Miller v. City of Red Lodge3/13/2003
ress immunity language in §§ 1983, but stated that "we have, on several occasions, found that a tradition of immunity was so firmly rooted in the common law and was supported by such strong policy reasons that `Congress would have specifically so provided had it wished to abolish the doctrine.'" In Owen, the Supreme Court recapitulated the types of government officials who maintained immunity from personal liability based on a historical tradition of immunity. Following this analysis, the Court concluded:
here is no tradition of immunity for municipal corporations, and neither history nor policy supports a construction of §§ 1983 that would justify the qualified immunity accorded the city of Independence by the Court of Appeals. We hold, therefore, that the municipality may not assert the good faith of its officers or agents as a defense to liability under §§ 1983. Owen, 445 U.S. at 638, 100 S.Ct. at 1409.
The Court further expanded upon this notion in a footnote following the above statement:
The governmental immunity at issue in the present case differs significantly from the official immunities involved in our previous decisions. In those cases, various government officers had been sued in their individual capacities, and the immunity served to insulate them from personal liability for damages. Here, in contrast, only the liability of the municipality itself is at issue, not that of its officers, and in the absence of an immunity, any recovery would come from public funds. Owen, 445 U.S. at 638, 100 S.Ct. at 1409, n.18.
In Kentucky v. Graham (1985), 473 U.S. 159, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114, the Supreme Court sought to clarify the distinction between "personal and official capacity action suits." There, the Court again summarized the elements of personal and official capacity liability. Next, the Court discussed the differences in the defenses to liability as follows:
When it comes to defenses to liability, an official in a personal- capacity action may, depending on his position, be able to assert personal immunity defenses, such as objectively reasonable reliance on existing law. See Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976) (absolute immunity); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (qualified immunity). In an official capacity action, these defenses are unavailable. The only immunities that can be claimed in an official-capacity action are forms of sovereign immunity that the entity, qua entity, may possess, such as the Eleventh Amendment. Graham, 473 U.S. at 166-67, 105 S.Ct. at 3105-06 (citations omitted).
Finally, in Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit (1993), 507 U.S. 163, 113 S.Ct. 1160, 122 L.Ed.2d 517, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its prior rulings on local government immunity from §§ 1983 liability. Therein, the Supreme Court stated:
e reaffirmed in Monell that "a municipality cannot be held liable under §§ 1983 on a respondeat superior theory." But, contrary to respondents' assertions, this protection against liability does not encompass immunity from suit. Indeed, this argument is flatly contradicted by Monell and our later decisions involving municipal liability under §§ 1983. In Monell, we overruled Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961), insofar as it held that local governments were wholly immune from suit under §§ 1983, though we did reserve decision on whether municipalities are entitled to some form of limited immunity. Yet, when we took that issue up again in Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 650, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1415, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980), we rejected a cl
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