Source: cases/42usc1983/f-supp-567-1159-thompson-v-community-action.case
Case source: https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f-supp/volume_567/1159_01/index.html
The Court agrees with the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in finding that the lack of a majority of public officials on the board is irrelevant to a conclusion that CAGW is a state actor.
The Court concludes that CAGW is a state actor and thereby satisfies one prong of the Lugar analysis.
Also to be satisfied is the second aspect of the Lugar test: whether the alleged deprivation of rights resulted from the exercise of a right, privilege, or rule of conduct having its source in state authority.
While CAGW is a state actor, not all actions by such actors constitute state action.
Confining plaintiff to his articulated theory, there has been no showing that a state created right or procedure was involved with personnel decisions of any type.
In light of these findings, the Court concludes that no state action was involved in the decision to terminate Thompson’s employment.
Absent some “other factors” indicating federal governmental participation in CAGW’s actual operations, there is no federal action.
The Court holds that CAGW was engaged neither in state nor federal action when it terminated Thompson.
casedsl 1
case /f-supp/567/1159-01
name Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc.
cite 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983)
court United States District Court for the District of Delaware
date 1983-07-08
url catalog/cases/f-supp/volume_567/1159_01/index.html
source ir/caselaw/f_supp_567.jsonl sha1=e0decc762e844fba7b10488507c5c287ffa19ffc chars=33987
law 42usc1983
role applied
posture civil; discharged comptroller sues private nonprofit community action agency and its officers/directors; defendants' Rule 12(b)(1)/(6) motion converted to summary judgment after discovery limited to state action; granted
result claimant-lost
element color-of-law.state-actor : satisfied [law]
variant state-actor/publicly-designated-nonprofit-with-mandated-public-officials-on-board
party CAGW
theory Lugar prong: defendant fairly a state actor
fact @4800..5009 [supports] | CAGW is a private non-profit Delaware corporation organized to fulfill the goals of the EOA. It was created and designated as the official anti-poverty agency for New Castle County, Delaware in the mid-1960’s.
fact @5010..5196 [supports] | CAGW received approximately 70 percent of its funding from federal funds, 20 percent from the state funds, 9.5 percent from local funds, and one-half of one percent from private sources.
fact @5245..5403 [supports] | During 1981, the period in question, CAGW’s Board of Directors complied with the statutorily mandated composition of public, private and target group members.
fact @20483..20709 [supports] | Nonetheless, the state participated in the continuing operations of CAGW through the statutorily mandated requirement that at least one third of the Board of Directors must be state or local officials or their representatives.
rule @20922..21130 | The Court agrees with the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in finding that the lack of a majority of public officials on the board is irrelevant to a conclusion that CAGW is a state actor.
held @22412..22513 | The Court concludes that CAGW is a state actor and thereby satisfies one prong of the Lugar analysis.
gloss State designation of the entity plus required minority of public officials on the governing board makes the entity a state actor; this alone does not make its every act state action.
element color-of-law.state-created-right : not-satisfied [no-evidence]
variant no-nexus/personnel-decision-not-governed-by-state-rule
party CAGW and individual defendants
theory Lugar prong: deprivation caused by exercise of a state-created right or rule
fact @1459..1579 [supports] | Allegedly, plaintiff was fired by the Board of Directors at a meeting on January 4, 1982 in retaliation for his actions.
fact @23924..24125 [cuts-against absent] | The absence of personnel regulations regarding hiring, firing, discipline, and duties applicable to CAGW are particularly telling given the involvement of the state in other areas of CAGW's activities.
fact @24311..24541 [cuts-against] | While representatives of the public serve on the Board for purposes of promoting governmental objectives, these Board members do not advocate or represent governmental personnel policies since no such policy is applicable to CAGW.
rule @22675..22884 | Also to be satisfied is the second aspect of the Lugar test: whether the alleged deprivation of rights resulted from the exercise of a right, privilege, or rule of conduct having its source in state authority.
rule @23493..23577 | While CAGW is a state actor, not all actions by such actors constitute state action.
held @23760..23923 | Confining plaintiff to his articulated theory, there has been no showing that a state created right or procedure was involved with personnel decisions of any type.
held @24622..24755 | In light of these findings, the Court concludes that no state action was involved in the decision to terminate Thompson’s employment.
gloss Dispositive failure: state involvement in the entity's creation, funding and board does not reach its discretionary hiring/firing; participation of public-official board members in the vote is not enough. Burton symbiosis test held displaced by Rendell-Baker/Blum.
element deprivation.first-amendment : not-reached
gloss Alleged retaliatory firing of a whistleblowing comptroller who went to the news media after internal reports of financial irregularities were ignored; merits never reached.
element deprivation.procedural-due-process : not-reached
element person : not-reached
element causation : not-reached
element policy : not-reached
element damages : not-reached
element x-federal-action : not-satisfied [no-evidence]
role background
variant no-federal-instrumentality/federal-funding-and-regulation-only
party CAGW
count Fifth Amendment claim (not a 1983 claim)
theory federal instrumentality
fact @26985..27219 [cuts-against absent] | Here plaintiff has made no showing of federal involvement in CAGW other than general regulation and funding, as such, CAGW is not a federal instrumentality and the decision to terminate may not be challenged under the Fifth Amendment.
rule @26283..26413 | Absent some “other factors” indicating federal governmental participation in CAGW’s actual operations, there is no federal action.
held @28747..28849 | The Court holds that CAGW was engaged neither in state nor federal action when it terminated Thompson.
gloss Not a 1983 theory at all (1983 reaches only state law); a direct Fifth Amendment claim pleaded alongside. Recorded because the court decides it by transplanting the same state-action cases.
misfit Color-of-law is decided as a two-prong conjunction (Lugar) with a SPLIT result: defendant is a state actor (satisfied) but the challenged act lacks a state source/nexus (not-satisfied), so the element as a whole fails. Encoded with two dotted sub-ids (now declared in the law file); a case file still cannot give the parent element's overall holding without a third, quote-less block, so a consumer counting `color-of-law.state-actor : satisfied` sees a win inside a lost element.
misfit The court's own labelling of the two Lugar prongs is inverted/blurred relative to Lugar (it calls the state-actor prong "one prong" and the state-created-right prong "the second", then equates the latter with the Jackson nexus test); the sub-ids follow Lugar's content, not this court's ordering.
misfit The loss is expressly tied to how plaintiff articulated his theory ("Confining plaintiff to his articulated theory"); a waiver/forfeiture-limited holding is weaker precedent than a merits holding and the notation cannot grade that.
misfit Much of the opinion is doctrine-selection (Third Circuit Burton line displaced by the 1982 Supreme Court trilogy): a holding about WHICH test governs, i.e. a law-side change over time, with no instance-side slot. Also it relies on Polk County v. Dodson, which reversed another case in this batch -- cross-case treatment links are not expressible.
misfit Parallel non-1983 claim (Fifth Amendment / federal instrumentality) decided in the same opinion; v1 marks it `role background` so it is not counted as a 1983 instance, but it is a real merits ruling under ANOTHER law and there is still no multi-law file or cross-law pointer to give it a proper home.
misfit OCR/authoring error in the source calls 1983 "the Civil Rights Act of 1964".