Opinion ID: 2637827
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Did the district court appropriately grant summary judgment to the deputy on the federal civil rights claim?

Text: [¶ 9] The district court's resolution of this issue, and this Court's reversal of that resolution, are best understood if placed within the context of the applicable law. In the restricted sense of a civil rights action such as the one at hand, a civil right is the enjoyment of such guarantees as are contained in constitutional or statutory law, such as the ... guarantees found in particular amendments to the United States Constitution.... 15 Am.Jur.2d Civil Rights § 1 (2000). Adopted after the Civil War to enforce equality for former slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment has become the source of many civil rights and their protection, especially against infringement by the states. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides as follows: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. [¶ 10] Section 5 gives Congress the authority to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation. Actions such as the present one have come to be called 1983 actions because their foundation is in 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (2003): Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia. (Emphasis added.) [¶ 11] The purpose of § 1983 is `to deter state actors from using the badge of their authority to deprive individuals of their federally guaranteed rights' and to provide related relief. Richardson v. McKnight, 521 U.S. 399, 403, 117 S.Ct. 2100, 2103, 138 L.Ed.2d 540 (1997) (emphasis in original) (quoting Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U.S. 158, 161, 112 S.Ct. 1827, 1830, 118 L.Ed.2d 504 (1992)). 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 is not, itself, a source of substantive rights; rather, it provides for the enforcement of rights elsewhere conferred. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 278, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1948, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 2254-55, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988). [¶ 12] The concept of action performed under color of state law must not be confused with the question of whether a defendant is being sued in his personal capacity or in his official capacity. The latter distinction was described in Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25, 112 S.Ct. 358, 361-62, 116 L.Ed.2d 301 (1991) as follows: In Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985), the Court sought to eliminate lingering confusion about the distinction between personal- and official-capacity suits. We emphasized that official-capacity suits `generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.' Id., at 165, 105 S.Ct., at 3104 (quoting Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 690 n. 55, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2035, n. 55, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)). Suits against state officials in their official capacity therefore should be treated as suits against the State. 473 U.S., at 166, 105 S.Ct., at 3105. Indeed, when officials sued in this capacity in federal court die or leave office, their successors automatically assume their roles in the litigation. See Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 25(d)(1); Fed.Rule App.Proc. 43(c)(1); this Court's Rule 35.3. Because the real party in interest in an official-capacity suit is the governmental entity and not the named official, the entity's `policy or custom' must have played a part in the violation of federal law. Graham, supra, at 166, 105 S.Ct., at 3105 (quoting Monell, supra, 436 U.S., at 694, 98 S.Ct., at 2037). For the same reason, the only immunities available to the defendant in an official-capacity action are those that the governmental entity possesses. 473 U.S., at 167, 105 S.Ct., at 3105. Personal-capacity suits, on the other hand, seek to impose individual liability upon a government officer for actions taken under color of state law. Thus, [o]n the merits, to establish personal liability in a § 1983 action, it is enough to show that the official, acting under color of state law, caused the deprivation of a federal right. Id., at 166, 105 S.Ct., at 3105. While the plaintiff in a personal-capacity suit need not establish a connection to governmental policy or custom, officials sued in their personal capacities, unlike those sued in their official capacities, may assert personal immunity defenses such as objectively reasonable reliance on existing law. Id., at 166-67, 105 S.Ct., at 3105-3106. (Emphasis in original.) [¶ 13] It goes without saying that the distinction between an official-capacity § 1983 action and a personal-capacity § 1983 action is significant. Questions of both potential immunity and potential liability are answered by reference to the nature of the allegations in that regard. Id. at 24-31, 112 S.Ct. at 361-65. [6] Although the United States Supreme Court has not directly addressed the question of the degree of specificity required when pleading personal-capacity and official-capacity actions under § 1983, it has indicated its preference for specificity, to avoid ambiguity. Id. at 24, 112 S.Ct. at 361. [¶ 14] This last observation leads naturally to a discussion of the appellant's § 1983 claim in the instant case. The ambiguity of the claim left both the deputy's trial attorney and the district court unsure as to whether a § 1983 claim was even being made against the deputy. The district court eventually decided that, if such a claim was being made, it was being made against the deputy in his official capacity. Finding no evidence of a county or sheriff's office custom or policy playing any part in the deputy's transgression, the district court granted the deputy's motion for summary judgment on the § 1983 claim. [¶ 15] We find that we must disagree with the district court on this one issue. The fact that the appellant's WGCA and state law tort claims are presented as violations occurring within the scope of the deputy's dutiesno doubt to fit within the WGCAdoes not automatically equate to an allegation under § 1983 that the deputy was acting in his official capacity. In fact, a close reading of the complaint's fourth cause of action strongly suggests that the appellant intended to raise an official-capacity claim against the sheriff, and a personal-capacity claim against the deputy. Under that cause of action, the appellant alleges that the sheriff acted in his official capacity, but does not allege that the deputy did so. Instead, the complaint alleges only that the deputy's actions were accomplished under color of State law, which is the language the United States Supreme Court has said is sufficient to state a personal-capacity claim under § 1983. Hafer, 502 U.S. at 25, 112 S.Ct. at 362; West, 487 U.S. at 48, 108 S.Ct. at 2254-55. Further, the appellant also alleges that the sheriff is the authority responsible for making official policy, which phrase rings of an official-capacity suit, while the allegation against the deputy says nothing about policy. The icing on the cake, perhaps, is that, in the complaint's caption, the sheriff is named as a defendant in his official capacity, while the deputy is not. [¶ 16] We conclude that the § 1983 claim against the deputy was made in his personal capacity, rather than in his official capacity. Therefore, the summary judgment granted to the deputy on the claim must be reversed because it was based upon the district court's conclusion that there was no evidence the deputy had violated a custom or policy of the county or the sheriff's office. Such evidence is not required to show a personal-capacity violation of § 1983.