432
Breyer, J., dissenting
ing acts of private citizens. Monell, supra, at 666-667, 694. Cf. Jett v. Dallas Independent School Dist., 491 U. S. 701, 726-729 (1989) (plurality opinion). That fact, as Justice Stevens and others have pointed out, does not argue against vicarious liability for the act of municipal employees—particularly since municipalities, at the time, were vicariously liable for many of the acts of their employees. See Tuttle, supra, at 836, n. 8 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (citing cases); Pembaur, supra, at 489-490 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). See also, e. g., Kramer & Sykes, Municipal Liability Under § 1983: A Legal and Economic Analysis, 1987 S. Ct. Rev. 249, 256-265; Mead, 42 U. S. C. § 1983 Municipal Liability: The Monell Sketch Becomes a Distorted Picture, 65 N. C. L. Rev. 517, 535-537 (1987). But see Welch & Hofmeister, Praprotnik, Municipal Policy and Policymakers: The Supreme Court's Constriction of Municipal Liability, 13 S. Ill. U. L. J. 857, 881 (1989) (adopting Monell's reading of the legislative history).
Without supporting history, it is difficult to find § 1983's words "[e]very person" inconsistent with respondeat superior liability. In 1871 "bodies politic and corporate," such as municipalities, were "person[s]." See Act of Feb. 25, ch. 71, § 2, 16 Stat. 431 (repealed 1939); Monell, supra, at 688-689. Section 1983 requires that the "person" either "subjec[t]" or "caus[e]" a different person "to be subjected" to a "deprivation" of a right. As a purely linguistic matter, a municipality, which can act only through its employees, might be said to have "subject[ed]" a person or to have "cause[d]" that person to have been "subjected" to a loss of rights when a municipality's employee acts within the scope of his or her employment. See Restatement (Second) of Agency § 219 (1957); W. Landes & R. Posner, The Economic Structure of Tort Law 120-121 (1987). Federal courts on occasion have interpreted the word "person" or the equivalent in other statutes as authorizing forms of vicarious liability. See, e. g., American Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Winback and
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