Constitutional Torts. This item is unavailable.Constitutional Torts

This casebook emphasizes important circuit court decisions together with relevant Supreme Court case law. This enables students to see how principles articulated in Supreme Court decisions are implemented by lower courts. Constitutional Torts also addresses affirmative duties, constitutional tort actions in state courts, and attorney's fees. Further, this book is organized around the statutory language of section 1983, thereby driving home the crucial distinction between prima facie cases and constitutional tort immunities and defenses. The Second Edition of Constitutional Torts builds on the original work in a number of important ways:The Second Edition includes both the most recent Supreme Court opinions and extensive coverage of lower court decisions. Studying circuit and district court decisions is crucial to understanding the developing law of § 1983, because (a) they show how general principles of law pronounced by the Supreme Court are actually applied; (b) the Supreme Court rarely visits some important aspects of the doctrine; and (c) in this dynamic area of the law, the lower courts are the first to identify new issues and new ways of approaching old problems.The Second Edition gives expanded coverage of the substantive constitutional claims that provide the basis for most § 1983 claims. For example, the Second Edition includes materials addressing the content of the terms "liberty" and "property" in the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment retaliation claims of government employees, and the Fourth, Fourteenth, and Eighth Amendment claims of persons alleging they were victims of excessive force by law enforcement officials. It is especially important to cover these materials in a § 1983 book, since they are largely ignored in standard constitutional law casebooks