Almost every federal civil rights case brought against a Minnesota police officer, jailer, county, city, or school official runs through one statute: 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It is a short provision, enacted as § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and most of what people assume about it is wrong in ways that decide cases.
Here is the operative language, as it stands in the United States Code:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, 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 in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . . . .”
Read it closely and notice what is missing. The statute does not say what your rights are. It says that a person who deprives you of rights secured elsewhere is liable to you. That is the first thing to understand about § 1983, and the Supreme Court has said it plainly: § 1983 “is not itself a source of substantive rights,” but “merely provides ‘a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.’” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393-94 (1989) (quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n.3 (1979)).
So a § 1983 case is always two questions stacked on top of each other. What federal right was violated — the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth, the Fourteenth, or a federal statute? And is the defendant a “person” who acted “under color of” state law? A plaintiff who cannot answer the second question loses no matter how badly the first one was violated.
“Under color of” state law
The phrase does not mean “with legal authority.” It means close to the opposite. The Supreme Court adopted the Classic formulation in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961): “Misuse of power, possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law, is action taken ‘under color of’ state law.” Id. at 184 (quoting United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941)).
An officer who beats someone is not acting under any state law that authorizes beatings. He is acting under color of state law because the badge, the squad car, and the arrest power are what put him in the position to do it. Conduct can violate state law, violate department policy, and still be under color of state law for § 1983 purposes.
The reach extends past government payroll. In West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988), a physician under part-time contract with the State to treat prison inmates argued he was a private professional, not a state actor. The Court disagreed, concluding that “respondent’s delivery of medical treatment to West was state action fairly attributable to the State, and that respondent therefore acted under color of state law for purposes of § 1983.” Id. at 57. That matters wherever a jail or prison provides medical care under contract rather than through employees: the contractor does not escape § 1983 by being a private business.
Who is a “person”
This is where cases are actually won and lost, and the answer is not intuitive.
Cities, counties, school districts, and other local government bodies are persons. Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), held that Congress intended local government units to be included among the “persons” § 1983 reaches, and that they can be sued directly for damages, declaratory relief, or injunctive relief. But Monell attached a limit that has done far more work than the holding: a local government is liable only for its own policy or custom, never on a respondeat superior theory. As the Court later put it, “local governments are responsible only for ‘their own illegal acts.’ They are not vicariously liable under § 1983 for their employees’ actions.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 60 (2011) (quoting Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 479 (1986)). What that requires in practice is the subject of a separate article on municipal liability; the short version is that naming the city is easy and holding it liable is hard.
A State is not a person. In Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989), the Court held “that neither a State nor its officials acting in their official capacities are ‘persons’ under § 1983.” Id. at 71. Be precise about what that covers. The Court said its holding “applies only to States or governmental entities that are considered ‘arms of the State’ for Eleventh Amendment purposes.” Id. at 70. It does not disturb Monell’s treatment of local governments, which the Court described as “local government units which are not considered part of the State for Eleventh Amendment purposes.” Id. (quoting Monell, 436 U.S. at 690 n.54).
For a Minnesota plaintiff, the practical line runs between a city police department and a state agency. Naming the State of Minnesota or one of its arms as a § 1983 defendant does not produce a hard case; it produces a dismissal. The Eighth Circuit affirmed exactly that in Egerdahl v. Hibbing Community College, 72 F.3d 615 (8th Cir. 1995), where the plaintiff sued the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Community College System, Hibbing Community College, and three college employees. The court affirmed dismissal of her § 1983, § 1981, and equal-protection claims. Her Title VI and Title IX claims survived — Congress abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity for those by statute, and did not do so for equal-protection claims. Id. at 619-20.
Filing in state court does not fix this. Will itself came out of Michigan state court, and the Court noted that this “places the question whether a State is a person under § 1983 squarely before us since the Eleventh Amendment does not apply in state courts.” 491 U.S. at 63-64. The Eleventh Amendment is about federal jurisdiction; the “person” holding is about the meaning of the statute. A § 1983 damages claim against the State of Minnesota fails in Ramsey County District Court for the same reason it fails in the District of Minnesota.
Official capacity versus individual capacity
This is the distinction non-lawyers miss most often, and it decides who actually pays a judgment.
An official-capacity suit is not really a suit against the person named. As the Court explained in Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159 (1985), official-capacity suits “‘generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent,’” and “[i]t is not a suit against the official personally, for the real party in interest is the entity.” Id. at 165-66 (quoting Monell, 436 U.S. at 690 n.55). A judgment against an officer in his personal capacity “can be executed only against the official’s personal assets,” while an official-capacity judgment must be collected from the government entity. Id. at 166.
Line that up against Will and the consequence appears. A state official sued in official capacity for damages is not a person and the claim fails. A state official sued in individual capacity is a person: Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21 (1991), held “that state officials, sued in their individual capacities, are ‘persons’ within the meaning of § 1983,” and that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar such suits. Id. at 31. And there is a third box — a state official sued in official capacity for prospective injunctive relief is a person, because “official-capacity actions for prospective relief are not treated as actions against the State.” Will, 491 U.S. at 71 n.10 (quoting Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. at 167 n.14); see Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908).
Same defendant, same conduct, three different outcomes depending on the capacity pleaded and the relief sought.
The Eighth Circuit pleading rule Minnesota lawyers cannot ignore
Minnesota sits in the Eighth Circuit, and the Eighth Circuit has a strict rule on capacity pleading that has ended real claims.
The rule, stated in Egerdahl: “If a plaintiff’s complaint is silent about the capacity in which she is suing the defendant, we interpret the complaint as including only official-capacity claims.” 72 F.3d at 619. The court rejected the argument that naming defendants by name rather than by title gave notice of a personal-capacity claim, and rejected a clarification made in response to a motion to dismiss: “Neither a cryptic hint in a plaintiff’s complaint nor a statement made in response to a motion to dismiss is sufficient.” Id. at 620.
The court reaffirmed this in Baker v. Chisom, 501 F.3d 920 (8th Cir. 2007), collecting its own precedent requiring “specific pleading of individual capacity,” “an express statement that [public officials] are being sued in their individual capacity,” and “a clear statement that officials are being sued in their personal capacities.” Id. at 924 (citations omitted). The plaintiff there had named ten defendants in both capacities in his caption and been silent as to two others. Those two individual-capacity claims were held never to have been pleaded — and by the time he pleaded them properly, they were time-barred. Id.
That is the whole case, lost on a caption. It is also a reminder that the limitations question in a § 1983 case is its own trap, treated separately here.
Two more things worth knowing before you name a defendant
A municipality has no qualified immunity. In Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622 (1980), the Court held “that the municipality may not assert the good faith of its officers or agents as a defense to liability under § 1983.” Id. at 638. Individual officers do have qualified immunity, and it is formidable — see the discussion of what “clearly established” requires.
And a municipality cannot be made to pay punitive damages. City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247 (1981), held “that a municipality is immune from punitive damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Id. at 271. Punitive damages remain available against an individual defendant.
Put the pieces together and the architecture is this. The State and its arms are out for damages. The city or county is in, but only for its own policy or custom. The individual officer is in, but only if you plead individual capacity in so many words, and only if you can get past qualified immunity. Choosing wrong at the caption stage is not a technicality that gets fixed later. In Baker v. Chisom it was the end of the claim.
None of this is a comment on the merits of any particular case. It is a description of the gate a plaintiff has to walk through before anyone reaches the merits — one of several such gates that have narrowed over time, a pattern discussed in this piece on access to the courts. Anyone considering a claim against a Minnesota public entity should also understand that the state-law route runs on entirely different rules — among them the notice of claim required by Minn. Stat. § 466.05 and the liability limits in § 466.04. Those are covered in our article on injury claims against a city.
Madgett Law, LLC litigates civil rights and police misconduct claims in Minnesota state and federal court, alongside its personal injury and general litigation practice. If you are trying to work out whether you have a claim and who it would properly be against, we can look at it with you. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: 42 U.S.C. § 1983, full current text retrieved from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel, uscode.house.gov (“Text contains those laws in effect on August 1, 2026”); the block quotation above reproduces the first clause of the section through “or other proper proceeding for redress,” and the ellipsis marks the omission of the 1996 judicial-officer proviso and the District of Columbia sentence that follow. Case authorities, each read in full text: Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) (§ 1983 is not a source of substantive rights, quoting Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n.3 (1979)); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961) (adopting the “misuse of power” formulation from United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 (1941)); West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988) (contract prison physician acts under color of state law); Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) (local government units are “persons”; no respondeat superior); Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011) (restating Monell; quoting Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469 (1986)); Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989) (a State and its officials in official capacity are not “persons”; the “arms of the State” limitation; the Eleventh Amendment does not apply in state courts; footnote 10 on prospective relief); Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159 (1985) (official-capacity suits are suits against the entity); Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21 (1991) (state officials sued individually are “persons”); Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908); Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622 (1980) (no good-faith immunity for municipalities); City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247 (1981) (municipality immune from punitive damages); Egerdahl v. Hibbing Community College, 72 F.3d 615 (8th Cir. 1995) (Eleventh Amendment barred the § 1983, § 1981, and equal-protection claims against Minnesota state entities; silence as to capacity is read as official capacity only; a “cryptic hint” does not suffice); Baker v. Chisom, 501 F.3d 920 (8th Cir. 2007) (reaffirming the express-statement requirement; individual-capacity claims held time-barred). Egerdahl is cited here only for its Eleventh Amendment and capacity-pleading holdings; its limitations discussion concerned Title VI and Title IX and is not relied on. Supreme Court opinions were read from the Caselaw Access Project archive of the United States Reports (static.case.law); Eighth Circuit opinions from the same archive’s Federal Reporter, Third Series. Reporter citations are taken from the archive’s structured citation metadata rather than from opinion text. Minn. Stat. §§ 466.04 and 466.05 are named by subject only — both sections were retrieved from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes to confirm their existence and headings (“MAXIMUM LIABILITY” and “NOTICE OF CLAIM”), and neither is construed or quoted here. This article is general legal information about federal law as it applies in Minnesota and the Eighth Circuit; it is not legal advice, reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied. Whether any particular defendant can be sued depends on the facts, the entity’s legal status, and the relief sought.