dictum

On the morning of November 26, 1965, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics entered Webster Bivens's apartment in the Bronx. The agents broke open the door, handcuffed Bivens in front of his wife and young children, and thoroughly searched the apartment. They then transported Bivens to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was interrogated, booked, and subjected to a visual strip search. Several days later Bivens was released on his own recognizance, and he was never indicted or prosecuted for any offense. Bivens filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the six agents in their individual capacities. His complaint sought fifteen thousand dollars in damages from each agent and alleged that the arrest and search were effected without a warrant, that unreasonable force was employed, and that the arrest was made without probable cause. Bivens claimed to have suffered great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering as a result of the agents' conduct. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment.

L. B. Sullivan is one of three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. He has duties including supervision of the Police Department. He brought this civil libel action against the New York Times Company and four individual petitioners who were Alabama clergymen. The suit sought $500,000 in damages based on a full-page advertisement entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices" that appeared in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. A jury in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County awarded Sullivan the full amount claimed against all petitioners. The Supreme Court of Alabama affirmed the judgment. The advertisement was signed by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. It described widespread non-violent demonstrations by Southern Negro students and an unprecedented wave of terror against them. Two paragraphs formed the basis of the claim. One alleged that after students sang on the State Capitol steps their leaders were expelled, truckloads of police ringed the Alabama State College Campus, and the dining hall was padlocked to starve students into submission. The other stated that Southern violators had bombed Dr. King's home, assaulted him, arrested him seven times, and charged him with perjury. The text appeared over the names of 64 persons. It was endorsed by the individual petitioners among others. Sullivan contended that the references to police referred to him in his supervisory capacity. Six Montgomery residents testified that they read the statements as referring to him. However, several statements were inaccurate. The students sang the National Anthem rather than "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." The expulsions were for a different incident. The dining hall was not padlocked. Dr. King had been arrested only four times. The bombings occurred before Sullivan's tenure with police efforts to apprehend the perpetrators. The Times published the advertisement for approximately $4800. It acted upon an order from a New York advertising agency. The agency provided a letter from A. Philip Randolph certifying authorization. The Times made no efforts to confirm its accuracy against its own news files. Sullivan served written demands for retraction on the petitioners pursuant to Alabama law. None of the individual petitioners responded as they had not authorized use of their names. The Times did not retract. It published a retraction only upon demand by Governor John Patterson after learning more facts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to the separate petitions of the individual petitioners and the Times due to the importance of the constitutional issues involved.

In early 1973, Mrs. Inez Moore received a notice of violation from the city of East Cleveland. The notice stated that her grandson John Moore, Jr., was an illegal occupant of her home. It directed her to comply with the housing ordinance. Mrs. Moore lived in her East Cleveland home together with her son Dale Moore, Sr., and her two grandsons Dale Moore, Jr., and John Moore, Jr. John came to live with her after his mother's death when he was less than one year old. When she failed to remove John from the home, the city filed a criminal charge against her. Mrs. Moore moved to dismiss the charge. She claimed that the ordinance was constitutionally invalid on its face. Her motion was overruled. Upon conviction she was sentenced to five days in jail and a $25 fine. The East Cleveland ordinance limited occupancy of a dwelling unit to members of a single family. The ordinance defined family to include only a husband or wife of the nominal head of the household, unmarried children of the head or spouse provided they have no children residing with them, a parent of the head or spouse, or not more than one dependent child of the head or spouse along with that child's spouse and dependent children. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction after giving full consideration to her constitutional claims. The Ohio Supreme Court denied review of the case. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction of her appeal.

In 1967 the Atomic Energy Commission granted Vermont Yankee a construction permit for a nuclear power plant in Vernon, Vermont, after the required adjudicatory hearing and reviews. Vermont Yankee later applied for an operating license; NRDC intervened and objected to exclusion of fuel-reprocessing and waste-disposal impacts from the hearing. In November 1972 the Commission opened a separate rulemaking proceeding on those fuel-cycle issues, noticed two alternative approaches based on its Environmental Survey, and conducted a February 1973 hearing at which more than forty participants submitted comments but no discovery or cross-examination occurred. In April 1974 the Commission adopted a rule assigning numerical values to fuel-cycle impacts and applied it prospectively. In January 1969 Consumers Power applied for permits to build two nuclear reactors in Midland, Michigan. After staff and ACRS review, Saginaw and Mapleton intervened and raised 119 environmental contentions, including seventeen on energy conservation. The Licensing Board held hearings on radiological issues, the staff issued a final environmental impact statement in March 1972, and further hearings occurred in May and June 1972; Saginaw declined to participate in the later hearings or submit proposed findings. The Licensing Board granted the construction permit, the Appeal Board affirmed, and the Commission declined further review. In November 1973 the Commission ruled in another case that energy-conservation evidence meeting threshold tests could be considered, but it later refused Saginaw's motion to reopen the Consumers Power record. NRDC appealed the Vermont Yankee license and rule to the D.C. Circuit; Saginaw and others appealed the Consumers Power permit. In 1976 the Court of Appeals remanded both matters, holding the fuel-cycle rulemaking procedures inadequate, the Consumers Power environmental impact statement defective for omitting energy conservation, and the ACRS report insufficiently explained. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1977. The Commission is the successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission under the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. All licensing proceedings followed the two-stage process of construction permit followed by operating license under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with NEPA environmental reviews added after 1969.