actual causation

In 1995 Samuel Mullet purchased land in Jefferson County, Ohio. That land became the Bergholz Amish community in 2001 when a sufficient number of ordained ministers qualified it as a separate Amish church district. The new community appointed Mullet as its bishop. As bishop, Mullet controlled all aspects of life in the Bergholz compound and had the ability to order the shunning of community members who failed to follow the tenets of their Amish faith. In 2006 Mullet excommunicated several church members who questioned Bergholz community practices and his leadership. Included in the group were Lavern and Mattie Troyer, whose son Aden was married to Mullet's daughter Wilma, as well as Melvin and Anna Shrock, whose son Emanuel was married to Mullet's daughter Linda. The excommunications led to family divisions, including a divorce and a custody dispute. Amish bishops from across the country met and voted unanimously to reverse the excommunications. From September 6 to November 9, 2011, several Bergholz community members committed five separate attacks on nine different individuals connected to the community by family or religious ties. The assailants sliced off the men's beards and cut the women's hair. The victims were seen as Amish hypocrites by the assailants. A federal grand jury indicted sixteen members of the Bergholz community for violating and conspiring to violate the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, as well as other charges. At trial, the government presented evidence that the assaults were motivated by the victims' religion, while the defendants presented evidence of personal and family disputes as alternative motives. The jury convicted all sixteen defendants of at least one hate-crime violation. The district court instructed the jury that the victims' religion need only be a significant motivating factor even if other reasons existed. The defendants twice requested a but-for causation instruction, which the court rejected. The defendants appealed their convictions to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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.

Two minors brought suit against Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, claiming they suffered limb reduction birth defects because their mothers had taken Bendectin, a drug prescribed for morning sickness to about 17.5 million pregnant women in the United States between 1957 and 1982. Limb reduction defects occur in fewer than one birth out of every 1000. Scientists do not know the mechanism by which any teratogen causes such defects. The plaintiffs offered testimony from three groups of experts. One group proposed to testify to a statistical link between Bendectin ingestion during pregnancy and limb reduction defects based on reanalyses of published studies that had reported no such association. A second group proposed to testify that Bendectin causes limb reduction defects in humans because it causes such defects in laboratory animals. A third group proposed to testify based on the similarity of Bendectin's chemical structure to other drugs suspected of causing birth defects. The district court granted summary judgment to Merrell Dow after excluding the plaintiffs' expert testimony. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, reversed, and remanded for consideration under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. On remand, the Ninth Circuit examined the affidavits and prior trial testimony of the plaintiffs' experts. None of the experts had studied the effect of Bendectin on limb reduction defects before being hired to testify in this or related cases. None had published his work on Bendectin in a scientific journal. The only review their work had received was by judges and juries. Plaintiffs' epidemiological experts made vague assertions of a statistically significant relationship between Bendectin and birth defects but did not state that the relative risk exceeded two. With the exception of Dr. Palmer, the remaining experts were willing to testify only that Bendectin is capable of causing birth defects. Dr. Palmer alone was willing to testify that Bendectin did cause the limb defects in each of the children, based on his review of the plaintiffs' medical records and his conclusion that Bendectin is a teratogen.

In July 1976, Dun & Bradstreet, a credit reporting agency that provides subscribers with confidential financial and related information about businesses under subscription agreements prohibiting further disclosure, sent a report to five subscribers stating that Greenmoss Builders, Inc., a construction contractor, had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. The report was false and grossly misrepresented respondent's assets and liabilities because the petition had actually been filed by one of Greenmoss's former employees. On the same day, Greenmoss's president learned of the report while discussing the possibility of future financing with the company's bank, immediately called Dun & Bradstreet's regional office to explain the error, requested a correction, and asked for the names of the firms that had received the report so he could assure them of the company's solvency. Dun & Bradstreet promised to investigate but refused to divulge the names. After confirming the report was inaccurate, it issued a corrective notice on or about August 3, 1976, to the five subscribers stating that a former employee had filed for bankruptcy and that Greenmoss continued in business as usual. Greenmoss expressed dissatisfaction with the notice and again requested the subscriber names, which Dun & Bradstreet again refused to provide. Greenmoss then brought a defamation action in Vermont state court alleging injury to its reputation and seeking compensatory and punitive damages. At trial, evidence established that the error had been caused by a 17-year-old high school student paid to review Vermont bankruptcy pleadings who inadvertently attributed the petition to Greenmoss, and that Dun & Bradstreet did not attempt to verify the information with the company before reporting it despite routine practice to do so. The jury awarded Greenmoss $50,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. The trial court granted Dun & Bradstreet's motion for a new trial due to dissatisfaction with its charge to the jury. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the trial court's grant of a new trial. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.