Cite as: 520 U. S. 397 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
substantial risks. That standard will distinguish single-act cases with only a mild portent of injury from single-act cases with a plainly obvious portent, and from cases in which the harm is only the latest in a series of injuries known to have followed from the policymaker's action. The Court has fenced off the slippery slope.
A second stated reason of the skeptical majority is that, because municipal liability under Monell cannot rest on respondeat superior, ante, at 410, 415, "a court must carefully test the link between the policymaker's inadequate decision and the particular injury alleged," ante, at 410. But that is simply to say that the tortious act must be proximately caused by the policymaker. The policy requirement is the restriction that bars straightforward respondeat superior liability, and the need to "test the link" is merely the need to apply the law that defines what a cognizable link is. The restriction on imputed fault that saves municipalities from liability has no need of categorical immunization in single-act cases.
In short, the Court's skepticism is excessive in ignoring the fact that some acts of a policymaker present substantial risks of unconstitutional harm even though the acts are not unconstitutional per se. And the Court's purported justifications for its extreme skepticism are washed out by the very standards employed to limit liability.
C
For demonstrating the extreme degree of the Court's inhospitality to single-act municipal liability, this is a case on point, for even under the "plainly obvious consequence" rule the evidence here would support the verdict. There is no dispute that before the incident in question the sheriff ordered a copy of his nephew's criminal record. While the sheriff spoke euphemistically on the witness stand of a "driving record," the scope of the requested documentation included crimes beyond motor vehicle violations and the sher-
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