II. Elements of the Section 1983 Claim, Functional Role of Section 1983, Pleading, and Jurisdiction

• Library: Sword and Shield: A Practical Approach to Section 1983 Litigation (ABA) (2015 Ed.)

II. ELEMENTS OF THE SECTION 1983 CLAIM, FUNCTIONAL ROLE OF SECTION 1983, PLEADING, AND JURISDICTION

A. Elements of the Section 1983 Claim

Section 1983 authorizes the assertion of a claim for relief against a person who, acting under color of state law, violated the claimant's federally protected rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has identified two elements of a § 1983 claim: the plaintiff must establish (1) a deprivation of a federal right and (2) that the person who deprived him of that right acted under color of state law.² However, in the author's view there are at least four major elements of a § 1983 claim. The plaintiff must establish

(a) conduct by a "person"
(b) who acted under "color of state law"
(c) proximately causing
(d) a deprivation of a federally protected right.³

In addition, if the plaintiff is seeking to establish municipal liability, she must show that the deprivation of her federal right was attributable to the enforcement of a municipal custom or policy. (See Part X, infra.) The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing each element of the claim for relief by a preponderance of the evidence.⁴

B. No Respondeat Superior Liability under Section 1983

There is no respondeat superior liability under § 1983. Although this principal is applied most frequently with respect to § 1983 municipal liability claims (see Part X, infra), the no-respondeat-superior liability principle applies to all § 1983 defendants, including officials and entities sued under § 1983. For example, the principle applies to claims against supervisory officials (see Part XI, infra). The governing principle is that each § 1983 defendant may be held liable only for the defendant's own wrongdoing. The courts enforce this principle by requiring the "personal involvement" of an official sued under § 1983 in the violation of the plaintiff's federally protected rights.

C. Section 1983 Has No State-of-Mind Requirement

Section 1983 has no particular state-of-mind requirement.⁵ However, the particular constitutional right at issue may require a showing that the defendant had a certain state of mind when she engaged in the contested conduct. For example, to establish a due process violation, it must be shown that a state or local official intentionally or deliberately caused a deprivation of life, liberty, or property; negligent conduct will not suffice.⁶ A claim under the equal protection clause alleging racial or gender-based discrimination will invoke heightened judicial scrutiny only if the plaintiff establishes intentional discrimination.⁷ And the denial of adequate medical care to a prisoner violates the Eighth Amendment only if the plaintiff demonstrates deliberate indifference to a serious medical need.⁸ In other words, medical malpractice is not a constitutional violation merely because the plaintiff is a prisoner.

A wide range of federal constitutional rights may be enforced under § 1983.⁹ Each constitutional claim must be evaluated to determine whether it requires a showing that the defendant acted with a particular state of mind.

D. Functional Role of Section 1983

Section 1983 does not itself create or establish any federally protected rights. Rather, § 1983 authorizes the assertion of a claim for relief to enforce federal rights created by either the federal Constitution or, in some cases, by a federal statute (other than § 1983).¹⁰ This means that the § 1983 plaintiff must establish that the defendant violated a federally protected right created either by the Constitution or by some federal statute other than § 1983. Section 1983 fulfills the procedural or remedial function of authorizing the assertion of the claim for relief. It is well established that when the plaintiff asserts a violation of a federal constitutional right against a defendant who acted under color of state law, § 1983 provides the exclusive available remedy. Thus, the plaintiff may not seek to avoid the limitations of the § 1983 claim for relief by asserting a claim directly under the Constitution.¹¹

E. Pleading Section 1983 Claims

Federal court § 1983 complaints are governed by the generally applicable civil pleading standards set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). Rule 8(a) provides that the complaint must set forth "(1) a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction . . . (2) a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; and (3) a demand for the relief sought."¹² Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(a) provides that "[m]alice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of mind of a person may be averred generally." In Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit,¹³the Supreme Court held that § 1983 municipal liability claims are governed by Rule 8's generally applicable "notice" pleading standard. The Court in Leatherman rejected a "heightened" pleading requirement for § 1983 municipal liability claims, because such a requirement is not authorized by Rules 8 and 9.¹⁴

Recent Supreme Court decisions, however, have imposed more rigorous pleading standards for federal court civil complaints, including § 1983 complaints. In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly,¹⁵ an antitrust case, the Supreme Court held that the factual allegations of a federal court civil complaint must constitute a "plausible" claim for relief. In Ashcroft v. Iqbal,¹⁶ the Supreme Court held that the Twombly plausibility pleading standard is not limited to antitrust claims and governs all federal court civil complaints, including those filed under the Bivens¹⁷ doctrine and under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Iqbal clearly established that § 1983 complaints must contain factual allegations, not mere legal conclusions, and that the factual allegations must constitute a plausible, and not merely possible or speculative, claim for relief. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows a court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. . . . Threadbare recitations of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice."¹⁸ In other words, legal conclusions must be supported by factual allegations. "Rule 8 . . . does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions."¹⁹ Whether the factual allegations constitute a plausible constitutional claim is "context-specific," dependent upon the particular "constitutional provision at issue"²⁰ and the nature of the plaintiff's theory of liability. For example, in Iqbal, the Bivens complaint asserted a claim that the defendant supervisory official formulated a policy that discriminated against post-9/11 detainees because of their race, religion, or national origin. To determine whether the complaint stated a plausible claim against these supervisory officials, the Court had to consider the standards for imposing Bivens liability against a supervisor for wrongs directly inflicted by subordinate officials.²¹ The Court found that the plaintiff's complaint allegations that the defendants adopted the contested policy were too conclusory to constitute a plausible claim.

Reiterating an important theme articulated in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, the Court in Ashcroft v. Iqbal emphasized that when the sufficiency of complaint allegations is challenged on a motion to dismiss, it is irrelevant that the district court may be able to carefully control discovery.

Section 1983 Municipality Liability Claims: The Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal did not expressly overrule the decision in Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordinator Unit that § 1983 municipal liability claims are not subject to a heightened pleading standard and are governed by Rule 8's notice pleading standard. In the author's view, although the holding in Leatherman that § 1983 municipal liability claims are not subject by a heightened pleading rule remains good law, § 1983 municipal liability claims are now governed by the Twombly-Iqbal plausibility standard.²²

Claims Subject to Qualified Immunity: The Supreme Court in Leather-man v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence and Coordination Unit had left open whether a heightened pleading standard governs personal-capacity claims against government officials subject to qualified immunity. This issue was resolved by Ashcroft v. Iqbal's adoption of the plausibility standard for all federal court civil complaints. It should be emphasized that the claims asserted in Ashcroft v. Iqbal were in fact personal-capacity monetary liability claims subject to qualified immunity. It is thus now resolved that § 1983 personal-capacity claims subject to qualified immunity are governed by the generally applicable plausibility standard.²³

Conspiracy Claims: Federal courts have consistently rejected vague and conclusory allegations of conspiracy in § 1983 complaints. Because the complaint in Twombly alleged an antitrust conspiracy, and because the Court in Iqbal held that the plausibility standard governs all federal court civil complaints, it is clear that the plausibility standard governs § 1983 conspiracy allegations.²⁴

F. Federal Court Jurisdiction

Section 1983 does not grant the federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction. Nevertheless, federal district courts clearly have jurisdiction over § 1983 claims. Federal court jurisdiction over § 1983 claims is authorized by either 28 U.S.C. § 1343(a)(3)²⁵ or by the general federal question jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1331. The federal court's jurisdiction, however, may be defeated by, for example, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (discussed next), Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity (see Part XIII, infra), or one or more of the abstention doctrines (see Part XX, infra).

1. Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

In some federal court § 1983 actions, a party that lost in state court may try to "make a federal case of it" by seeking to...