Marcus A. Roberts, et al. v. AT&T Mobility LLC

The state action doctrine holds that violations of many constitutional rights can be challenged in court only if the violation is committed by or attributable to the Government. This Court has used two disparate approaches for determining whether state action exists in cases where laws enacted by the Government permit private parties to violate other citizens’ constitutional rights. In a facial challenge to the constitutionality of a federal statute that authorized—but did not mandate—alleged private First Amendment violations, the Court held that the statute itself was state action and that whether the private infringers were state actors was irrelevant. Denver Area Educ. Telecomm. Consortium, Inc. v. FCC, 518 U.S. 727 (1996). Three years later, without mentioning Denver Area, the Court held in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action that a state statute that authorized—but did not mandate—alleged private due process violations was not state action and could not be challenged unless the private infringers were state actors. Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999). Petitioners here directly challenged a federal law that they allege authorizes private entities to violate their First Amendment rights. The lower courts applied American Manufacturers rather than Denver Area and denied Petitioners’ challenge because the private defendant is not a state actor. It is undisputed that those rulings effectively immunize the law at issue from judicial constitutional scrutiny. The questions presented are: