JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution provides in part:
Because the Amendment is directed at the States, it can be violated only by conduct that may be fairly characterized as "state action."
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides a remedy for deprivations of rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States when that deprivation takes place "under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory . . . ."
I
In 1977, petitioner, a lessee-operator of a truckstop in Virginia, was indebted to his supplier, Edmondson Oil Co., Inc. Edmondson sued on the debt in Virginia state court. Ancillary to that action and pursuant to state law, Edmondson sought prejudgment attachment of certain of petitioner's property. Va. Code § 8.01-533 (1977).
Petitioner subsequently brought this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against Edmondson and its president. His complaint alleged that in attaching his property respondents had acted jointly with the State to deprive him of his property without due process of law. The lower courts construed the complaint as alleging a due process violation both from a misuse of the Virginia procedure and from the statutory procedure itself.
Relying on Flagg Brothers, Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149 (1978), the District Court held that the alleged actions of the respondents did not constitute state action as required by the Fourteenth Amendment and that the complaint therefore did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted under § 1983. Petitioner appealed; the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed, with three dissenters.
The court distinguished between the acts directly chargeable to respondents and the larger context within which those acts occurred, including the direct levy by state officials on petitioner's property. While the latter no doubt amounted to state action, the former was not so clearly action under color of state law. The court held that a private party acts under color of state law within the meaning of § 1983 only when there is a usurpation or corruption of official power by the private litigant or a surrender of judicial power to the private litigant in such a way that the independence of the enforcing officer has been compromised to a significant degree. Because the court thought none of these elements was present here, the complaint failed to allege conduct under color of state law.
Because this construction of the under-color-of-state-law requirement appears to be inconsistent with prior decisions of this Court, we granted certiorari. 452 U.S. 937 (1981).
II
Although the Court of Appeals correctly perceived the importance of Flagg Brothers to a proper resolution of this case,
As we see it, however, the two concepts cannot be so easily disentangled. Whether they are identical or not, the state-action and the under-color-of-state-law requirements are obviously related.
A
In United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 794, n. 7 (1966), we explicitly stated that the requirements were identical: "In cases under § 1983, `under color' of law has consistently been treated as the same thing as the `state action' required under the Fourteenth Amendment."
Similarly, it is clear that in a § 1983 action brought against a state official, the statutory requirement of action "under color of state law" and the "state action" requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment are identical. The Court's conclusion in United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941), that "[m]isuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken `under color of' state law," was founded on the rule announced in Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339, 346-347 (1880), that the actions of a state officer who exceeds the limits of his authority constitute state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Plaintiffs' case foundered on the first requirement. Because a due process violation was alleged and because the Due Process Clause protects individuals only from governmental and not from private action, plaintiffs had to demonstrate that the sale of their goods was accomplished by state action. The Court concluded that the sale, although authorized by state law, did not amount to state action under the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore set aside the Court of Appeals' contrary judgment.
There was no reason in Flagg Brothers to address the question whether there was action under color of state law. The Court expressly eschewed deciding whether that requirement was satisfied by private action authorized by state law. Id., at 156. Although the state-action and under-color-of-state-law requirements are "separate areas of inquiry," Flagg Brothers did not hold nor suggest that state action, if present, might not satisfy the § 1983 requirement of conduct under color of state law. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals relied on Flagg Brothers to conclude in this case that state action under the Fourteenth Amendment is not necessarily action under color of state law for purposes of § 1983. We do not agree.
The two-part approach to a § 1983 cause of action, referred to in Flagg Brothers, was derived from Adickes v.
B
The decision of the Court of Appeals is difficult to reconcile with the Court's garnishment and prejudgment attachment cases and with the congressional purpose in enacting § 1983.
Beginning with Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969), the Court has consistently held that constitutional requirements of due process apply to garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures whenever officers
Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972), was a § 1983 action brought against both a private creditor and the State Attorney General. The plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief, on due process grounds, from continued enforcement of state statutes authorizing prejudgment replevin. The plaintiff prevailed; if the Court of Appeals were correct in this case, there would have been no § 1983 cause of action against the private parties. Yet they remained parties, and judgment ran against them in this Court.
To read the "under color of any statute" language of the Act in such a way as to impose a limit on those Fourteenth Amendment violations that may be redressed by the § 1983 cause of action would be wholly inconsistent with the purpose of § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, from which § 1983 is derived. The Act was passed "for the express purpose of `enforc[ing] the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.' " Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U.S. 538, 545 (1972). The history of the Act is replete with statements indicating that Congress thought it was creating a remedy as broad as the protection that the Fourteenth Amendment affords the individual. Perhaps the most direct statement of this was that of Senator Edmunds, the manager of the bill in the Senate: "[Section 1 is] so very simple and really reenact[s] the Constitution." Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 569 (1871). Representative Bingham similarly stated that the bill's purpose was "the enforcement . . . of the Constitution on behalf of every individual citizen of the Republic. . . to the extent of the rights guarantied to him by the Constitution." Id., App. 81.
III
As a matter of substantive constitutional law the state-action requirement reflects judicial recognition of the fact that "most rights secured by the Constitution are protected only against infringement by governments," Flagg Brothers, 436 U. S., at 156. As the Court said in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 349 (1974):
Careful adherence to the "state action" requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed. A major consequence is to require the courts to respect the limits of
Our cases have accordingly insisted that the conduct allegedly causing the deprivation of a federal right be fairly attributable to the State. These cases reflect a two-part approach to this question of "fair attribution." First, 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. In Sniadach, Fuentes, W. T. Grant, and North Georgia, for example, a state statute provided the right to garnish or to obtain prejudgment attachment, as well as the procedure by which the rights could be exercised. Second, the party charged with the deprivation must be a person who may fairly be said to be a state actor. This may be because he is a state official, because he has acted together with or has obtained significant aid from state officials, or because his conduct is otherwise chargeable to the State. Without a limit such as this, private parties could face constitutional litigation whenever they seek to rely on some state rule governing their interactions with the community surrounding them.
Although related, these two principles are not the same. They collapse into each other when the claim of a constitutional deprivation is directed against a party whose official character is such as to lend the weight of the State to his decisions. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 172 (1961). The two principles diverge when the constitutional claim is directed against a party without such apparent authority, i. e., against a private party. The difference between the two inquiries is well illustrated by comparing Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163 (1972), with Flagg Brothers, supra.
In Moose Lodge, the Court held that the discriminatory practices of the appellant did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because those practices did not constitute "state action." The Court focused primarily on the question of
In other words, the decision to discriminate could not be ascribed to any governmental decision; those governmental decisions that did affect Moose Lodge were unconnected with its discriminatory policies.
Flagg Brothers focused on the other component of the state-action principle. In that case, the warehouseman proceeded under New York Uniform Commercial Code, § 7-210, and the debtor challenged the constitutionality of that provision on the grounds that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Undoubtedly the State was responsible for the statute. The response of the Court, however, focused not on the terms of the statute but on the character of the defendant to the § 1983
IV
Turning to this case, the first question is whether the claimed deprivation has resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority. The second question is whether, under the facts of this case, respondents, who are private parties, may be appropriately characterized as "state actors."
Petitioner presented three counts in his complaint. Count three was a pendent claim based on state tort law; counts one and two claimed violations of the Due Process Clause. Count two alleged that the deprivation of property resulted from respondents' "malicious, wanton, willful, opressive [sic], [and] unlawful acts." By "unlawful," petitioner apparently meant "unlawful under state law." To say this, however, is to say that the conduct of which petitioner complained could not be ascribed to any governmental decision; rather, respondents were acting contrary to the relevant policy articulated by the State. Nor did they have the authority of state officials to put the weight of the State behind their private decision, i. e., this case does not fall within the abuse of authority doctrine recognized in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961). That respondents invoked the statute without the grounds to do so could in no way be attributed to a state rule or a state decision. Count two, therefore, does not state a cause of action under § 1983 but challenges only private action.
Count one is a different matter. That count describes the procedures followed by respondents in obtaining the prejudgment attachment as well as the fact that the state court subsequently ordered the attachment dismissed because respondents had not met their burden under state law. Petitioner
While private misuse of a state statute does not describe conduct that can be attributed to the State, the procedural scheme created by the statute obviously is the product of state action. This is subject to constitutional restraints and properly may be addressed in a § 1983 action, if the second element of the state-action requirement is met as well.
As is clear from the discussion in Part II, we have consistently held that a private party's joint participation with state officials in the seizure of disputed property is sufficient to characterize that party as a "state actor" for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. The rule in these cases is the same as that articulated in Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., supra, at 152, in the context of an equal protection deprivation:
In summary, petitioner was deprived of his property through state action; respondents were, therefore, acting under color of state law in participating in that deprivation. Petitioner did present a valid cause of action under § 1983 insofar as he challenged the constitutionality of the Virginia statute; he did not insofar as he alleged only misuse or abuse of the statute.
The judgment is reversed in part and affirmed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
Whether we are dealing with suits under § 1983 or suits brought pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, in my view the inquiry is the same: is the claimed infringement of a federal right fairly attributable to the State. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, ante, at 838. Applying this standard, it cannot be said that the actions of the named respondents are fairly attributable to the State.
Today's decision is a disquieting example of how expansive judicial decisionmaking can ensnare a person who had every reason to believe he was acting in strict accordance with law. The case began nearly five years ago as the outgrowth of a simple suit on a debt in a Virginia state court. Respondent — a small wholesale oil dealer in Southside, Va. — brought suit against petitioner Lugar, a truckstop owner who had failed to pay a debt.
Following this decision Lugar instituted legal action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. Suing under a federal statute, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, Lugar alleged that the respondent — by filing a petition in state court — had acted "under color of law" and had caused the deprivation of constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment — an Amendment that does not create rights enforceable against private citizens, such as one would have assumed respondent to be, but only against the States. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, ante, at 837; Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 156 (1978); Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 13 (1948); Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 11 (1883).
This Court today reverses the judgment of those lower courts. It holds that respondent, a private citizen who did no more than commence a legal action of a kind traditionally initiated by private parties, thereby engaged in "state action." This decision is as unprecedented as it is implausible. It is plainly unjust to the respondent, and the Court makes no
I
The plain language of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 establishes that a plaintiff must satisfy two jurisdictional requisites to state an actionable claim. First, he must allege the violation of a right "secured by the Constitution and laws" of the United States. Because "most rights secured by the Constitution are protected only against infringement by governments," Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S., at 156, this requirement compels an inquiry into the presence of state action. Second, a § 1983 plaintiff must show that the alleged deprivation was caused by a person acting "under color" of law. In Flagg Bros., this Court affirmed that "these two elements denote two separate areas of inquiry." Id., at 155-156. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 152 (1970).
This case demonstrates why separate inquiries are required. Here it is not disputed that the Virginia Sheriff and Clerk of Court, the state officials who sequestered petitioner's property in the manner provided by Virginia law, engaged in state action. Yet the petitioner, while alleging constitutional injury from this action by state officials, did not sue the State or its agents. In these circumstances the Court of Appeals correctly stated that the relevant inquiry was the second identified in Flagg Bros.: whether the respondent, a private citizen whose only action was to invoke a presumptively valid state attachment process, had acted under color of state law in "causing" the State to deprive petitioner
Rejecting the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, the Court opinion inexplicably conflates the two inquiries mandated by Flagg Bros. Ignoring that this case involves two sets of actions — one by respondent, who merely filed a suit and accompanying sequestration petition; another by the state officials, who issued the writ and executed the lien — it wrongly frames the question before the Court, not as whether the private respondent acted under color of law in filing the petition, but as "whether . . . respondents, who are private parties, may be appropriately characterized as `state actors.' " Ante, at 939. It then concludes that they may, on the theory that a private party who invokes "the aid of state officials to take advantage of state-created attachment procedures" is a "joint participant" with the State and therefore a "state actor." "The rule," the Court asserts, is as follows:
II
As this Court recognized in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 172 (1961), the historic purpose of § 1983 was to prevent state officials from using the cloak of their authority under state law to violate rights protected against state infringement by the Fourteenth Amendment.
It of course is true that respondent's private action was followed by state action, and that the private and the state actions were not unconnected. But "[t]hat the State responds to [private] actions by [taking action of its own] does not render it responsible for those [private] actions." Blum v. Yaretsky, post, at 1005. See Flagg Bros., 436 U. S., at 164-165; Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 357 (1974). And where the State is not responsible for a private decision to behave in a certain way, the private action generally cannot be considered "state action" within the meaning of our cases. See, e. g., Blum v. Yaretsky, post, at 1004-1005; Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163, 172-173 (1972). As in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, "[r]espondent's exercise of the choice allowed by state law where
This Court of course has held that private parties are amenable to suit under § 1983 when "jointly engaged" with state officials in the violation of constitutional rights. See Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970).
As illustrated by this quotation, our cases have recognized a distinction between "state action" and private action under "color of law." This distinction is sound in principle. It also is consistent with and supportive of the distinction between "private" conduct and government action that is subject to the procedural limitations of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Court itself notes: "Careful adherence to the `state action' requirement preserves an area of individual freedom by limiting the reach of federal law and federal judicial power. It also avoids imposing on the State, its agencies or officials, responsibility for conduct for which they cannot fairly be blamed." Ante, at 936.
A "color of law" inquiry acknowledges that private individuals, engaged in unlawful joint behavior with state officials, may be personally responsible for wrongs that they cause to occur. But it does not confuse private actors with the
III
Contrary to the position of the Court, our cases do not establish that a private party's mere invocation of state legal procedures constitutes "joint participation" or "conspiracy" with state officials satisfying the § 1983 requirement of action under color of law. In Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24 (1980), we held that private parties acted under color of law when corruptly conspiring with a state judge in a joint scheme to defraud. In so holding, however, we explicitly stated that "merely resorting to the courts and being on the winning side of a lawsuit does not make a party a co-conspirator or a joint actor with the judge." Id., at 28. This conclusion is reinforced by our more recent decision in Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312 (1981). As we held to be true with respect to the defense of a criminal defendant, invocation of state legal process is "essentially a private function. . . for which state office and authority are not needed." Id., at 319. These recent decisions make clear that independent, private decisions made in the context of litigation cannot be said to occur under color of law.
A
The Court argues that petitioner's action under § 1983 is supported by cases in which this Court has applied due process standards to state garnishment and prejudgment attachment procedures. The Court relies specifically on Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337 (1969); Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67 (1972); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U.S. 600 (1974); and North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U.S. 601 (1975). According to the Court, these cases establish that a private party acts "under color" of law when seeking the attachment of property under an unconstitutional state statute.
Of the cases cited by the Court, Sniadach, Mitchell, and Di-Chem all involved attacks on the validity of state attachment or garnishment statutes. None of the cases alleged that the private creditor was a joint actor with the State, and none involved a claim for damages against the creditor. Each case involved a state suit, not a federal action under § 1983. It therefore was unnecessary in any of these cases for this Court to consider whether the creditor, by virtue of instituting the attachment or garnishment, became a state actor or acted under color of state law. There is not one word in any of these cases that so characterizes the private creditor.
B
In addition to relying on cases involving the constitutionality of state attachment and garnishment statutes, the Court advances a "joint participation" theory based on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970). In Adickes the plaintiff sued a private restaurant under § 1983, alleging a conspiracy between the restaurant and local police to deprive her of the right to equal treatment in a place of public accommodation. Id., at 152, 153. Reversing the decision below, this Court upheld the cause of action. It found that the private defendant, in "conspiring" with local police to obtain official enforcement of a state custom of racial segregation, engaged in a " `joint activity with the State or its agents' "
Contrary to the suggestion of the Court, however, Justice Harlan's Court opinion in Adickes did not purport to define the term "under color of law." Attending closely to the facts presented, the Court observed that "[w]hatever else may also be necessary to show that a person has acted `under color of [a] statute' for purposes of ″ 1983, . . . we think it essential that he act with the knowledge of and pursuant to that statute." 398 U. S., at 162, n. 23 (emphasis added). As indicated by this choice of language, the Court clearly seems to have contemplated some limiting principle. A citizen summoning the police to enforce the law ordinarily would not be considered to have engaged in a "conspiracy." Nor, presumably, would such a citizen be characterized as acting under color of law and thereby risking amenability to suit for constitutional violations that subsequently might occur. Surely there is nothing in Adickes to indicate that the Court would have found action under color of law in cases of this kind.
Although Adickes is distinguishable from these hypotheticals, the current case is not. The conduct in Adickes occurred in 1964, 10 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and after the decade of publicized litigation that followed in its wake. In view of the intense national focus on issues of racial discrimination, it is virtually inconceivable that a private citizen then could have acted in the innocent belief that the state law and customs involved in Adickes still were presumptively valid. As Justice Harlan wrote, "[f]ew principles of law are more firmly stitched into our constitutional fabric than the proposition that a State must not discriminate against a person because of his race or the race of his companions, or in any way act to compel or encourage segregation." 398 U. S., at 150-152. Construed as resting on this basis, Adickes establishes that a private
Today's decision therefore is as unprecedented as it is unjust.
FootNotes
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
JUSTICE BRENNAN, writing separately, did suggest in Adickes that "when a private party acts alone, more must be shown . . . to establish that he acts `under color of' a state statute or other authority than is needed to show that his action constitutes state action." Id., at 210 (footnote omitted). Even in his view, however, when a private party acts in conjunction with a state official, whatever satisfies the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment satisfies the under-color-of-state-law requirement of the statute. JUSTICE BRENNAN's position rested, at least in part, on a much less strict standard of what would constitute "state action" in the area of racial discrimination than that adopted by the majority. In any case, the position he articulated there has never been adopted by the Court.
Nor is our decision today inconsistent with Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312 (1981). In Polk County, we held that a public defender's actions, when performing a lawyer's traditional functions as counsel in a state criminal proceeding, would not support a § 1983 suit. Although we analyzed the public defender's conduct in light of the requirement of action "under color of state law," we specifically stated that it was not necessary in that case to consider whether that requirement was identical to the "state action" requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment: "Although this Court has sometimes treated the questions as if they were identical, see United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 794, and n. 7 (1966), we need not consider their relationship in order to decide this case." Id., at 322, n. 12. We concluded there that a public defender, although a state employee, in the day-to-day defense of his client, acts under canons of professional ethics in a role adversarial to the State. Accordingly, although state employment is generally sufficient to render the defendant a state actor under our analysis, infra, at 937, it was "peculiarly difficult" to detect any action of the State in the circumstances of that case. 454 U. S., at 320. In Polk County, we also rejected respondent's claims against governmental agencies because he "failed to allege any policy that arguably violated his rights under the Sixth, Eighth, or Fourteenth Amendments." Id., at 326. Because respondent failed to challenge any rule of conduct or decision for which the State was responsible, his allegations would not support a claim of state action under the analysis proposed below. Infra, at 937. Thus, our decision today does not suggest a different outcome in Polk County.
"[t]he claim is that the action as taken, even if it were just line by line in accordance with Virginia law — whether or not they did it right, the claim is that it was in violation of Lugar's constitutional rights." Id., at 19.
"We intimate no views concerning the relief that might be appropriate if a violation is shown. The parties have not briefed these remedial issues, and if a violation is proved they are best explored in the first instance below in light of the new record that will be developed on remand. Nor do we mean to determine at this juncture whether there are any defenses available to defendants in § 1983 actions like the one at hand. Cf. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967)" (citations omitted).
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
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