Howard Wyatt v. Bill Cole and John Robbins, Ii (504 U.S. 158)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 18, 1992 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 504 U.S. 158 · 112 S. Ct. 1827
- Decided
- May 18, 1992
- Term
- October Term 1991
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. In Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 467 U. S. 922 (1982), we left open the question whether private defendants charged with 42 U. S. C. § 1988 liability for invoking state replevin, garnishment, and attachment statutes later declared unconstitutional are entitled to qualified immunity from suit. 457 U. S., at 942, n. 23. We now hold that they are not. I This dispute arises out of a soured cattle partnership. In July 1986, respondent Bill Cole sought to dissolve his partnership with petitioner Howard Wyatt. When no agreement could be reached, Cole, with the assistance of an attorney, respondent John Robbins II, filed a state court complaint in replevin against Wyatt, accompanied by a re-plevin bond of $18,000. At that time, Mississippi law provided that an individual could obtain a court order for seizure of property possessed by another by posting a bond and swearing to a state court that the applicant was entitled to that property and that the adversary “wrongfully took and detained] or wrongfully detain[ed]” the property. 1975 Miss. Gen. Laws, ch. 508, § 1. The statute gave the judge no discretion to deny a writ of replevin. After Cole presented a complaint and bond, the court ordered the county sheriff to seize 24 head of cattle, a tractor, and certain other personal property from Wyatt. Several months later, after a…
Excerpt of a 20,683-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.