Martin A. Schwartz
When may a supervisory official be held liable under 42 U.S.C. §1983 for the unconstitutional conduct of a subordinate? This issue has given the courts and §1983 litigators fits for many years. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009) generated confusion and uncertainty about the liability of supervisors for constitutional violations by subordinates. The Supreme Court, post-Iqbal, has so far stayed out of the thicket and, as a result, failed to provide much needed guidance on the issue.
Prof. Alexander A. Reinert recently made an excellent presentation on the issue of supervisory liability at the Practising Law Institute’s Thirty Fifth Annual Section 1983 Litigation Program (New York City, Oct. 25, 2018). Reinert argued in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiff in Iqbal and has been carefully following the post-Iqbal lower court developments. He offered several important observations concerning the liability of supervisory officials, which we will highlight as we work our way through the material.
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