City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, Individually, and As Administratrix of the Estate of Tuttle (471 U.S. 808)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 3, 1985 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 471 U.S. 808 · 105 S. Ct. 2427
- Decided
- June 3, 1985
- Term
- October Term 1984
- Vote
- 7–1
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
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 On October 4, 1980, Officer Julian Rotramel, a member of the Oklahoma City police force, shot and killed Albert Tuttle outside the We’ll Do Club, a bar in Oklahoma City. Officer Rotramel, who had been on the force for 10 months, had responded to an all points bulletin indicating that there was a robbery in progress at the Club. The…
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