SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
TRACEY L. JOHNSON, et al.
v. CITY
OF SHELBY, MISSISSIPPI
on petition for writ of certiorari to the
united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 13–1318. Decided November 10, 2014
Per Curiam.
Plaintiffs below, petitioners here, worked as
police officers for the city of Shelby, Mississippi. They allege
that they were fired by the city’s board of aldermen, not for
deficient performance, but because they brought to light criminal
activities of one of the aldermen. Charging violations of their
Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, they sought compensatory
relief from the city. Summary judgment was entered against them in
the District Court, and affirmed on appeal, for failure to invoke
42 U. S. C. §1983 in their complaint.
We summarily reverse. Federal pleading rules
call for “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(a)(2); they
do not countenance dismissal of a complaint for imperfect statement
of the legal theory supporting the claim asserted. See Advisory
Committee Report of October 1955, reprinted in 12A C. Wright, A.
Miller, M. Kane, R. Marcus, and A. Steinman, Federal Practice and
Procedure, p. 644 (2014 ed.) (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “are
designed to discourage battles over mere form of statement”); 5 C.
Wright & A. Miller, §1215, p. 172 (3d ed. 2002) (Rule 8(a)(2)
“indicates that a basic objective of the rules is to avoid civil
cases turning on technicalities”). In particular, no heightened
pleading rule requires plaintiffs seeking damages for violations of
constitutional rights to invoke §1983 expressly in order to state a
claim. See
Leatherman v.
Tarrant County Narcotics
Intelligence and Coordination Unit,
507
U.S. 163, 164 (1993) (a federal court may not apply a standard
“more stringent than the usual pleading requirements of Rule 8(a)”
in “civil rights cases alleging municipal liability”);
Swierkiewicz v.
Sorema N. A.,
534 U.S.
506, 512 (2002) (imposing a “height- ened pleading standard in
employment discrimination cases conflicts with Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 8(a)(2)”).
The Fifth Circuit defended its requirement that
complaints expressly invoke §1983 as “not a mere pleading
formality.” 743 F.3d 59, 62 (2013) (internal quotation marks
omitted). The requirement serves a notice function, the Fifth
Circuit said, because “[c]ertain consequences flow from claims
under §1983, such as the unavailability of
respondeat
superior liability, which bears on the qualified immunity
analysis.”
Ibid. This statement displays some confusion in
the Fifth Circuit’s perception of petitioners’ suit. No “qualified
immunity analysis” is implicated here, as petitioners asserted a
constitutional claim against the city only, not against any
municipal officer. See
Owen v.
Independence,
445 U.S.
622, 638 (1980) (a “municipality may not assert the good faith
of its officers or agents as a defense to liability under
§1983”).
Our decisions in
Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly,
550 U.S.
544 (2007), and
Ashcroft v.
Iqbal,
556 U.S.
662 (2009), are not in point, for they concern the
factual allegations a complaint must contain to survive a
motion to dismiss. A plaintiff, they instruct, must plead facts
sufficient to show that her claim has substantive plausibility.
Petitioners’ complaint was not deficient in that regard.
Petitioners stated simply, concisely, and directly events that,
they alleged, entitled them to damages from the city. Having
informed the city of the factual basis for their complaint, they
were required to do no more to stave off threshold dismissal for
want of an adequate statement of their claim. See Fed. Rules Civ.
Proc. 8(a)(2) and (3), (d)(1), (e). For clarification and to ward
off further insistence on a punctiliously stated “theory of the
pleadings,” petitioners, on remand, should be accorded an
opportunity to add to their complaint a citation to §1983. See 5
Wright & Miller,
supra, §1219, at 277–278 (“The federal
rules effectively abolish the restrictive theory of the pleadings
doctrine, making it clear that it is unnecessary to set out a legal
theory for the plaintiff’s claim for relief.” (footnotes omitted));
Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 15(a)(2) (“The court should freely give leave
[to amend a pleading] when justice so requires.”).
* * *
For the reasons stated, the petition for
certiorari is granted, the judgment of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
