Vivian D. Redding v. Beverly St. Eward, Detroit Police Officer

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that when the “nature of the act performed” by a public official is “functionally equivalent to that of any private citizen,” she does not act under color of state law
• recognizing that St. Eward herself did not physically arrest, restrain, or attempt to restrain the intruder, nor did she direct the responding 911 officers either to arrest the would-be intruder or to act in any other manner
• explaining that “acting under color of state law” for purposes of § 1983 means that a defendant “exercised the power ‘possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law’”
• explaining that “acting under color of state law” for purposes of § 1983 means that a defendant “exercised the power ‘possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law’” (emphasis added)
• off-duty officer’s action in calling 911 to report a crime was “functionally equivalent to that of any private citizen calling for police assistance”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).