Opinion ID: 2637827
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

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

Text: [¶ 23] The appellant's § 1983 action against the sheriff is an action against the sheriff in his official capacity. As stated earlier herein, such an action is treated as a suit against the county, and it requires proof that a policy or custom of the governmental entity played a part in the violation of law. See supra ¶ 12, Hafer, 502 U.S. at 25, 112 S.Ct. at 361-62. Stated otherwise, a governmental entity cannot be held liable solely because it employs a tortfeasoror in other words ... on a respondeat superior theory. Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2036, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (emphasis in original). In more detail, the law is as follows: We conclude, therefore, that a local government may not be sued under § 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents. Instead, it is when 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 that the government as an entity is responsible under § 1983. Id. at 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037-38. As the law has been further refined, a governmental entity may only be liable under § 1983 in quite particular circumstances: As our § 1983 municipal liability jurisprudence illustrates, however, it is not enough for a § 1983 plaintiff merely to identify conduct properly attributable to the municipality. The plaintiff must also demonstrate that, through its deliberate conduct, the municipality was the moving force behind the injury alleged. That is, a plaintiff must show that the municipal action was taken with the requisite degree of culpability and must demonstrate a direct causal link between the municipal action and the deprivation of federal rights. Bd. of County Comm'rs of Bryan County v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 1388, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997) (emphasis in original). [¶ 24] It is redundant at this point for us to repeat the fact that no policy or custom of the county or the sheriff has been shown to have played any role in the deputy's conduct, except insofar as it has been shown that the deputy was violating a sheriff's office policy by his conduct. The appellant's reliance upon Skurstenis v. Jones, 81 F.Supp.2d 1228, 1238-39 (N.D.Ala.1999), aff'd in part and reversed in part, 236 F.3d 678 (11th Cir. 2000), is misplaced. In that case, the court found that a sheriff could not immunize himself from § 1983 liability by arguing that a strip-search policy was not his own policy, but that of a jail contractor. Liability was based upon a policy that was, in effect, the sheriff's. That is not the case here, where no policy is involved. [¶ 25] We will affirm the grant of summary judgment to the sheriff on the civil rights claim. The sheriff was sued in his official capacity, and there is no evidence that a custom or policy of the county or of the sheriff played any part in the alleged violation of the appellant's civil rights.