Doe v. McMillan

Petitioner
John Doe
Respondent
John L. McMillan
Petitioner's Claim
That U.S. Representatives, their staffs, and Government Printing Office officials should all be held liable for the distribution of a report defaming Washington, D.C. school children.
Chief Lawyers for Petitioner
Fred M. Vinson, William C. Cramer, David P. Sutton
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Michael Valder
Justices for the Court
William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
29 May 1973
Decision
The House members and their staff retain absolute immunity for their actions,but Government Printing Office officials do not.
Significance
Doe v. McMillan set important limits on immunity from civil liabilityfor government officials.
This case revolved around a 450-page report submitted to the Speaker of the House by a Special Select Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. The reportincluded a section on disciplinary problems in the Washington D.C. school system and contained absence sheets, lists of absentees, copies of test papers,and documents relating to disciplinary problems of certain specifically named students. When the report was made public, a group of parents of these school children sued for damages, claiming an invasion of privacy. The defendantsthey targeted included members of the House committee, committee employees,a committee investigator, the Public Printer, the Superintendent of Documents, and various employees of the school system. The case first went to U.S. District Court.
The Lower Court Rulings
The District Court sided with the defendants, dismissing all action by the parents. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed this decision, arguing that the House members and their staff were immune from lawsuits under the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution, while the District of Columbia officialsand the legislative employees were protected by the official immunity doctrine. Not content with this decision, the parents then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Ruling
On 29 May 1973 the Supreme Court issued its decision. By a narrow vote of 5-4, it affirmed the ruling of the Court of Appeals--but only with regard to thecongressmen, congressional staff, and committee employees. Justice White wrote the majority opinion, in which he was joined by Justices Marshall, Brennan, and Douglas. The remaining justices, Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Rehnquist, agreed with parts of the majority opinion but dissented on some points. The majority opinion rested on two main points.
Legislative Acts Immune From Suit
The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution grants members of Congress absolute immunity from civil suits arising from legislative activity. In this case, the Supreme Court held that none of the activity conducted by the congressmen or their staffs--from preparing the report to referring it to theHouse Speaker to voting for its publication--went beyond the bounds of legislative activity. Therefore, they could not be sued for invasion of privacy:

Petitioners argue that including in the record of the hearings and in the report itself materials describing particular conduct on the part of identified children was actionable because unnecessary and irrelevant to any legislative purpose . . . Although we might disagree with the Committee as to whether it was necessary, or even remotely useful, to include the names of individual children in the evidence submitted to the Committee and in the Committee Report, we have no authority to oversee the judgment of the Committee inthis respect or to impose liability on its Members if we disagree with theirlegislative judgment. The acts of authorizing an investigation pursuant to which the subject materials were gathered, holding hearings where the materialswere presented, preparing a report where they were reproduced, and authorizing the publication and distribution of that report were all "integral part[s]of the deliberative and communicative processes by which Members participatein committee and House proceedings with respect to the consideration and passage or rejection of proposed legislation or with respect to other matters which the Constitution places within the jurisdiction of either House." . . . As such, the acts were protected by the Speech or Debate Clause.

Dissemination of Report Not Immune
Next, the Court addressed the other defendants named in the suit: the Superintendent of Documents and the Public Printer. It held that these officials were not immune from suit, because their actions in disseminating the report were not protected under the Speech or Debate Clause:

[W]e cannot accept the proposition that in order to perform its legislative function Congress not only must at times consider and use actionable material but also mustbe free to disseminate it to the public at large, no matter how injurious toprivate reputation that material might be.

Finally, the Court considered the Court of Appeals ruling that the persons who disseminated the report were immune from suit under the "official immunitydoctrine," which protects public officials from bothersome lawsuits. This claim was dismissed as well:

Congress has conferred no express statutory immunity on the Public Printer or the Superintendent of Documents. Congress has not provided that these officials should be immune for printing and distributing materials where those who author the materials would not be . . .We conclude that, for the purposes of the judicially fashioned doctrine of immunity, the Public Printer and the Superintendent of Documents are no more free from suit in the case before us than would be a legislative aide who madecopies of the materials at issue and distributed them to the public at the direction of his superiors.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court ruled:

Because we think the Court of Appeals applied the immunities of the Speech or Debate Clause and of thedoctrine of official immunity too broadly, we must reverse its judgment andremand the case for appropriate further proceedings.

Related Cases

• Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367 (1951).
  
• Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564 (1959).
  
• Gravel v. United States, 408 U.S. 606 (1972).

Absolute Immunity
Although McMillan did not hinge on it, issues involving absolute immunity often relate to the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The Civil Rights Act, adopted during the violent days of Reconstruction, stated in part that "Every person who, under color of any statute . . . of any State or Territory . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . 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 . .. "
This language proved problematic for a number of reasons, including the issuethat led to the placement of absolute immunity provisions not in the legislation itself, but within courtrooms that reviewed these claims. In any numberof instances, an official acting in a legitimate capacity must deprive another citizen of rights: for instance, a judge who sentences a man to prison fora crime is certainly depriving that man--even if his guilt is proven beyond all reasonable doubt--of his right to freedom. Therefore in a series of decisions over the next century, the Supreme Court provided absolute immunity for legislators, judges, and various other types of officials, as long as they areacting in their prescribed official capacities.
Sources
West's Encyclopedia of American Law St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1998.