Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-50_n648.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

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CHIAVERINI v. CITY OF NAPOLEON 

Opinion of the Court 

proceeding  would  insulate  officers  from  a  Fourth  Amend-
ment  malicious-prosecution  claim  relating  to  any  other
charges, no matter how baseless.

In taking that position, the Sixth Circuit stepped out on
its own.  Three other Courts of Appeals have held that the
presence of probable cause for one charge does not automat-
ically  defeat  a  Fourth  Amendment  malicious-prosecution
claim  alleging  the  absence  of  probable  cause  for  another
charge.  See Williams v. Aguirre, 965 F. 3d 1147, 1159–1162 
(CA11 2020); Johnson v. Knorr, 477 F. 3d 75, 83–85 (CA3
2007); Posr v. Doherty, 944 F. 2d 91, 100 (CA2 1991).

We  granted  certiorari  to  resolve  that  circuit  split,  601

U. S. ___ (2023), and we now vacate the decision below. 

II 
Section  1983  enables  an  individual  to  recover  damages 
from a state or local official for the deprivation of a consti-
tutional right.  Such a suit is of course premised on a con-
stitutional violation.  But its elements and rules may also 
be  shaped  by  common-law  tort  principles,  against  whose 
backdrop  §1983  was  enacted.  See  Manuel  v.  Joliet,  580 
U. S. 357, 370 (2017).  To determine the precise contours of 
a constitutional claim under §1983, we have held, a court 
should  identify  the  “most  analogous”  common-law  tort  to 
the constitutional harm alleged.  Ibid.  And the court should 
incorporate  that  tort’s  requirements  to  the  extent  con-
sistent with “the values and purposes of the constitutional
right at issue.”  Ibid.; Thompson, 596 U. S., at 43. 

The  claim  Chiaverini  brought—a  Fourth  Amendment 
malicious-prosecution  claim—emerged  from  that  method.
The constitutional violation alleged in such a suit is a type 
of unreasonable seizure—an arrest and detention of a per-
son based on a criminal charge lacking probable cause.  In 
Thompson  v.  Clark,  we  analogized  a  suit  alleging  that 
Fourth Amendment wrong to the common-law tort of mali-
cious  prosecution.  See  id.,  at  43–44.    The  “gravamen”  of