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Revisionist Municipal Liability, Avidan Y. Cover

Faculty Publications

The current constitutional torts system under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 affords little relief to victims of government wrongdoing. Victims of police brutality seeking accountability and compensation from local police departments find their remedies severely limited because the municipal liability doctrine demands plaintiffs meet near-impossible standards of proof relating to policies and causation.

The article provides a revisionist historical account of the Supreme Court’s municipal liability doctrine’s origins. Most private litigants’ claims for damages against cities or police departments do not implicate the doctrine’s early federalism concerns over protracted federal judicial interference with local governance. Meanwhile the federal government imposes extensive …