Opinion ID: 798092
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims Against the City and Defendants in their Official Capacity

Text: 46 Plaintiff's claims against Defendants in their official capacity are, in effect, claims against the City. Pusey v. City of Youngstown, 11 F.3d 652, 658 (6th Cir.1993) ([A]n official-capacity suit is, in all respects other than name, to be treated as a suit against the entity.) (quoting Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 166, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985)); see Monell v. Dep't of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 690 n. 55, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). The City is not eligible for qualified immunity, and the denial of summary judgment with respect to Plaintiff's official capacity claims is not an independently appealable final decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 43, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995). Therefore, our first question is whether this Court has subject matter jurisdiction to hear the City's appeal. 5 47 Although not appealable as a final decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, an appellate court can exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction on a § 1983 claim alleging municipal liability where the municipality's motion for summary judgment is inextricably intertwined with the qualified immunity analysis properly before the Court. Crockett v. Cumberland Coll., 316 F.3d 571, 578 (6th Cir.2003). [A] pendent appellate claim can be regarded as inextricably intertwined with a properly reviewable claim on collateral appeal only if the pendent claim is coterminous with, or subsumed in, the claim before the court on interlocutory appeal—that is, when the appellate resolution of the collateral appeal necessarily resolves the pendent claim as well. Mattox v. City of Forest Park, 183 F.3d 515, 524 (6th Cir.1999) (quoting Moore v. City of Wynnewood, 57 F.3d 924, 930 (10th Cir.1995)). In the § 1983 context, this condition is typically satisfied when the question of whether a constitutional violation occurred resolves the case against the defendants in their individual capacities and the case against the municipality's officers in their official capacities. See, e.g., id. at 523 (If the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim for violation of a constitutional right at all, then the City of Forest Park cannot be held liable for violating that right any more than the individual defendants can. The inquiry is precisely the same in both cases.); Moore, 57 F.3d at 930. But the Court lacks appellate jurisdiction to resolve issues affecting the municipality when the resolution of the qualified immunity inquiry does not conclusively determine the municipality's liability. Crockett, 316 F.3d at 579. 48 We lack jurisdiction to resolve the claims against Defendants in their official capacity. Defendants' arguments concerning municipal liability do not turn on whether the Court finds a constitutional violation. Instead, Defendants contest the district court's conclusion that their decisions may fairly be said to represent official policy. 6 See Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018. This issue is not inextricably intertwined with the district court's denial of qualified immunity. Our conclusion with respect to qualified immunity does not in any way affect the analysis of whether Defendants' actions constituted the official policy of the City. See Crockett, 316 F.3d at 579; Moore, 57 F.3d at 930. We therefore lack jurisdiction to resolve this issue.