416
Souter, J., dissenting
tected right. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.
In Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 475 U. S. 469, 480 (1986), we held a municipality liable under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for harm caused by the single act of a policymaking officer in a matter within his authority but not covered by a policy previously identified. The central question presented here is whether that rule applies to a single act that itself neither violates nor commands a violation of federal law. The answer is yes if the single act amounts to deliberate indifference to a substantial risk that a violation of federal law will result. With significant qualifications, the Court assumes so, too, in theory, but it raises such skeptical hurdles to reaching any such conclusion in practice that it virtually guarantees its disposition of this case: it holds as a matter of law that the sheriff's act could not be thought to reflect deliberate indifference to the risk that his subordinate would violate the Constitution by using excessive force. I respectfully dissent as much from the level of the Court's skepticism as from its reversal of the judgment.
I
Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658 (1978), overruled Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961), insofar as Monroe had held § 1983 inapplicable to governments beneath the state level ("municipal," for short). Mo-nell, supra, at 663. At the same time that we decided Congress meant municipalities to be persons subject to § 1983, however, we also concluded that municipal liability under the statute could not be based on the traditional theory of respondeat superior. 436 U. S., at 691. We said that for
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