House v. Felder

The en banc review which we undertake today constitutes the second of its sort for this case. Our original en banc decision in this case was Easter House v. Felder, 879 F.2d 1458 (7th Cir. 1989). In that decision, we concluded that Easter House could not pursue a remedy under § 1983 for either of two alleged deprivations of property which purportedly resulted from actions taken by the appellants as employees of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. With regard to the first alleged deprivation, we held that Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S. Ct. 1908, 68 L. Ed. 2d 420 (1981) and its progeny precluded the imposition of § 1983 liability in that the appellants conduct was "random and unauthorized" and adequate state law remedies provided all the process which was due under the fourteenth amendment. A second alleged deprivation of property was dismissed in that Easter House had not identified a property interest of which it had been deprived. That decision, however, has been vacated by the Supreme Court and remanded for reexamination in light of Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 110 S. Ct. 975, 108 L. Ed. 2d 100 (1990). We have conducted that reexamination and conclude that our original en banc decision is consistent not only with the dictates of Parratt v. Taylor, but also with the holding in Zinermon. Accordingly, we modify our original en banc opinion to account for the Courts pronouncements in Zinermon, but reaffirm our previous disposition of these issues.