General Information Only. This article is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Laws may have changed since publication. Your situation may differ; consult a licensed Virginia attorney about your specific matter.
The information in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws change and individual circumstances vary. Consult a licensed Virginia attorney about your specific situation. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship nor does merely contacting our office through this website or any other means.
People considering a jail civil rights case often want to sue the county, the sheriff’s office, or the jail itself rather than individual officers. The individual may be judgment-proof, may be unidentified, or may seem beside the point when the real problem looks institutional.
A claim against the entity is possible. It is called a Monell claim, and it has a requirement that defeats most of them.
Where the Rule Comes From
Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), held that local governments are “persons” subject to suit under Section 1983. Before Monell, they were not suable at all, so the decision opened a door.
It closed another in the same breath. The Supreme Court held that liability attaches only where “the action that is alleged to be unconstitutional implements or executes a policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially adopted and promulgated by that body’s officers,” or is taken “pursuant to governmental ‘custom’” even if not formally approved.
And it rejected the ordinary employer-liability rule outright: “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.”
What That Requires in Practice
The entity is not liable because it employed the person who caused the harm. That single sentence explains why most Monell claims fail.
A viable claim must identify the policy or custom and connect it to the injury. In a jail case, that ordinarily means something institutional and repeatable rather than a single bad shift: a written protocol governing when someone is sent out for medical evaluation, a staffing decision, an intake screening practice applied to everyone, a rule about continuing outside prescriptions.
A “custom” need not be written. Monell extends to practices so settled that they carry the force of official policy. But establishing an unwritten custom generally requires showing a pattern, which requires evidence about other people and other incidents — information that is ordinarily in the facility’s hands rather than the claimant’s.
A single incident, standing alone, ordinarily will not establish either a policy or a custom.
Why People Still Bring Them
Monell claims matter for reasons beyond the entity’s ability to pay. Qualified immunity protects individual officials from personal liability unless the right violated was clearly established; that defense is not available to a municipality in the same way. Where individual defendants are likely to be immune, the entity claim may be the one that can proceed.
Entity claims are also the route to changes in practice, since injunctive relief directed at a policy addresses the policy rather than one employee’s conduct.
Related Defendants
A claim against a private company contracted to provide jail medical care raises a similar policy-or-custom question, discussed in our article on suing private jail medical companies. A claim against an individual supervisor is different again and is addressed in our article on supervisory liability.
Procedure
The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires exhaustion of available administrative remedies before suit, 42 U.S.C. Section 1997e(a), and Virginia’s filing deadlines run on more than one clock. Both are addressed in our articles on grievance requirements and on custody status.
Conclusion
A Monell claim is the mechanism for holding a county or other local entity responsible under Section 1983, and it requires proving that an official policy or custom caused the harm. The entity’s employment of the person who caused the injury is expressly not enough.
Where a violation is proven, damages may be recoverable and other relief may be available, though nothing follows automatically from establishing liability. Whether a particular situation involves a policy or custom rather than individual conduct is a question requiring individualized legal analysis of the facility’s written practices and its record across more than one case.
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Laws change and individual circumstances vary, and outcomes depend on the specific facts of each situation. Do not rely on this article to make decisions about your specific situation; contact Valley Legal or a licensed Virginia attorney to discuss your case. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship, nor does contacting our office through this website or any other means. Attorney advertising.
Valley Legal, PLLC is located at 107 Pepper St SE, Christiansburg, Virginia 24073, and serves the communities of the New River Valley of Virginia, including Montgomery County, Blacksburg, Radford, Pulaski County, Floyd County, and Giles County.