nominal damages

Respondent Jarius Piphus was a freshman at Chicago Vocational High School during the 1973-1974 school year. On January 23, 1974, during school hours, the school principal saw Piphus and another student standing outdoors on school property passing back and forth what the principal described as an irregularly shaped cigarette. The principal approached the students unnoticed and smelled what he believed was the strong odor of burning marihuana. He also saw Piphus try to pass a packet of cigarette papers to the other student. When the students became aware of the principal’s presence, they threw the cigarette into a nearby hedge. The principal took the students to the school’s disciplinary office and directed the assistant principal to impose the usual 20-day suspension for violation of the school rule against the use of drugs. Piphus was allowed to remain at school, although not in class, for the remainder of the school day while the assistant principal tried without success to reach his mother. A suspension notice was sent to Piphus’ mother, and a few days later two meetings were arranged among Piphus, his mother, his sister, school officials, and representatives from a legal aid clinic. The purpose of the meetings was not to determine whether Piphus had been smoking marihuana, but rather to explain the reasons for the suspension. Following an unfruitful exchange of views, Piphus and his mother as guardian ad litem filed suit against petitioners in Federal District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and its jurisdictional counterpart 28 U.S.C. § 1343. Piphus was readmitted to school under a temporary restraining order after eight days of his suspension. Respondent Silas Brisco was in the sixth grade at Clara Barton Elementary School in Chicago during the 1973-1974 school year. On September 11, 1973, Brisco came to school wearing one small earring. The previous school year, the school principal had issued a rule against the wearing of earrings by male students because he believed that this practice denoted membership in street gangs and increased the likelihood that gang members would terrorize other students. Brisco was reminded of this rule, but he refused to remove the earring, asserting that it was a symbol of black pride, not of gang membership. The assistant principal talked to Brisco’s mother, advising her that her son would be suspended for 20 days if he did not remove the earring. Brisco’s mother supported her son’s position, and a 20-day suspension was imposed. Brisco and his mother as guardian ad litem filed suit in Federal District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343. The complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief together with actual and punitive damages in the amount of $5,000. Brisco was readmitted to school during the pendency of proceedings for a preliminary injunction after 17 days of his suspension. Piphus’ and Brisco’s cases were consolidated for trial and submitted on stipulated records. The District Court held that both students had been suspended without procedural due process. The District Court also held that petitioners were not entitled to qualified immunity from damages under the second branch of Wood v. Strickland because they should have known that a lengthy suspension without any adjudicative hearing of any type would violate procedural due process. The District Court declined to award damages because plaintiffs put no evidence in the record to quantify their damages and the record is completely devoid of any evidence which could even form the basis of a speculative inference measuring the extent of their injuries. The court also stated that the students were entitled to declaratory relief and to deletion of the suspensions from their school records but for reasons that are not apparent the court failed to enter an order to that effect and instead simply dismissed the complaints. No finding was made as to whether respondents would have been suspended if they had received procedural due process. On respondents’ appeal the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded. It first held that the District Court erred in not granting declaratory and injunctive relief. It also held that the District Court should have considered evidence submitted by respondents after judgment that tended to prove the pecuniary value of each day of school that they missed while suspended. The court said however that respondents would not be entitled to recover damages representing the value of missed school time if petitioners showed on remand that there was just cause for the suspensions and that therefore respondents would have been suspended even if a proper hearing had been held. Finally the Court of Appeals held that even if the District Court found on remand that respondents’ suspensions were justified they would be entitled to recover substantial non-punitive damages simply because they had been denied procedural due process. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether in an action under § 1983 for the deprivation of procedural due process a plaintiff must prove that he actually was injured by the deprivation before he may recover substantial non-punitive damages.

In 1968, Chicago police officer Richard Nuccio shot and killed a youth named Nelson. State authorities prosecuted Nuccio and obtained a conviction for second-degree murder. The Nelson family retained petitioner Elmer Gertz, a Chicago attorney, to represent them in civil litigation against Nuccio. Respondent Robert Welch, Inc., publishes American Opinion, a monthly magazine expressing the views of the John Birch Society. In March 1969, the magazine published an article titled "FRAME-UP: Richard Nuccio And The War On Police." The article accused Gertz of participating in a Communist conspiracy to discredit local law enforcement, described him as a "Leninist" and "Communist-fronter," and claimed he had been an officer of the National Lawyers Guild, which it portrayed as a Communist organization involved in planning attacks on Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic Convention. The article contained numerous inaccuracies, including the false implication that Gertz had a criminal record. Gertz had served as an officer of the National Lawyers Guild approximately fifteen years earlier but had no involvement in planning the 1968 demonstrations. He had never been a member of the Marxist League for Industrial Democracy or the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. The managing editor of American Opinion made no effort to verify the charges against Gertz before publication and appended an editorial introduction stating that the author had conducted extensive research. Gertz filed a diversity action for libel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The district court ruled that the statements constituted libel per se under Illinois law. After a trial, the jury awarded Gertz $50,000 in compensatory damages. The district court later entered judgment for the defendant notwithstanding the verdict, applying the New York Times standard. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the application of constitutional standards to defamation of a private individual.