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What is a Section 1983 lawsuit?

In short

• Section 1983 covers officials who act for state, county or city government — police officers, sheriff’s deputies, jail and prison staff, school officials, child welfare workers, and the local governments that employ them.
• It does not cover federal officers. A claim against a federal agent is a Bivens claim, and the Supreme Court has narrowed those sharply.
• You have to prove two things: that the person acted under color of state law, and that they deprived you of a right secured by the Constitution or by federal law.
• The deadline comes from your state’s personal injury statute, not from the federal statute, so it is different in every state and it is the single most common way these cases die.
• Suing a city or county is a different claim from suing the officer. A local government is only liable for its own policy or custom, never simply because it employed the person who hurt you.
• Most Section 1983 complaints that get dismissed are dismissed on the pleadings, before any evidence is heard, for how they were written.

People call this a lot of things. A 1983 lawsuit, a 1983 claim, a 1983 filing, a 42 USC 1983 case, a federal civil rights lawsuit, a civil rights complaint, or just “a 1983.” If you are looking for the 1983 lawsuit meaning, or the section 1983 meaning, or what does filing a 1983 mean — they are all this, and this page uses the words the way people say them.

What purpose does Section 1983 serve?

Section 1983 exists so that a constitutional right has a remedy. Congress passed it in 1871, as part of the Civil Rights Act of that year, because state courts and state officials in the post-war South were not enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment. The text is short. It says that any person who, under color of any state law, custom or usage, subjects another person to the deprivation of rights secured by the Constitution and laws, is liable to the injured party.

Without it, the Constitution would describe what government may not do to you and give you nowhere to go when it happens. Section 1983 is the door into federal court.

What a court can actually do about it is narrower than most people expect.

The Supreme Court read the statute broadly in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961), holding that an officer acts “under color of” state law even when what he did violated state law. That holding is why a beating that is illegal under state law is still a federal civil rights case.

Who can you sue under Section 1983?

You can sue a person who was exercising government power. In practice that means police officers, sheriff’s deputies, correctional officers, jail medical staff, probation and parole officers, school administrators, code enforcement and licensing officials, and child protective services workers.

You can also sue a city, county, town, school district or other local government body — but only on the narrower theory described below.

That third row is a trap worth naming out loud: a complaint that names only “the State of ___” and its officers “in their official capacity” is asking for money the court cannot award. Individual-capacity claims against the same officers are the route to damages.

What do you have to prove in a Section 1983 lawsuit?

Two elements, and both have to be in the complaint in fact, not in conclusion.

First, that the defendant acted under color of state law. This is usually easy against a uniformed officer on duty and genuinely contested against an off-duty officer, a private contractor, or a person who was performing a government function without a badge.

Second, that the defendant’s conduct deprived you of a right secured by the Constitution or by federal law. This is where the real work is, because the right has to be named and the standard that goes with it has to be met.

These are different claims with different elements, and pleading the wrong one loses even where the facts are true.

A complaint also has to satisfy the federal pleading standard in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8. Under Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), a court disregards legal conclusions and asks whether the remaining facts make the claim plausible. “The defendants violated my civil rights” is a conclusion. “Officer ___ struck me in the face three times after I was handcuffed and on the ground, while Officer ___ stood two feet away and did not intervene” is a fact that supports a claim.

What is a Monell claim?

A Monell claim is a Section 1983 claim against a local government itself. It comes from Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), which held that cities and counties are “persons” who can be sued — but only for their own wrongdoing, never on a respondeat superior theory. The city is not liable just because it employed the officer.

To reach the city you have to identify the policy or custom that caused the violation: an official policy, a decision by a final policymaker, a practice so widespread that it amounts to custom, or a failure to train that shows deliberate indifference. Then you have to show that this policy was the moving force behind what happened to you.

This matters practically, not just doctrinally. Individual officers are often judgment-proof and are usually indemnified only at the employer’s discretion. The Monell claim is where the money is, and it is the claim most often pleaded in a single sentence and dismissed in a single paragraph.

What is the statute of limitations for a Section 1983 claim?

Section 1983 has no statute of limitations of its own, which is why there is no single national answer to “how long do I have to file a 1983 lawsuit.” Federal courts borrow the forum state’s limitations period for personal injury actions — Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261 (1985), refined by Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989), which directs courts to the state’s general or residual personal injury statute where a state has more than one.

So the length of the deadline is state law, commonly somewhere between one and six years, and it is different in every state. But when the clock starts is federal law: the claim accrues when you knew or should have known of the injury that is the basis of the action. Those two rules come from different places, which is exactly why people get this wrong.

Three things shorten it further in practice. A prisoner has to finish the grievance process first, which eats months. Many states impose a separate notice-of-claim deadline before you may sue a public entity on any accompanying state-law claim, sometimes as short as ninety days. And a wrongful-conviction-adjacent claim may not accrue until the conviction is set aside, under the Heck rule below.

There is no nationwide number to give you here, and any page that gives you one is wrong. Your state’s statute and your circuit’s accrual rule are two of the things we pull from official text for the district you are filing in.

Why do so many Section 1983 cases get dismissed?

Four reasons account for most of it.

Qualified immunity

An individual officer is immune from damages unless the conduct violated a right that was clearly established at the time, judged objectively — Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), with the sequence of analysis left to the court’s discretion under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009). In practice it means you have to point to existing precedent, ideally from the Supreme Court or from the federal circuit that covers your state, where a court held materially similar conduct unconstitutional. This is the single biggest reason finding the right case law decides a Section 1983 claim.

The Heck bar

Under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), you cannot use Section 1983 to win damages on a theory that would necessarily imply your criminal conviction or sentence was invalid, unless that conviction has already been overturned, expunged or called into question by a habeas grant. A person convicted of resisting arrest who sues for false arrest on the same incident is usually barred. A person suing over force that was excessive regardless of whether the arrest was lawful often is not.

The line is exact, and it is worth getting right before filing rather than after. If your conviction is the obstacle, the filing that clears it is a post-conviction petition, not a civil complaint — see what post-conviction relief is and what it is called in your state.

Immunity of the wrong defendant

Judges have absolute immunity for judicial acts. Prosecutors have absolute immunity for acts intimately associated with the judicial phase of a prosecution. States have Eleventh Amendment immunity. Naming these defendants does not merely fail — it can draw sanctions in a case that already has a viable claim against somebody else.

The deadline

Covered in full above. It is first on this list by frequency and last by how much attention it usually gets.

How do I file a Section 1983 lawsuit myself?

It can be done, and people do it every day. What follows is how to file a 1983 lawsuit without an attorney — the same sequence whether you ask how do I file a civil rights case, how do I file a civil rights complaint in federal court, or how to file a section 1983 complaint. There is one sequence and this is it.

1. Identify the constitutional right, precisely. Not “my rights were violated” — which amendment, which clause, which legal standard. The claim you name determines what you have to prove.
2. Identify every defendant by name and capacity. Individual capacity for damages. Official capacity only for injunctive relief. If a city or county is a defendant, plan the Monell theory now, because it is a separate claim with separate elements.
3. Find your deadline. Look up your state’s personal injury limitations statute, then check how the federal courts in your circuit apply it to Section 1983, and when they hold the claim accrued. For a prisoner, add the exhaustion timeline below on top of that.
4. Exhaust, if you are in custody. The Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), requires a prisoner to exhaust available administrative remedies before filing anything about prison conditions. Exhaustion means following your facility’s grievance procedure all the way through, on its timetable — Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81 (2006). Only remedies genuinely “available” count, which Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016) explains. A complaint filed before exhaustion is finished is dismissed, and by then the limitations period may have run.
5. Find the controlling case law. This is the step that separates a complaint that survives from one that does not. You want decisions of the Supreme Court and of the federal court of appeals for your circuit holding that conduct like the conduct in your case violates the right you are claiming. For qualified immunity you need this; a district court opinion from another state will not clear the bar. You also have to check that the case is still good law and has not been overruled or limited.
6. Draft the complaint. Caption under Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(a). A short and plain statement of the grounds for jurisdiction, of the claim, and of the relief sought, under Rule 8(a). Numbered paragraphs, each limited as far as practicable to a single set of circumstances, under Rule 10(b). Separate counts for separate claims. Your signature, address, email and telephone number under Rule 11(a) — and your signature certifies that the filing is not frivolous and that the factual contentions have evidentiary support.
7. File it in the right court. Federal district courts have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343. Venue is usually the district where a defendant resides or where the events happened. Pay the filing fee — currently $405 for a civil action, being the $350 statutory fee under 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) plus a $55 administrative fee — or apply to proceed in forma pauperis. There are two IFP forms and districts differ on which they want: AO 240, the short form, and AO 239, the long form, which is the detailed financial affidavit most districts want from a non-prisoner plaintiff. A grant of IFP waives the $55 administrative fee. Note that a prisoner who has had three prior cases dismissed as frivolous, malicious or for failure to state a claim loses the fee waiver under § 1915(g) except in imminent danger.
8. Serve the defendants. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, service is your responsibility, each defendant has to be served personally or by a method the rule allows, and Rule 4(m) gives you 90 days from filing. Serving a police department’s front desk is usually not service on the officer.
9. Calendar the response. A defendant who is served normally has 21 days to answer or move to dismiss under Rule 12, and the motion to dismiss is where most pro se Section 1983 cases end. Your opposition deadline comes from the local rules of your district, which are separate from the federal rules — see how motions are filed, opposed and decided.

Where do I file a 1983 lawsuit, and what court do I file a 1983 lawsuit in?

Almost always the United States district court for the district where a defendant lives or where the events happened. State courts also have jurisdiction over Section 1983 claims and cannot refuse them because they are federal, though filing in state court has strategic consequences and the defendant can usually remove the case to federal court anyway. You can confirm which federal district covers your address, and read that court’s own local rules, from the federal judiciary’s rules pages.

Is there a 1983 complaint form, or a 42 USC 1983 complaint template?

Yes, and it is worth knowing about before you pay anyone for a template. The federal judiciary publishes two free forms and the difference between them matters: Pro Se 14, Complaint for Violation of Civil Rights (Prisoner), and Pro Se 15, Complaint for Violation of Civil Rights (Non-Prisoner). Both are on the judiciary’s civil pro se forms page, and many district courts publish their own version as well. The form gives you the skeleton. What it does not do is name your claim, plead facts that survive Iqbal, identify the policy behind a Monell claim, or cite the circuit precedent that gets you past qualified immunity, and a form filled in with conclusions is dismissed exactly as fast as a complaint written from scratch with conclusions.

How do I sue for a civil rights violation by the police?

Searched as how to sue the police for violating my rights, or how do I sue for civil rights violation, it is the same nine steps, with three things to get right at the start. Name the individual officers, not just the department. Identify the amendment that fits what happened to you from the table above, because “police brutality” is not a cause of action and excessive force is. And plead the department or city separately under Monell if there is a policy, a pattern, or a training failure behind it, because that claim has its own elements and is the one most often thrown away in a sentence.

How to sue a jail for a civil rights violation, and how to sue a prison guard

Same statute, three extra obstacles. Exhaustion under the PLRA comes first and there is no way around it. The standard is harsher: an Eighth Amendment claim asks whether force was applied maliciously and sadistically, which is a higher bar than the reasonableness test that applies on the street. And the PLRA limits recovery for mental or emotional injury without a prior showing of physical injury or the commission of a sexual act, and caps attorney’s fees. None of that makes the case impossible; all of it changes what has to be in the complaint.

Where the research gets hard

Step 5 is where this gets difficult without paid tools. Free sources exist and they will find you cases: CourtListener, Google Scholar with the Case law option selected rather than its default article search, the courts’ own published opinions on govinfo, and Justia for the Supreme Court. What they do not do reliably is tell you whether the case you found is still good law, show you every later decision that has limited it, or surface the circuit decision that is closer to your facts than the one you happened to find. That is the work Westlaw and Lexis charge for, and it is the work qualified immunity turns on.

What about my state’s civil rights law?

Section 1983 is federal and identical in all fifty states. That is the reason this page is one page and not fifty: the statute, the elements, the immunities and the pleading standard do not change when you cross a state line. What changes is the deadline, and the state-law claim you may be able to plead alongside it.

Many states have their own civil rights statute, and in some of them it is the stronger claim. California’s Bane Act, Civil Code § 52.1, reaches interference with rights by threat, intimidation or coercion and carries its own damages and fees provisions; the Ralph Act, Civil Code § 51.7, covers violence motivated by protected characteristics. Other states have analogous statutes and state constitutional tort claims with different elements, different immunities and different notice-of-claim requirements — and those notice requirements can be as short as a few months, which catches people who were watching only the federal deadline.

Whether a state claim should be pleaded alongside the federal one, or instead of it, depends on your state and your facts.

What mistakes sink a Section 1983 complaint?

• The filing deadline, missed because it came from a state personal injury statute nobody thought to look up.
• The exhaustion requirement, where a prisoner files before the grievance process is finished and the case is dismissed without the merits ever being reached.
• A complaint written as conclusions rather than facts, dismissed under Iqbal without a hearing.
• A Monell claim asserted in a sentence, with no identified policy, custom or failure to train.
• A qualified immunity defense met with general principles instead of a case that put the officer on notice.
• The wrong defendant — the state instead of the official, official capacity instead of individual capacity, a federal officer sued under a statute that does not reach federal officers.

Common questions

Rules and cases cited on this page

42 U.S.C. § 1983 · 42 U.S.C. § 1988 · 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) · 28 U.S.C. § 1331 · 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 28 U.S.C. § 1915 · 28 U.S.C. § 1654 · Fed. R. Civ. P. 4, 8, 10, 11, 12 · Cal. Civ. Code §§ 51.7, 52.1

Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961) · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) · Monell v. Dep’t of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) · Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982) · Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261 (1985) · West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988) · Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235 (1989) · Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989) · Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) · Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81 (2006) · Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) · Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009) · Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009) · Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016) · Egbert v. Boule, 596 U.S. 482 (2022)

Related pages

What is post-conviction relief? · How do I file a motion in court? · How do I write an appellate brief?