## Facts

- Jill Brown was injured during a late-night traffic stop and arrest in Bryan County, Oklahoma, when Reserve Deputy Stacy Burns used an “arm bar” to pull her from a vehicle and spin her to the ground, causing severe knee injuries.
- Brown sued Bryan County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging municipal liability based on Sheriff B.J. Moore’s decision to hire Burns without adequate screening.
- Bryan County stipulated that Moore was the final policymaker for the Sheriff’s Department.
- Burns was Moore’s nephew and had a background including multiple driving infractions and misdemeanor offenses, including assault and battery.
- Moore testified he obtained Burns’s driving and criminal records but did not closely review them before hiring, departing from his usual practice of reviewing applicants’ records.
- A jury found the county liable; the Fifth Circuit affirmed on the theory that Moore’s hiring decision constituted a county policy causing the use of excessive force.

## Issues

1. Whether a county may be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a final policymaker’s single hiring decision when the hiring is facially lawful but allegedly made without adequate screening.
2. What level of fault and causation a plaintiff must prove to show that such a hiring decision was the “moving force” behind the particular constitutional injury.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit in a 5–4 decision authored by Justice O’Connor.
- The Court held Bryan County was not liable under § 1983 for Moore’s isolated decision to hire Burns without adequate screening.
- The Court assumed a single hiring decision can, in limited circumstances, constitute municipal policy, but required proof of deliberate indifference and a strong causal connection to the specific injury.
- The evidence did not show that adequate scrutiny of Burns’s background would have made it plainly obvious to a reasonable policymaker that hiring him would likely lead to the kind of excessive force inflicted on Brown.

## Legal Principles

- A municipality is not liable under § 1983 solely because it employs a tortfeasor; respondeat superior does not apply.
- Municipal liability requires identification of an official policy or custom and proof that, through deliberate municipal conduct, the policy was the moving force behind the constitutional injury.
- When liability is predicated on a single decision by a final policymaker, the plaintiff must prove a stringent degree of fault and a direct causal link between the decision and the deprivation of federal rights.
- In hiring-based claims, deliberate indifference is shown only when adequate review of the applicant’s background would lead a reasonable policymaker to conclude the plainly obvious consequence of hiring would be the specific constitutional violation at issue, not merely some generalized risk of misconduct.

## Conclusion

The Court held that a county’s single, facially lawful hiring decision does not create § 1983 municipal liability absent proof that the policymaker consciously disregarded a plainly obvious risk that the hire would cause the particular constitutional injury, and that the hiring decision directly caused that injury.


Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397 (1997)