Opinion ID: 874538
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ada County

Text: Local governments can be sued directly under section 1983 where a policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially adopted and promulgated by that body's officers deprives an individual of his or her constitutional rights. Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2036, 56 L.Ed.2d 611, 635 (1978). Additionally, governmental entities may be sued if their unofficial custom works a constitutional deprivation. Id. However, a governmental entity cannot be held liable under section 1983 for respondeat superior. Id. at 691, 98 S.Ct. at 2036, 56 L.Ed.2d at 635-36. Therefore, the county can only be held liable if the actions conducted pursuant to its official policies or customs caused a constitutional deprivation. See id. (cited in Limbert v. Twin Falls County, 131 Idaho 344, 347, 955 P.2d 1123, 1126 (Ct.App. 1998)). The corrections officers argue that the district court erred when it granted Ada County immunity from suit under section 1983 because there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the county had an unwritten policy of releasing unredacted victim statements. Instead, the corrections officers argue, the court should have recognized that the county having released another correction officer's unredacted information in an unrelated case created an issue of fact precluding summary judgment. However, all the evidence before us indicates that the county has a policy of redacting victim information to protect that person's privacy. While the corrections officers assert that the release of unredacted forms here and in a prior instance show that that county's policy is actually the opposite, examples of instances when the county's policy was breached do not lead to the conclusion that the county had a policy of releasing unredacted victim statements. Indeed, the evidence of this instance of disclosure and only one other instance of releasing this type of information leads to the conclusion that the county had a policy to redact information. Therefore, there is no genuine issue of material fact that the county had an official policy causing a constitutional deprivation, and we hold that the district court did not err when it determined the county cannot be liable under section 1983.