State actor

In United States law, a state actor is a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating certain rights and freedoms.

Although at first blush the term would seem to include only persons who are directly employed by the state, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted these amendments and laws passed pursuant to them to cover many persons who have only an indirect relationship with the government. Controversies have arisen, for example, over whether private companies that run towns (the "company-town") and prisons (traditionally a state function) can be held liable as state actors when they violate fundamental civil rights. This question remains unresolved, but the Supreme Court has held private citizens to be liable as state actors when they conspire with government officials to deprive people of their rights.

Conversely, in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Smith, the Supreme Court has found that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is not a state actor for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. 1983 because it was national, rather than acting on behalf of one state actor. For the purposes of a Bivens action, however, it might still be a state actor.[1]

The 1989 case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County was decided on the basis of the state action doctrine. Social workers separated a young son Joshua from his abusive father Randy, but concluded there was not enough evidence for a permanent separation, and later reunited son with father; later, the father beat his son into a persistent vegetative state. The Supreme Court ruled that despite involvement by state social workers, the state of Wisconsin was not a state actor and was therefore not responsible. Accordingly, the Fourteenth Amendment protections did not apply, according to constitutional scholar John E. Finn.

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