United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit ____________

No. 23-40004

Summary Calendar

____________

Adan DeLeon, 

Plaintiff—Appellant, 

versus

Nueces County, 

Defendant—Appellee. 

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 2:21-CV-143 

______________________________

Before Clement, Southwick, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

 Adan DeLeon sued Officer Bobby Joe Benavides and Nueces County, 

Texas under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court dismissed the County, 

finding that DeLeon failed to adequately plead any Monell v. Department of 

Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), claim for use of excessive force, for 

failure to train, or for failure to intervene. We AFFIRM. 

_____________________

* This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

July 11, 2023

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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I

Adan DeLeon is an inmate at the Nueces County jail.1 Several 

summers ago, DeLeon was moved from one cell to another. He did not 

appreciate the move, and so requested to “speak to rank” about it. Officer 

Benavides, known amongst inmates as “the Punisher,” then pulled DeLeon 

from his cell and mercilessly beat him. DeLeon was left with a fractured eye 

socket, nose, and ribs, and several cracked disks in his neck. 

DeLeon sued. Against Benavides, he claimed violations of his Fourth 

Amendment right to be free from excessive force.2 Against the County, he 

claimed a sanctioned policy of employing excessive force and declining to 

intervene, and a failure to train or supervise its personnel in the proper use of 

force. To demonstrate his claimed pattern or policy, DeLeon pointed to a 

1997 incident in which an inmate was beaten by County officers and later 

died. He also identified six other County officials (their roles unspecified) 

who were subject to multiple internal investigations, many involving 

excessive force, between 1992 and 2009.

The district court eventually dismissed all claims against the County. 

The court explained that DeLeon’s municipal liability claims required that 

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1 Because this comes to us from a granted motion to dismiss, DeLeon’s alleged 

facts are taken as true.

2 DeLeon is a prisoner, however, so this is better construed as a violation of his 

Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. See Whitley v. 

Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 327 (1986) (“We think the Eighth Amendment . . . serves as the 

primary source of substantive protection to convicted prisoners in cases . . . where the 

deliberate use of force is challenged as excessive and unjustified.”). But this distinction 

does not matter for our purposes.

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he plead “at least a pattern of similar incidents.” He did not, said the court, 

and so dismissal was warranted. DeLeon now appeals.3

II

The court reviews a district court’s dismissal for failure to state a 

claim de novo. Thurman v. Med. Transp. Mgmt., Inc., 982 F.3d 953, 955 (5th 

Cir. 2020). The court “accepts all well-pleaded facts as true, viewing them 

in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Id. (quotations and citation 

omitted). To survive a motion to dismiss, the complaint “must contain 

sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is 

plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotations 

and citation omitted).4

The County isn’t liable under § 1983 for “an injury inflicted solely by 

its employees or agents.” Monell, 436 U.S. at 694. It instead faces liability 

only “when execution of [its] policy or custom . . . inflicts the injury[.]” Id. 

To succeed on such a claim, DeLeon must identify “(1) an official policy (2) 

promulgated by the municipal policymaker (3) [that] was the moving force 

behind the violation of a constitutional right.” Peterson v. City of Fort Worth, 

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3At the time of this appeal, proceedings below had not yet ended. The district court 

has now entered a default judgment against Benavides and closed the case. Either way, we 

had jurisdiction at the time of appeal because the district court entered a “nonfinal 

judgment[] certified as final” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). See Briargrove 

Shopping Ctr. Joint Venture v. Pilgrim Enters., Inc., 170 F.3d 536, 538 (5th Cir. 1999).

4 DeLeon suggests that against municipalities, mere “generic or boilerplate 

assertions for grounds of municipal liability” are enough. That is not so. As we’ve said time 

and again, “our precedents make clear that the Twombly standard”—not any lower-thannormal standard—“applies to municipal liability claims.” Ratliff v. Aransas Cnty., 948 F.3d 

281, 284–85 (5th Cir. 2020) (discussing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007)); 

see also Doe ex rel. Magee v. Covington Cnty. Sch. Dist. ex rel. Keys, 675 F.3d 849, 866 n.10 

(5th Cir. 2012) (en banc) (rejecting any claim that applying the Twombly standard in a 

Monell context violated Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination 

Unit, 507 U.S. 163 (1993), DeLeon’s key case). 

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588 F.3d 838, 847 (5th Cir. 2009). While policies like that often take the form 

of “written policy statements, ordinances, or regulations,” they may also 

take the form of “widespread practice[s] that [are] so common and wellsettled as to constitute [customs] that fairly represent[] municipal policy.” 

Id. (quotations and citation omitted). Since DeLeon points only to custom, 

he must plead a pattern of conduct “so long or so frequent[] that the course 

of conduct warrants the attribution to the governing body of knowledge that 

the objectionable conduct is the expected, accepted practice of [County] 

employees.” Id. at 850 (quotations and citation omitted). Any such pattern 

“requires similarity and specificity; prior indications cannot simply be for 

any and all bad or unwise acts, but rather must point to the specific violation 

in question.” Id. (quotations and citation omitted) (alteration adopted). 

First, DeLeon’s failure-to-train contention is a “notoriously difficult 

theory on which to base a Monell claim[.]” Allen v. Hays, 63 F.4th 307, 

withdrawn and superseded on denial of panel reh’g, 65 F.4th 736, 749 (5th Cir. 

2023). To succeed, DeLeon must plead facts showing it plausible that the 

County was “aware of an impending rights violation but was deliberately 

indifferent to it.” Id. at 750. Those facts must demonstrate that “in light of 

the duties assigned to specific officers . . . , the need for more or different 

training is so obvious, and the inadequacy so likely to result in the violation 

of constitutional rights, that the policymakers can reasonably be said to have 

been deliberately indifferent to the need.” Id. (quotations and citation 

omitted) (alteration adopted). 

The district court dismissed because DeLeon failed to plead “any 

similar or specific instances of failure to train or supervise,” failed to 

“identify training procedures,” and did not “demonstrate a causal 

connection between the alleged failure to supervise or train” and any 

violation of his rights. We generally agree. DeLeon mentions only two other 

failures to train: Ramiro Arismendez, who faced excessive force allegations 

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in 2000 but did not receive “any additional training[;]” and the officers 

involved in the 1997 incident. As to Arismendez, DeLeon provides no 

details—we are unable to determine whether any failure to train him 

constitutes the “specific violation” at issue here. And as to the 1997 officers, 

a single incident over twenty years prior does not constitute a “pattern.” 

DeLeon’s facts thus fail to “clear this high bar,” id., and so dismissal was 

appropriate. 

DeLeon’s other claims fare no better. As to his alleged County policy 

of sanctioning excessive force, he again provides details regarding only the 

single 1997 incident. That does not support a pattern. And as before, the lack 

of detail regarding the six identified officials and their alleged transgressions 

makes it impossible for us to determine whether they committed—and the 

County condoned—the specific violation at issue here. The same is true with 

DeLeon’s failure to intervene claim. DeLeon asserted his claim only in 

passing. But he provides no examples of when the County had a chance to 

intervene but did not. That too fails to allege a pattern of misconduct. 

Dismissal of both claims was warranted.

III

The district court is AFFIRMED.

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