Also known as: government conduct · state action · government action
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Action taken by a government official or private party whose conduct is fairly attributable to the state under constitutional standards.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Greta Goldstein sued Galaxy Technologies for employment discrimination in state court. During jury selection Galaxy's counsel used peremptory challenges to remove all Black venire members. The court enforced the strikes under its supervision. Because jury selection is a public function performed with judicial participation the strikes counted as governmental conduct subject to equal protection limits.
Gavin Grant was injured when city paramedics followed an unwritten department policy that delayed response to his neighborhood. He sued the city under section 1983. The policy was adopted by municipal policymakers and therefore constituted governmental conduct that could support Monell liability.
Gabriella Gomez sought a physician's assistance to end her terminal illness. Washington criminalized the assistance. The statute represented governmental conduct that the Court evaluated for substantive due process protection of a claimed liberty interest.
Gustavo Gutierrez planned to publish an article exposing local corruption. State officials obtained an injunction barring distribution. The injunction was governmental conduct that triggered First Amendment scrutiny of prior restraints.
Georgia Gibbs sought a permit to operate a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. The city council denied the permit after neighborhood opposition. The denial was governmental conduct subject to equal protection review for irrational discrimination.
A private actor assaulted Gabriella Gomez. Congress enacted a civil remedy against the attacker. The statute was challenged as exceeding federal power because the underlying violence was not governmental conduct.
Private conduct counts as governmental conduct when it is fairly attributable to the state under tests such as the public function doctrine or symbiotic relationship analysis.
A public defender's malpractice does not constitute governmental conduct because the defender acts as an adversary rather than on behalf of the state.
Jury selection by a private litigant is governmental conduct because it occurs in a courtroom under judicial supervision and performs a traditional public function.
…This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to…