law or those protected against private action by the Fed eral Constitution or federal statutory law. Conceivably, we could remand for consideration of these possibilities, or we ourselves could consider them. We take neither course, for in our view the Court of Appeals should also be reversed on the dispositive ground that § 1985(3)’s requirement that there must be “some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action,” Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U. S., at 102, was not satisfied in this case.

B

As indicated above, after examining the language, structure, and legislative history of § 1985(3), the Griffin opinion emphatically declared that the section was intended to reach private conspiracies that in no way involved the State. The Court was nevertheless aware that the sweep of § 1985 as originally introduced in the House provoked strong opposition in that chamber and precipitated the proposal and adoption of a narrowing amendment, which limited the breadth of the bill so that the bill did not provide a federal remedy for “all tortious, conspiratorial interferences with the rights of others.” 403 U. S., at 101. In large part, opposition to the original bill had been motivated by a belief that Congress lacked the authority to punish every assault and battery committed by two or more persons. Id., at 102; Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 68, 115, 153, 188, 315 (1871); id., at 485-486, 514. As we interpreted the legislative history 12 years ago in Griffin, the narrowing amendment “centered entirely on the animus or motivation that would be required _” 403 U. S., at 100. Thus:

“The constitutional shoals that would lie in the path of interpreting § 1985(3) as a general federal tort law can be avoided by giving full effect to the congressional purpose — by requiring, as an element of the cause of action, the kind of invidiously discriminatory motivation stressed by the sponsors of the limiting amend ment. See the remarks of Representatives Willard and Shellabarger, quoted supra, at 100. The language requiring intent to deprive of equal protection, or equal privileges and immunities, means that there must be some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators’ action. The conspiracy, in other words, must aim at a deprivation of the equal enjoyment of rights secured by the law to all.” Id., at 102 (footnotes omitted).

This conclusion was warranted by the legislative history, was reaffirmed in Novotny, supra, and we accept it as the authoritative construction of the statute.

Because the facts in Griffin revealed an animus against Negroes and those who supported them, a class-based, invidious discrimination which was the central concern of Congress in enacting § 1985(3), the Court expressly declined to decide “whether a conspiracy motivated by invidiously discriminatory intent other than racial bias would be actionable under the portion of § 1985(3) before us.” 403 U. S., at 102, n. 9. Both courts below answered that question; both held that the section not only reaches conspiracies other than those motivated by racial bias but also forbids conspiracies against workers who refuse to join a union. We disagree with the latter conclusion and do not affirm the former.

C

The Court of Appeals arrived at its result by first describing the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan as a political organization that sought to deprive a large segment of the Southern population of political power and participation in the governance of those States and of the Nation. The Court of Appeals then reasoned that because Republicans were among the objects of the Elan’s conspiratorial activities, Republicans in particular and political groups in general were to be protected by § 1985(3). Finally, because it believed that an animus against an economic group such as those who pre ferred nonunion association is “closely akin” to the animus against political association, the Court of Appeals concluded that the animus against nonunion employees in the Port Arthur area was sufficiently similar to the animus against a political party to satisfy the requirements of § 1985(3).

We are unpersuaded. In the first place, it is a close question whether § 1985(3) was intended to reach any class-based animus other than animus against Negroes and those who championed their cause, most notably Republicans. The central theme of the bill’s proponents was that the Klan and others were forcibly resisting efforts to emancipate Negroes and give them equal access to political power. The predominant purpose of § 1985(3) was to combat the prevalent animus against Negroes and their supporters. The latter included Republicans generally, as well as others, such as Northerners who came South with sympathetic views towards the Negro. Although we have examined with some care the legislative history that has been marshaled in support of the position that Congress meant to forbid wholly nonracial, but politically motivated conspiracies, we find difficult the question whether § 1985(3) provided a remedy for every concerted effort by one political group to nullify the influence of or do other injury to a competing group by use of otherwise unlawful means. To accede to that view would go far toward making the federal courts, by virtue of § 1985(3), the monitors of campaign tactics in both state and federal elections, a role that the courts should not be quick to assume. If respondents’ submission were accepted, the proscription of § 1985(3) would arguably reach the claim that a political party has interfered with the freedom of speech of another political party by encouraging the heckling of its rival’s speakers and the disruption of the rival’s meetings.

We realize that there is some legislative history to support the view that § 1985(3) has a broader reach. Senator Edmunds’ statement on the floor of the Senate is the clearest expression of this view. He said that if a conspiracy were formed against a man “because he was a Democrat, if you please, or because he was a Catholic, or because he was a Methodist, or because he was a Vermonter,. .. then this section could reach it.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 567 (1871). The provision that is now § 1985(3), however, originated in the House. The narrowing amendment, which changed § 1985(3) to its present form, was proposed, debated, and adopted there, and the Senate made only technical changes to the bill. Senator Edmunds’ views, since he managed the bill on the floor of the Senate, are not without weight. But we were aware of his views in Griffin, 403 U. S., at 102, n. 9, and still withheld judgment on the question whether § 1985(3), as enacted, went any farther than its central concern — combating the violent and other efforts of the Klan and its allies to resist and to frustrate the intended effects of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. Lacking other evidence of congressional intention, we follow the same course here.

D

Even if the section must be construed to reach conspiracies aimed at any class or organization on account of its political views or activities, or at any of the classes posited by Senator Edmunds, we find no convincing support in the legislative history for the proposition that the provision was intended to reach conspiracies motivated by bias towards others on account of their economic views, status, or activities. Such a construction would extend § 1985(3) into the economic life of the country in a way that we doubt that the 1871 Congress would have intended when it passed the provision in 1871.

Respondents submit that Congress intended to protect two general classes of Republicans, Negroes and Northern immigrants, the latter because the Klan resented carpetbagger efforts to dominate the economic life of the South. Respondents rely on a series of statements made during the debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1871, of which § 1985 was a part, indicating that Northern laborers and businessmen who had come from the North had been the targets of Bilan conspiracies. Brief for Respondents 42-44. As we understand these remarks, however, the speakers believed that these Northerners were viewed as suspect because they were Republicans and were thought to be sympathetic to Negroes. We do not interpret these parts of the debates as asserting that the Klan had a general animus against either labor or capital, or against persons from other States as such. Nor is it plausible that the Southern Democrats were prejudiced generally against enterprising persons trying to better themselves, even if those enterprising persons were from Northern States. The animus was against Negroes and their sympathizers, and perhaps against Republicans as a class, but not against economic groups as such. Senator Pool, on whose remarks respondents rely, identified what he thought was the heart of the matter:

“The truth is that whenever a northern man, who goes into a southern State, will prove a traitor to the principles which he entertained at home, when he will lend himself to the purposes of the Democracy or be purchased by them, they forget that he is a carpet-bagger and are ready to use him and elevate him to any office within their gift.” Cong Globe, 42nd Cong., 1st. Sess., 607 (1871).

We thus cannot construe §1985(3) to reach conspiracies motivated by economic or commercial animus. Were it otherwise, for example, § 1985(3) could be brought to bear on any act of violence resulting from union efforts to organize an employer or from the employer’s efforts to resist it, so long as the victim merely asserted and proved that the conduct involved a conspiracy motivated by an animus in favor of unionization, or against it, as the case may be. The National Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp. V), addresses in great detail the relationship between employer, employee, and union in a great variety of sitúa- tions, and it would be an unsettling event to rule that strike and picket-line violence must now be considered in the light of the strictures of § 1985(3). Moreover, if antiunion, anti-nonunion, or antiemployer biases represent the kinds of animus that trigger § 1985(3), there would be little basis for concluding that the statute did not provide a cause of action in a variety of other situations where one economic group is pitted against another, each having the intent of injuring or destroying the economic health of the other. We think that such a construction of the statute, which is at best only arguable and surely not compelled by either its language or legislative history, should be eschewed and that group actions generally resting on economic motivations should be deemed beyond the reach of §1985(3). Economic and commercial conflicts, we think, are best dealt with by statutes, federal or state, specifically addressed to such problems, as well as by the general law proscribing injuries to persons and property. If we have misconstrued the intent of the 1871 Congress, or, in any event, if Congress now prefers to take a different tack, the Court will, of course, enforce any statute within the power of Congress to enact.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

Title 42 U. S. C. § 1985(3) (1976 ed., Supp. V), in its entirety, provides as follows:

“(3) Depriving persons of rights or privileges

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; or for the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws; or if two or more persons conspire to prevent by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote, from giving his support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or Vice President, or as a Member of Congress of the United States; or to injure any citizen in person or property on account of such support or advocacy; in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators.”