Opinion ID: 616881
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Background on Section 1983 and Qualified Immunity

Text: Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides in part that [e]very person who, under color of any statute . . . subjects . . . any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured. We first explain the difference between a § 1983 defendant's personal liability and supervisory liability. We then describe the test for assessing whether a plaintiff has overcome a defendant's claim of qualified immunity. 1. Personal Liability and Supervisory Liability A § 1983 defendant sued in an individual capacity may be subject to personal liability and/or supervisory liability. [8] Personal liability under § 1983 must be based on personal involvement in the alleged constitutional violation. Foote v. Spiegel, 118 F.3d 1416, 1423 (10th Cir. 1997). Supervisory liability allows a plaintiff to impose liability upon a defendant-supervisor who creates, promulgates, [or] implements . . . a policy . . . which subjects, or causes to be subjected that plaintiff to the deprivation of any rights. . . secured by the Constitution. Dodds v. Richardson, 614 F.3d 1185, 1199 (10th Cir.2010), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2150, 179 L.Ed.2d 935 (2011) (quotation omitted). Section 1983 does not authorize liability under a theory of respondeat superior. See Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). Instead, to establish supervisory liability, a plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant promulgated, created, implemented or possessed responsibility for the continued operation of a policy that (2) caused the complained of constitutional harm, and (3) acted with the state of mind required to establish the alleged constitutional deprivation. Dodds, 614 F.3d at 1199. 2. Qualified Immunity Government defendants sued under § 1983 in their individual capacities have qualified immunity: government officials are not subject to damages liability for the performance of their discretionary functions when their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259, 268, 113 S.Ct. 2606, 125 L.Ed.2d 209 (1993) (quotation omitted). We employ a two-part test to analyze a qualified immunity defense. In resolving a motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity, a court must consider whether the facts that a plaintiff has alleged make out a violation of a constitutional right, and whether the right at issue was clearly established at the time of defendant's alleged misconduct. Leverington v. City of Colorado Springs, 643 F.3d 719, 732 (10th Cir.2011) (quotations and ellipses omitted). In Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009), the Supreme Court said that judges of the district courts and the courts of appeals are in the best position to determine the order of decisionmaking that will best facilitate the fair and efficient disposition of each case. Id. at 242, 129 S.Ct. 808. We therefore have discretion to decid[e] which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand. Id. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808. Whether a right is clearly established is an objective test: The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Stearns v. Clarkson, 615 F.3d 1278, 1282 (10th Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). In order for the law to be clearly established, there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains. Id. (quotation omitted).