Civil Rights Actions: Enforcing the Constitution

This casebook provides the most complete treatment available of constitutional tort actions under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Bivens. The elaborate and increasingly controversial doctrines of official immunity are examined in detail, as is the possibility of direct governmental liability under Monell v. Dept. of Social Services. The Fifth Edition also provides complete coverage of the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Award Act and its implications for constitutional tort litigation. The book also explores the relation of 1983 to the Eleventh Amendment, to the potential overlap with federal habeas corpus, to the application of doctrines of preclusion, and to conflicts between state and federal law. It also provides an introduction to other Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts ( 1981, 1982, and 1985), to modern statutes such as Title VII and Title IX (which add sex discrimination to previously prohibited grounds of discrimination), and to structural reform litigation in schools and prisons.