## Facts

- Perry Lee Felton, a Florida resident, engaged in commercial saltwater crawfishing using traps placed beyond Florida’s territorial waters.
- Florida State Board of Conservation officials (Hodges, Gibson, and Little) sought to enforce Florida crawfishing conservation restrictions against Felton, including closed-season limits.
- Felton alleged that, acting under color of state law, agents repeatedly arrested him, confiscated property used in his crawfishing business, and required him to post appearance bonds.
- Felton claimed these enforcement actions deprived him of liberty and property without due process because Florida lacked lawful authority to regulate his activities outside the State’s seaward boundary.
- The complaint did not allege malicious purpose, improper motive, selective enforcement, or illicit enforcement methods; it challenged only the State’s asserted power to regulate offshore conduct.
- Felton relied in part on a Florida decision he read as limiting state conservation jurisdiction to the three-mile boundary.

## Issues

1. Whether a complaint states a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when state officials enforce state conservation laws against a state citizen for fishing activity occurring outside the state’s territorial waters, on the theory that any such extraterritorial regulation is unconstitutional.
2. Whether alleged limits on officials’ authority under state law (including state-defined boundaries) create a federal due process violation actionable under § 1983.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal for failure to state a claim.
- A state may, consistent with the U.S. Constitution, regulate the conduct of its own citizens outside its territorial waters when the regulation serves a legitimate state interest and does not conflict with federal law.
- Conservation of a migratory or boundary-crossing resource supported Florida’s interest in regulating offshore crawfishing by Florida citizens.
- Because such extraterritorial regulation is constitutionally permissible, enforcement of the conservation laws against Felton did not, by itself, constitute a deprivation of federal rights.
- Alleged lack of authority under state-law boundary rules, without a federal constitutional violation, was insufficient to support § 1983 liability.

## Legal Principles

- Section 1983 requires deprivation of a right secured by the U.S. Constitution or federal law; alleged violations of state-law limits on official power do not alone establish a § 1983 claim.
- A state may regulate its citizens’ conduct beyond state territorial boundaries when the state has a legitimate interest (such as conservation) and the regulation is not inconsistent with federal authority.
- Absent allegations of bad faith, improper motive, arbitrariness, or unlawful methods, ordinary enforcement of a constitutionally permissible conservation scheme does not amount to a federal due process violation merely because the regulated conduct occurred offshore.

## Conclusion

The court held that Florida could constitutionally apply its conservation laws to a Florida citizen’s offshore crawfishing and that enforcement actions based solely on that extraterritorial reach, without additional allegations of unlawful conduct or federal-rights violations, did not state a claim under § 1983.


Felton v. Hodges, 374 F.2d 337 (5th Cir. 1967)