Cite as: 503 U. S. 115 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
The contrary decision in Ruge v. Bellevue, 892 F. 2d 738 (CA8 1989), together with our concern about the Court of Appeals' interpretation of the statute, prompted our grant of certiorari, 499 U. S. 958 (1991).
I
Our cases do not support the Court of Appeals' reading of § 1983 as requiring proof of an abuse of governmental power separate and apart from the proof of a constitutional violation. Although the statute provides the citizen with an effective remedy against those abuses of state power that violate federal law, it does not provide a remedy for abuses that do not violate federal law, see, e. g., Martinez v. California, 444 U. S. 277 (1980); DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U. S. 189 (1989). More importantly, the statute does not draw any distinction between abusive and nonabusive federal violations.
The Court of Appeals' analysis rests largely on the fact that the city had, through allegedly tortious conduct, harmed one of its employees rather than an ordinary citizen over whom it exercised governmental power. The employment relationship, however, is not of controlling significance. On the one hand, if the city had pursued a policy of equally deliberate indifference to the safety of pedestrians that resulted in a fatal injury to one who inadvertently stepped into an open manhole, the Court of Appeals' holding would not speak to this situation at all, although it would seem that a claim by such a pedestrian should be analyzed in a similar manner as the claim by this petitioner. On the other hand, a logical application of the holding might also bar potentially meritorious claims by employees if, for example, the city had given an employee a particularly dangerous assignment in retaliation for a political speech, cf. St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U. S. 112 (1988), or because of his or her gender, cf. Mo-nell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978). The First Amendment, the Equal Protection and
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