Sour Apples

The Supreme Court bites back

Chief Justice Warren Burger has often complained about the overburdening of the nation's courts. They are being choked, he once observed, because "people tend to be less satisfied with one round of litigation and are demanding a second bite at the apple." The apple is now biting back. In two major decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to permit federal employees to bring damage suits against their superiors for violations of constitutional rights. In a third case, the court assessed a party for filing a frivolous appeal after repeated failures in lower courts.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against five Navy enlisted men, all of them black, who sued their officers on the U.S.S. Decatur. They claimed that because of their race they had received degrading assignments and had been unfairly disciplined. The court said the men should have sought corrective action within the military-justice system. "The special nature of military life," wrote Burger for the court, "would be undermined by a judicially created remedy exposing officers to personal liability."

The Justices also unanimously decided that federal civilian employees must rely on the "elaborate remedial system" of the civil service for redress of alleged arbitrary and illegal actions. They ruled against NASA Engineer William Bush, who claimed that he had been demoted in retaliation for his public complaints about the agency's management. Although the Civil Service Commission's appeals review board awarded Bush back pay and reinstatement, he sued his boss for damages for denying his right to free speech. In rejecting his appeal, the court noted that Bush had already been compensated for the injustice. Richard Redenius of the Merit Systems Protection Board, successor to the Civil Service Commission, was understandably pleased. Said he: "Congress appropriates $20 million a year to support the board. The court is saying, let the administrative process work."

The high court also did itself a favor. In a ruling that may make litigants think twice about wasting the justices' efforts on hopeless appeals, they implemented a 1980 rule for the first time. Former Student Elmo Tatum, in a series of unsuccessful legal maneuvers labeled "entirely without merit" by a lower court, sued the University of Nebraska on a housing grievance. In a terse order, not only did the court turn down his appeal, it made him pay $500 in damages. Although the amount was modest, the message seemed clear: the court appears to be getting tougher on what Justice Lewis Powell calls "the litigation explosion." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.