City of Oklahoma v. Tuttle
- Decided
- August 14, 1985
- Docket
- 83-1919
- Status
- Published
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
Cited 3,810 timesAbrogated on other grounds (not yet verified)Possible negative treatment: abrogated on other grounds (not yet verified) · Rodriguez v. Danbury
What later courts said
- holding that district court erred by permitting jury to infer deliberate indifference or gross negligence from a single excessive force incident — EH ex rel. Moore v. City of Miramar (2015)
- holding that plaintiff must show "an affirmative link between the policy and the particular constitutional violation alleged" — Carol Gongolewski v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, John P. McFadden Michael Delaney, Michael Sweeney, Terry Sellars, and Unknown (1990)
- holding that allegations must consist of more than a one-off instance to establish a custom — Oberlander v. New Castle County (2025)
Each line is a later court’s own words about this case, not a summary. Read the opinion before relying on it.
How the opinion begins
Justice Rehnquist announced the judgment of the Court, and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part II, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice O’Connor joined.
In Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), this Court held that municipalities are “persons” subject to damages liability under § 1 of the Ku Klux Act of 1871, 42 U. S. C. §1983, for violations of that Act visited by municipal officials. The Court noted, however, that municipal liability could not be premised on the mere fact that the municipality employed the offending official. Instead, we held that municipal liability could only be imposed for injuries inflicted pursuant to government “policy or custom.” Id., at 694. We noted at that time that we had “no occasion to address . . . the full contours of municipal immunity under § 1983 . . . ,” id., at 695, and expressly left such development “to another day.” Today we take a small but necessary step toward defining those contours.
I
Statutes cited
Cite this
City of Oklahoma v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808 (1985)Read the full opinion
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