Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc. — 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983) · United States District Court for the District of Delaware · 1983

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; claim:

Uncertainty

None recorded

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

OCR/authoring error in the source calls 1983 "the Civil Rights Act of 1964".

interpretation

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.

Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc. — 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983) · United States District Court for the District of Delaware · 1983 (42usc1983: author: Fable · historical QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/cases-QA2.md) · changed after review; current content not independently reviewed)

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.

First prong of Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. (457 U.S. 922, 937 (1982)): the deprivation must be caused by the exercise of some right or privilege created by the State or by a rule of conduct imposed by the State or by a person for whom the State is responsible.

interpretation

While CAGW is a state actor, not all actions by such actors constitute state action.

Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc. — 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983) · United States District Court for the District of Delaware · 1983 (42usc1983: author: Fable · historical QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/cases-QA2.md) · changed after review; current content not independently reviewed)

While CAGW is a state actor, not all actions by such actors constitute state action.

First prong of Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. (457 U.S. 922, 937 (1982)): the deprivation must be caused by the exercise of some right or privilege created by the State or by a rule of conduct imposed by the State or by a person for whom the State is responsible.

interpretation

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.

Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc. — 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983) · United States District Court for the District of Delaware · 1983 (42usc1983: author: Fable · historical QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/cases-QA2.md) · changed after review; current content not independently reviewed)

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.

Second prong of Lugar: whether the private or hybrid entity may fairly be treated as a state actor under the public-function test, state-compulsion/nexus test, symbiotic-relationship test, or joint-action test.

interpretation

Absent some “other factors” indicating federal governmental participation in CAGW’s actual operations, there is no federal action.

Thompson v. Community Action of Greater Wilmington, Inc. — 567 F. Supp. 1159 (1983) · United States District Court for the District of Delaware · 1983 (42usc1983: author: Fable · historical QA: PASS (QA2, neov2/qa/cases-QA2.md) · changed after review; current content not independently reviewed)

Absent some “other factors” indicating federal governmental participation in CAGW’s actual operations, there is no federal action.

Section 1983 applies only to action under color of State, Territorial, or D.C. law; purely federal action requires a Bivens or Fifth Amendment theory with federal governmental participation.