What is the test of liability for the guardian of discipline when a civil rights action is brought?

It is the guardian of discipline who becomes the tort-feasor defendant when a civil rights suit is brought. The public officer may inflict harm which is a violation of a constitutional prohibition without conscious plan or illicit purpose. See United States ex rel. Schuster v. Vincent, 524 F.2d 153, 160 (2 Cir. 1975). But the test of liability ought not ignore entirely the mores of the times or even the particular mores of prison guards, untrained in the lawyers' view of life. The growth of constitutional protection in recent years in the area of First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights is illustrative of situations where retroactive application of newly declared doctrine may be unfair. See Sostre v. McGinnis, supra, 442 F.2d 178. It will be for the district court to determine, in the first instance, the standards to apply in light of the evidence.