Word: thiboutot
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...governmental immunity. A boon to citizens, perhaps, but a threat to already overloaded dockets. In Owen vs. City of Independence, the court refused to allow municipalities to duck certain civil rights suits by trotting out the defense that their employees had acted in "good faith." Then, in Maine vs. Thiboutot, the Justices ruled that under a Reconstruction era act, individuals could sue a state or one of its officers if they claimed that their rights under any federal law (in this case, a welfare statute) had been violated. In addition, winning plaintiffs in those cases can now make defendants pick...
With eight children to support, Lionel and Joline Thiboutot could scarcely afford the reduction in federal welfare benefits required under Maine's new method of computing such payments. When their initial protests failed, the couple turned to the courts, and last week the Supreme Court ruled that Maine must pay them their benefits. In their 6-to-3 decision, the Justices broke new legal ground: they held that states can be sued under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 for violating a citizen's rights created under any federal statutes...
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