Source: law/NOTES-42usc1981.md
# Section 1981 catalogue research — 42 USC 1981 Research date: 2026-11-10. Replaces rejected partial-word statutory anchors and case-caption rules. Canonical `title42_sec1981` was read in full (0..1045), sha1 `70b95448a9fed7122e5b0ebb204917aa48ae3cd5`. Every `text` quote remains a verbatim slice of that version. The [current OLRC text](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t42/s1981/) reports currency through PL 119-138 (November 3, 2026); its (a), (b), (c) operative rights match this core scope. ## Statutory versus judicial content Subsection (a) grants equal rights, including making/enforcing contracts. Subsection (b) expressly covers formation, performance, modification, termination, and contractual benefits/conditions. Subsection (c) protects against private and state-law impairment. The catalogue covers contractual race discrimination and retaliation, with separate private and state remedial routes. It does not pretend the additional equal-benefit, litigation/evidence and punishment clauses in (a) have been exhaustively decomposed. Nor is this a comprehensive alienage catalogue. **Domino’s Pizza** requires the plaintiff's own existing or proposed contractual rights in a direct discrimination claim. A shareholder cannot recover personally for the corporation's contract simply by showing personal humiliation. The case also confirms that refusal to create a contract can violate §1981; an executed contract is not mandatory. It must not be transformed into a state-law-breach-only restriction. Intentional race discrimination, not disparate impact alone, is required. **Nelson** supplies an employment proof framework; its four prima facie facts are a circumstantial example, not a universal pleading checklist. Neither minority status nor a comparator is imposed as an invariant requirement on every plaintiff. The protection is equal rights for all persons. Courts develop ancestry/ethnicity coverage; other protected traits by themselves do not substitute for the required §1981 basis. The binding current causation rule is **[Comcast v. National Association of African American-Owned Media](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1171_4425.pdf)**, 589 U.S. 327 (2020). The official opinion was read at its opening holding, reasoning on common-law causation and rejection of Title VII motivating-factor transplantation. Plaintiff must plead and prove but-for racial causation throughout the litigation. The file explicitly records this external current-law annotation; no local Comcast record was assumed or invented. Older statements equating Title VII and §1981 proof do not carry a Title VII mixed-motive standard into this catalogue. But-for does not mean race must be the sole factual cause. **CBOCS** recognizes retaliation even for advocacy of another person's racial contract rights. It therefore has a separate formula; Domino’s direct-discrimination own-contract condition is not mechanically added to protected advocacy. **Boxill** requires protected activity, defendant knowledge, material adversity and causation. Its pleading test does not excuse proof of the applicable ultimate but-for causal standard. General complaints unrelated to racial contractual rights are not automatically protected activity. **Jett**, implemented in **Boxill** and **Ridgell**, requires §1983 as the state-actor remedy; subsection (c) does not erase §1983's personal-involvement, municipal policy/custom or immunity rules. Ridgell's exoneration of the only alleged discriminator defeated municipal liability on that record. An individual winning on personal immunity or some unrelated procedural ground does not necessarily exonerate a municipality. ## Remedies and timing correction The rejected draft incorrectly made §1981a a general remedial source. [Official §1981a](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t42/s1981a/) instead governs specified employment-discrimination remedies and expressly preserves §1981 relief. **Bryant** confirms its §1981 punitive award was not subject to the Title VII cap, though culpability and constitutional constraints still mattered. Fees arise under §1988(b). Section 1981 money/equity remedies and §1983 state-actor remedies need their own legal bases and limits. The claim formulas describe merits and remedial route; limitations defenses apply separately to every claim rather than being repeated in each formula. Four years under §1658 applies to claims made possible by the 1991 amendments, as Jones and Bryant explain. Older causes generally borrow the relevant state personal-injury period; accrual and continuing-violation rules must match the cause. Bryant’s timely hostile-environment component did not establish that every old discrete act is actionable. An EEOC charge is not an imported prerequisite to a direct §1981 suit. ## Local opinion reading record Windows are Unicode character offsets into unmodified canonical IR text, not search-result excerpts. These are substantive reading windows, not claims to have read every opinion in full. Rule pins select intact holdings/tests from those windows. Case SHA-1 values pin the exact corpus version. - **[Domino’s Pizza v. McDonald, 546 U.S. 470 (2006)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/us/volume_546/0470_01/index.html)** (`/us/546/0470-01`), sha1 `1fd8723b1aeb06cd5c055f91acdf19b2b2d453ed`, 17353 characters. Read 0..4876; 6165..8765; 9625..12225; 13115..15715; rule pins 6665..7639, 14181..14591. Personal shareholder injuries did not create rights under corporation’s contract. Existing/proposed own contractual interest and racially caused impairment are necessary; postformation rights recognized after1991. - **[CBOCS West v. Humphries, 553 U.S. 442 (2008)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/us/volume_553/0442_01/index.html)** (`/us/553/0442-01`), sha1 `7873a4001f1716d2c2c65d2fe80c957c2051d9ff`, 58655 characters. Read 0..13761; 25226..25371; rule pins 25226..25305. Majority holds §1981 includes retaliation; case concerned manager complaining of another Black employee’s dismissal. Holding pin precedes Thomas dissent, which is not used as the rule. - **[Boxill v. O’Grady, 935 F.3d 510 (6th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_935/0510_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/935/0510-01`), sha1 `dfea3da6a402058d0732fea06d5a327790eca30a`, 20792 characters. Read 12763..14713; 14500..17500; rule pins 13207..13654, 14122..14517. State actors are sued via §1983 for §1981 rights; complaint lacked causal allegations tying protected complaints to materially adverse conduct. Later equal-protection hostile-environment discussion was not mislabeled as a §1981 holding. - **[Ridgell v. City of Pine Bluff, 935 F.3d 633 (8th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_935/0633_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/935/0633-01`), sha1 `2b0f55880b8427f39ac8208b3749ec5255b169c3`, 12402 characters. Read 0..1620; 2348..6233; rule pins 4620..5033. Municipal damages required discriminatory conduct by municipal actor; exoneration of mayor defeated city verdict on the specific theory/record. - **[Nelson v. USAble Mutual Insurance, 918 F.3d 990 (8th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_918/0990_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/918/0990-01`), sha1 `86dd01fe70d562b97d66c8b7d261d59fea87b1f3`, 10751 characters. Read 4056..7110; 5200..10100; rule pins 5165..5638. Promotion plaintiff did not rebut employer’s interview/experience reasons. Direct or circumstantial proof possible; pretext framework is not statutory text and is read subject to later Comcast. - **[Bryant v. Jeffrey Sand, 919 F.3d 520 (8th Cir. 2019)](https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/f3d/volume_919/0520_01/index.html)** (`/f3d/919/0520-01`), sha1 `18f0209ac11cb356a7ae489bc36a4d988eed4d74`, 18642 characters. Read 3771..8797; 14995..16945; rule pins 15361..15492, 16080..16182, 7164..8056. Racial hostile environment supported punitive damages, §1658 timing and fees. Title VII damages cap did not limit §1981; language analogizing punitive standards does not make §1981a the wholesale remedial source. ## Rejected research candidates and verification Harville (935 F.3d 404) was screened at 0..1646, 5854..7704 and 17704..19554: its motivating-factor treatment formulation predates Comcast and its appealed retaliation branch was Title VII. It is not used as the modern §1981 causation rule. Brown v. Kansas City Live (931 F.3d 712) was read at 1416..3266 and 5542..7009; it resolves state-judgment preclusion, not the statutory liability elements, and was not counted as a substantive rule source. `python3 neov2/tools/lawdsl.py check neov2/law/42usc1981.law`: initial baseline: 13 statutory quotes, 10 rule quotes, zero errors. Round 5 verification below supersedes these counts. Six relevant local opinions pinned. Independent claim-reference check passes. Source corpus remains read-only. This author record awaits separate QA2 review; targeted current primary-source checking is not a complete negative-treatment history for every circuit formulation. ## Round 5 re-audit (2026-11-10) Re-read complete canonical §1981 (0..1045), each existing rule attachment, and [official §1981](https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/t42/s1981/). The old display title overstated coverage of all statutory equal rights. The displayed title now specifies contractual rights and retaliation, and a 207..499 statutory anchor separately identifies the additional litigation/evidence, equal-benefit and punishment/exaction clauses. These noncontract theories and alienage remain outside the formulas; no blanket own-contract requirement is asserted for every clause in (a). Found a concrete missing judicial condition inside the existing scope: the employment variant mentioned hostile environment without the harassment threshold or attribution test. Added `hostile-environment`, conditionally linked to the employment variant by `hostile-route`, with [Castleberry's official Third Circuit opinion](https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/163131p.pdf), pp. 5–8. Read local `/f3d/863/0259-01` 0..9000; sha1 `7eca3735555b092e449d7df48922fcd7161d9d7c`, 21,335 chars. New exact rule pin 4811..5942 states severe **or** pervasive discrimination, subjective/objective detriment and employer attribution. It is not borrowed from Boxill's separate equal-protection discussion, nor from Bryant's punitive-damages standard. Attribution remains route- and defendant-specific; §1983 municipal limits remain intact. The old unanchored McDonnell Douglas gloss also wrongly said no cited case states the stages. [Nelson's official Eighth Circuit opinion](https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/19/03/181439P.pdf), pp. 3–4, does so. Added exact local paragraphs (5791..6935, split at canonical newlines) to the protocol. Its context-specific promotion prima facie case is not universalized, and [Comcast](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1171_4425.pdf) still supplies ultimate but-for causation. Judicial intent, causation, retaliation and state-remedy requirements are now identified in their displayed element names, without changing IDs. No wrong existing case pin was found: Domino's is the own-contract holding; CBOCS supplies retaliation; Boxill's 13207..13654 and 14122..14517 concern §1981/§1983 and retaliation; Bryant's 7164..8056 is limitations and its later pins concern remedies. No comparator checklist or Title VII mixed-motive standard was imported. Remaining limits: noncontract and alienage branches, detailed harassment attribution, circuit-specific retaliation causation/application, immunity and claim-specific remedies/limitations. See [R5-CIVIL.md](R5-CIVIL.md).