Engblom v. Carey, 677 F.2d 957 (2d Cir. 1982), is a landmark decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit interpreting the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution for the first time. It is notable for being one of the few significant court decisions to interpret the Third Amendment prohibition of quartering soldiers in homes during peacetime without the owner's consent. The dispute covered the housing of the National Guard in worker dorms while they were acting as prison workers during a strike.
In a 2–1 decision by a three-judge panel, Engblom articulated three principles that apply to challenges under the Third Amendment. First: national guardsmen are considered soldiers for Third Amendment claim. This holding extends Third Amendment protections beyond federal armed forces such as the army to include the state-regulated militia. Second: the Third Amendment is incorporated and thus applies to individual states as well as the federal government. This holding extends Third Amendment protections beyond federal use of the National Guard to include state use of the National Guard. Third: the protections of the Third Amendment apply beyond fee simple homeownership. This holding interprets the Third Amendment as protecting those who have general control over access to a property. The panel determined the correctional officers were tenants (with that general control) and remanded the case back to the district court. However, the court ruled in the defendants' favor based on qualified immunity.
The Third Amendment remains one of the least cited sections of the Constitution in United States case law, and it has never provided the primary basis for a Supreme Court decision. As a decision of the Second Circuit, Engblom v. Carey is only binding precedent in New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, but its general implications have been considered by legal scholars.
Legal background
The Third Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the quartering of soldiers in homes. While the relevance of the Third Amendment in modern times is limited, at the time the Constitution was ratified, quartering of soldiers was a major issue. In the colonial period, whenever Britain would launch a military operation in North America, their soldiers needed to be housed. This burden fell to the American colonies, and often soldiers would be quartered in private homes. This caused tension as early as 1676, and in 1683 the New York Assembly's Charter of Liberties and Privileges responded by prohibiting the quartering of soldiers in private homes during peacetime. The problem continued during the French and Indian War, and after its conclusion, the British parliament passed the Quartering Acts which shifted onto the colonies the burden of quartering a standing army in peacetime. Ultimately, the quartering of troops proved too onerous, and in the Declaration of Independence, the revolutionaries cited the quartering of troops as a reason for independence. By the end of the Revolutionary War, three states had passed declarations of rights that prohibited the quartering of troops like New York's 1683 resolution.
During the ratification of the Constitution, the lack of a bill of rights—including the right to be free from quartering soldiers—was a point of contention between federalists and anti-federalists. Federalists favored the quartering prohibitions in state constitutions, while anti-federalists proposed a stronger, nation-wide prohibition. From this debate, three versions of the third amendment were proposed. The first—proposed by the Maryland and New Hampshire delegations—prohibited quartering in homes during times of peace. The Virginia delegation proposed a second version which included language which clarified the right in times of war: soldiers would only be quartered "as the law directs". This posed an interpretive issue, as peace and war may not cover times of unrest when the military is active but no declaration of war has been made. The version proposed by James Madison forbade forced quartering during times of peace but addressed the interpretive issues of the Virginia amendment by forbidding quartering in homes when not at peace, except as provided by law. However Madison's proposal was rejected, and with minor alterations, Virginia's proposal was ratified as the text of the Third Amendment: