Ace Beverage Co. v. Lockheed Information Management Services

*1219 OPINION

This interlocutory appeal raises the question whether a private contractor acting under color of state law is entitled to qualified immunity from an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . We answer in the negative on the authority of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Richardson v. McKnight, — U.S. --, 117 S.Ct. 2100 , 138 L.Ed.2d 540 (1997).

BACKGROUND

Lockheed Information Management Services is a private corporation that processes parking tickets for' the City of Los Angeles. Its responsibilities include setting ticket disputes for trial. Ace Beverage Company and other plaintiffs, most of whom operate fleets of commercial vehicles, hired the law firm of Stanley and Shirwo to challenge their parking tickets. Stanley and Shirwo adopted the tactic of challenging every ticket in court; on one occasion, it set 100 tickets for trial.

In apparent retaliation, Lockheed heightened the requirements applied to Stanley and Shirwo’s clients for setting ticket disputes for trial. It had previously allowed all violators to set a case for trial by presenting either a copy of the ticket, a notice of a delinquent ticket, or a computer-generated list of parking tickets…