Opinion ID: 2225425
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: municipal responsibility for acts of its employees

Text: The U.S. Supreme Court originally held that municipalities were not persons under § 1983. [20] It has since overruled this decision and has held that municipalities and other local governmental units, such as school boards, are included among those persons to whom § 1983 applies. [21] However, the Court has retained significant limitations to a municipality's liability for the acts of its employees in a § 1983 action. Focusing on the causal language of § 1983, as well as legislative history indicating that Congress doubted its power to oblige municipalities to control the conduct of others, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that § 1983 did not mean to incorporate doctrines of vicarious liability. [22] The Court held that respondeat superior is an insufficient basis for establishing liability and that municipal liability under § 1983 is limited to actions for which the municipality is actually responsible. [23] A rigorous standard of culpability and causation must be applied to ensure that the municipality is not held liable solely for the actions of its employees. [24] The U.S. Supreme Court elaborated that Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort. [25] In other words, a municipality is liable only when the execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury. [26] There is no evidence in this case that it was the official policy of the school district to create long-term substitutes in an attempt to circumvent the Nebraska tenure statutes. Policy is made when a decisionmaker, possessing final authority to establish municipal policy with respect to the action, issues an official proclamation, policy, or edict. [27] The fact that a particular official  even a policymaking official  has discretion in the exercise of particular functions does not, without more, give rise to municipal liability based on an exercise of that discretion. [28] Rather, municipal liability under § 1983 attaches where  and only where  a deliberate choice to follow a course of action is made from among various alternatives by the official or officials responsible for establishing final policy with respect to the subject matter in question. [29] In a footnote in the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, [30] the Court illustrated that a county sheriff's decision to hire or fire an employee would not subject the municipality to § 1983 liability, even if the municipality had left to the sheriff the discretion to hire and fire employees and the sheriff had exercised that discretion in an unconstitutional manner. The municipality would be liable under § 1983, the Court explained, only if the municipal board had delegated its power to establish final employment policy to the sheriff. [31] Likewise, here, while the student services director, the assistant superintendent, and the principal may have had the discretion to make hiring decisions, they do not appear to have the authority to establish final policy for the school district. Nor is there evidence that it was the custom of the school district to hire as long-term substitutes employees who really were probationary certificated employees, and then discharge them without notice or hearing. To the contrary, the school superintendent testified that in his 20 years of experience, he had never hired an employee in this manner. A custom is proved by demonstrating that a given course of conduct, although not specifically endorsed or authorized by state or local law, is so well settled and permanent as virtually to constitute law. [32] Thus, the nucleus of facts here does not present a case in which the municipality should be held responsible, under § 1983, for the actions of those who allegedly deprived Manning of her due process rights. This is not a case where official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort. [33] Therefore, § 1983 would not have been an appropriate basis for relief, and attorney fees under § 1988 are not recoverable.