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Civil Rights & Equal Protection

Engblom v. Carey

Decided: 1982

In brief

The rare modern Third Amendment case: quartering National Guard members in state employees' housing during a strike stated a constitutional claim.

The Court's ruling in depth

Note: Engblom is a Second Circuit decision, not a Supreme Court ruling, but it is the leading precedent construing the Third Amendment and is routinely cited alongside Supreme Court cases in constitutional casebooks. During a 1979 New York prison-guards strike, striking officers who lived in employer-provided housing were evicted so National Guard members activated to run the prisons could sleep in their apartments. The Second Circuit held that National Guard members are 'soldiers' for Third Amendment purposes, that a tenancy interest in employer-provided housing can be a 'house,' and that quartering them without consent stated a valid constitutional claim. Engblom remains the only appellate decision to have applied the Third Amendment on the merits and is the doctrinal source for its handful of downstream citations.

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