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Tag: Tort Law

Washington and Lee Law Review - Tort Law

Response

The Unqualified Mess of Qualified Immunity; A Doctrine Worth Overruling

by Allison Weiss

In his note, Ryan Johnson drills down on the various ways that courts within the Second Circuit are approaching the viability of § 1983 lawsuits by incarcerated individuals against supervisors within correctional facilities. But how important is supervisory liability in the first place? Qualified immunity allows courts, as Mr. Johnson puts it, to “cop-out” from engaging in difficult constitutional inquiries and instead dispose of the case by invoking the magical words: “the law is unclear.” Over the past thirty-five years, the Supreme Court has decided many qualified immunity cases, never seriously signaling a desire to reconsider its qualified immunity precedent. However, with the Supreme Court’s current trend of overruling its prior decisions, we can hope that the Court’s flawed qualified immunity jurisprudence is next on the chopping block.

This comment is a response to Ryan E. Johnson, Note, Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, McKenna, and the Confusing State of Supervisory Liability in the Second Circuit, 77 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 457 (2020), which received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

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Note

Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, McKenna, and the Confusing State of Supervisory Liability in the Second Circuit

by Ryan E. Johnson

This Note analyzes two intra-Second Circuit splits that make it nearly impossible for prisoners to recover against supervisors under § 1983. First, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether the five categories of personal involvement defined in Colon v. Coughlin survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Personal involvement by the supervisory defendant is a necessary element to impose supervisory liability. Some district courts hold that only the first and third Colon factors survive Iqbal, while others hold that all five factors still apply.

Second, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether a supervisor is personally involved in a constitutional tort when he or she rejects a prisoner’s grievance complaining of the misconduct. Some district courts always find personal involvement when a supervisor denies a grievance without considering any other factors. Other district courts only find personal involvement when a supervisor investigates the alleged misconduct or answers the grievance with a detailed response.

The Second Circuit must resolve both intra-circuit splits to give full effect to § 1983 because the disagreement allows district courts to dismiss claims on qualified immunity grounds. Government officials are immune from suit and “entitled to qualified immunity” if their actions “did not violate clearly established law.” District courts point to both of the intra-circuit splits as evidence that the law surrounding supervisory liability is not clearly established and therefore grant supervisory defendants qualified immunity.

The confusion surrounding supervisory liability in the Second Circuit perfectly encapsulates how legislatures and courts have quietly dismantled § 1983 as a viable cause of action for prisoners in recent years. Congress passed § 1983 with bold aspirations to punish oppressive government actors who abuse their power by infringing on individuals’ constitutional rights. Given how vulnerable prisoners are by virtue of their incarceration, § 1983 serves as one of the only practical tools they have to put them on equal footing with their government custodians. As the law currently stands in the Second Circuit, this tool is broken.

This Note received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

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Article

Adopting Civil Damages: Wrongful Family Separation in Adoption

by Malinda L. Seymore

The Trump Administration’s new immigration policy of family separation at the U.S./Mexico border rocked the summer of 2018. Yet family separation is the prerequisite to every legal adoption. The circumstances are different, of course. In legal adoption, the biological parents are provided with all the constitutional protections required in involuntary termination of parental rights, or they have voluntarily consented to family separation. But what happens when that family separation is wrongful, when the birth mother’s consent is not voluntary, or when the birth father’s wishes to parent are ignored? In theory, the child can be returned to the birth parents when consent is invalid because of fraud, coercion, or deceit. In actuality, courts are very reluctant to undo an adoption. How, then, to deter adoption agencies and workers from wrongfully separating birth parents and their children?

Adoption agencies are not just social welfare institutions, but also businesses motivated by money. Lawsuits, as a cost of doing business, can affect their bottom line. The adoption industry has been responsive in the past to lawsuits from adoptive parents seeking money damages, which suggests that lawsuits from birth parents that affect the bottom line could incentivize better behavior from adoption agencies. This Article explores possible tort causes of action available to birth parents, including a proposed new tort of wrongful family separation, with the long-term objective of changing adoption agency behavior, potentially transforming adoption practice.

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Response

A Few Thoughts on “If a Tree Falls in a Roadway . . . .”

by David Eggert

This Response to Ian McElhaney’s note examines (1) the background legal context that got us to where we are on falling-tree liability; (2) how this peculiar issue fits into Virginia’s general approach to the law; and (3) presents some thoughts on Mr. McElhaney’s reasoning and ultimate conclusions in urging liability for road maintainers.

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Response

In Search of a Unified Theory of the Duties Flowing from Property Ownership in Virginia: A Response to McElhaney’s If a Tree Falls

by E. Kyle McNew

In his Note, Ian McElhaney concludes that the Court got it right in Cline v. Dunlora South, LLC—that the landowner owes no duty to protect travelers on adjoining roadways from natural conditions on the landowner’s property—because the Court also got it right in Cline v. Commonwealth when it held that the Commonwealth of Virginia may have that duty instead. In the narrowest view, that is certainly a defensible position. If the case is just about natural conditions and roads, then there is intuitive appeal in saying that they are the Commonwealth’s roads; so, it is the Commonwealth’s job to make them safe for travel, which includes remediating dangerous conditions on adjoining property. It also makes perfect sense from a policy standpoint to say that the Commonwealth should shoulder that burden. This Response disagrees, however, that either of these are reasons to suggest that the Court got it right in Cline v. Dunlora South, LLC, primarily because that conclusion is premised upon viewing the case with too tight of a lens. Rather, the question—and thus the answer—should have been framed more broadly so as to provide guidance for a broader range of fact patterns.

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Note

If a Tree Falls in a Roadway, Is Anyone Liable?: Proposing the Duty of Reasonable Care for Virginia ’s Road-Maintaining Entities

by Ian J. McElhaney

This Note considers whether a duty for road-maintaining entities is tenable under Virginia law. It also explores the rationale for imposing differing liabilities between landowners and road-maintaining entities. Part III reviews the various duties other states use with respect to dangerous roadside trees and concludes that the duty of reasonable care is most appropriate for Virginia. Sovereign immunity is a companion issue and is addressed in Part IV. The Part provides a brief overview of the policy arguments for sovereign immunity, before reviewing immunity’s impact at the state, county, and municipal levels. The Part also addresses a government employee’s entitlement to immunity, before considering a potential legislative solution to some of the present difficulties associated with sovereign immunity. Finally, this Note reviews anticipated impacts in the world of litigation as a result of the duty of reasonable care, before addressing the legal and policy arguments of those who say the impact of such a duty would be negative.

* This Note received the 2018 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award, and was presented at the 2018 Student Notes Colloquium on October 4, 2018.

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