title: Why is Rails 3.1 rendering a layout for my 401 page?
body: <p>My controller does not specify an explicit layout, so it is using the default application layout. I have a plain html file for my 401 error page. It lives in public.</p>
  
  <p>This action:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def index 
      render :file =&gt; "public/401.html", :status =&gt; :unauthorized, :layout =&gt; false
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>renders the 401 page within the layout! It should just render the page, right?</p>