## Facts

- On June 23, 1987, Detroit police officer Joseph Hall pursued Lee F. Berry, Jr., who was driving a van with his younger brother and nephew as passengers.
- Witness accounts differed as to whether the events involved only minor traffic violations or a dangerous, high-speed attempt to evade arrest.
- The confrontation ended outside the Berry family home, where Hall shot Berry in the back, killing him.
- The Detroit Police Department investigated the shooting, exonerated Hall, and imposed no discipline.
- Doris Berry, as personal representative of Berry’s estate, sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the City of Detroit maintained an unconstitutional policy/custom on deadly force and failed to train and discipline officers with deliberate indifference.
- Plaintiff relied substantially on expert testimony asserting that Detroit’s training and disciplinary practices regarding deadly force were deficient and causally connected to the shooting.
- A jury found Hall and the City liable and awarded $6 million in damages, jointly and severally.
- On appeal, only the City’s municipal liability was at issue.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to hold the City liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on an unconstitutional policy or custom concerning deadly force.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the City’s failure to train and discipline officers amounted to deliberate indifference and proximately caused Berry’s death.
3. Whether the jury instructions and verdict mechanism improperly permitted municipal liability without requiring a clear finding of deliberate indifference by municipal policymakers.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit reversed the judgment against the City of Detroit.
- The court held the evidence did not support a finding that municipal policymakers made a deliberate or conscious choice to adopt or maintain an unconstitutional deadly-force policy or custom.
- The court held the evidence did not establish deliberate indifference in training or discipline or a sufficient causal connection between any alleged deficiency and the shooting.
- The court noted the jury instructions/verdict approach risked allowing municipal liability without an explicit deliberate-indifference finding, but reversal rested on evidentiary insufficiency.

## Legal Principles

- A municipality is not liable under § 1983 on a respondeat superior theory; liability requires an official policy or a widespread custom attributable to municipal policymakers that causes the constitutional injury.
- A facially constitutional written policy does not create municipal liability absent proof of a contrary, pervasive practice with the force of law.
- Failure-to-train or failure-to-discipline liability requires proof of deliberate indifference—typically shown by notice from a pattern of similar constitutional violations (or an obviously predictable constitutional harm from a known omission) and a conscious decision not to act.
- Isolated incidents and post-incident non-discipline, without stronger proof of a broader pattern attributable to policymakers, are generally insufficient to establish deliberate indifference.
- Municipal liability additionally requires proof that the identified policy/custom or deliberately indifferent omission was a proximate cause of the specific constitutional deprivation.
- Expert opinions cannot substitute for underlying proof of a municipal policy/custom, deliberate indifference, and causation; they must rest on an adequate factual foundation tied to the municipal practices at issue.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit set aside the § 1983 verdict against Detroit because the record did not show a policymaker-driven unconstitutional policy/custom or a deliberately indifferent failure to train or discipline that caused the fatal shooting, making municipal liability unsustainable on the evidence presented.


Berry v. City of Detroit, 25 F.3d 1342 (6th Cir. 1994)