The applicable statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Section 1983), provides in relevant part:
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . 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." [.]
Section 1983 creates a private right of action, meaning that anyone suffering a covered deprivation of rights may sue the persons responsible, as long as the deprivation came from a Government, State, County, or City Law Enforcement Officer.
Moreover, unlike Sections 241 and 242, courts have interpreted Section 1983 not to contain a specific intent requirement, making it easier for plaintiffs to prove violations of the statute. A prevailing Section 1983 Congressional Research Service 3 plaintiff may be entitled to injunctive relief, attorney’s fees, and/or money damages. Recovery may include both compensatory damages (designed to compensate the plaintiff for the legal injury) and punitive damages (designed to punish the defendant and deter future misconduct). Similar to Section 242,
Section 1983 applies to persons acting “under color of” state law. State and local public safety officers generally act under color of state law for purposes of Section 1983. However, based on concerns that frequent litigation could interfere with the work of law enforcement officers, the courts have created a significant limitation on liability: Under Section 1983, law enforcement officers benefit from qualified immunity from suit.
The Supreme Court announced the modern qualified immunity test in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, holding that “government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages” if they do not “violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” The Supreme Court has explained that qualified immunity is “an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.
” As a result, courts generally consider qualified immunity early in a Section 1983 case, and if the court finds that a defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity, the defendant is entitled to an immediate interlocutory appeal. A court evaluating a claim of qualified immunity considers two questions:
(1) whether, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, “the facts alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right;” and
(2) “whether the law clearly established that the officer’s conduct was unlawful in the circumstances of the case.”
"While that two-step analysis was once considered mandatory, in the 2009 case Pearson v. Callahan, the Supreme Court held that judges could “exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first.”
In a series of recent cases involving police use of force, the Supreme Court has reversed lower court denials of qualified immunity, stating that “clearly established law” must not be defined at a high level of generality and instead needs to be particularized to the facts of the case. This can create a high bar for plaintiffs.
The Supreme Court articulated another limitation on
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