## Facts

- James H. Praprotnik worked for the City of St. Louis as an architect and later held a management-level position in the City’s Community Development Agency (CDA).
- The CDA director required professional employees to obtain advance approval before taking on private clients.
- Praprotnik was suspended for 15 days for accepting outside work without prior approval.
- He appealed the suspension to the City Civil Service Commission, which reversed the suspension, awarded backpay, and directed a reprimand.
- After the appeal, his supervisors expressed hostility, and his performance evaluations became markedly less favorable.
- During budget cuts and reorganization, the City transferred him to a clerical position in another agency and later laid him off.
- Praprotnik claimed the transfer and layoff were retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights through the appeal process.

## Issues

1. Whether the City’s failure to object to the municipal-liability jury instruction under Fed. R. Civ. P. 51 prevented Supreme Court review of the proper § 1983 standard.
2. When isolated personnel decisions by municipal employees constitute municipal “policy” for § 1983 liability, including:
   1. How to identify officials with “final policymaking authority.”
   2. Whether discretionary employment decisions by supervisors, even if not subject to de novo review, can be treated as municipal policy.

## Decision

- The Court held the lack of a timely jury-instruction objection did not bar review because the legal issue was raised in dispositive motions, decided below, and likely to recur.
- The Court ruled the court of appeals used the wrong standard by treating unreviewed discretionary decisions as equivalent to final policymaking authority.
- The Court held that identifying final policymaking authority is a question of state and local law, not a fact issue for the jury.
- Under the City Charter, employment policy was set by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen (through ordinances) and by the Civil Service Commission (through its appeal function), not by Praprotnik’s supervisors.
- The Court reversed and remanded because municipal liability could not rest solely on alleged retaliatory motives of mid-level supervisors absent proof that authorized policymakers made or ratified an unconstitutional policy.

## Legal Principles

- A municipality is not liable under § 1983 on a respondeat superior theory; liability attaches only when a constitutional injury is caused by execution of the municipality’s policy or custom.
- Whether an official has “final policymaking authority” is determined by state and local law (including ordinances, regulations, and customs with the force of law) and is decided by the court as a legal question.
- Discretion to make personnel decisions is not the same as authority to set municipal policy; constrained discretionary decisions ordinarily implement someone else’s policy.
- The fact that a subordinate’s decision is not subject to de novo review does not, by itself, make that subordinate a final policymaker for § 1983 purposes.
- Municipal liability based on approval or ratification requires a deliberate choice by officials who possess final policymaking authority in the relevant area.

## Conclusion

The Court limited § 1983 municipal liability for personnel retaliation claims by requiring proof that the challenged action implemented or was ratified as policy by officials who, under state and local law, had final authority to set municipal employment policy, rather than by supervisors exercising delegated discretion.


City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112 (1988)