Bennett v. City of Slidell

What This Case Is About

Bennett v. City of Slidell is a landmark Fifth Circuit decision that defined the contours of municipal liability under § 1983. The en banc court established a clear framework for when a city can be held liable for the constitutional violations of its employees, creating a two-part definition of “official policy” that has been cited in hundreds of subsequent Fifth Circuit decisions.

The Facts

The specific facts of Bennett’s underlying claim involved a deprivation of constitutional rights by employees of the City of Slidell. The critical legal issue, however, was not the facts of the individual encounter but the legal standard for attributing employee conduct to the municipality itself.

The case reached the Fifth Circuit en banc after the panel opinion generated disagreement about the proper standard for municipal liability. The en banc court needed to resolve a circuit split over how broadly “official policy” should be defined—specifically, whether any actions by any city official with supervisory authority could be attributed to the city, or whether a narrower definition was required.

What the Court Decided

The en banc Fifth Circuit issued a unanimous statement defining municipal liability, with additional concurring and dissenting views on its application:

A municipality is liable under § 1983 for a deprivation of constitutional rights inflicted pursuant to “official policy.” Official policy is defined as one of two things:

1. A policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision that is officially adopted and promulgated by the municipality’s lawmaking officers or by an official to whom the lawmakers have delegated policy-making authority; or

2. A persistent, widespread practice of city officials or employees, which, although not authorized by officially adopted policy, is so common and well settled as to constitute a custom that fairly represents municipal policy. Actual or constructive knowledge of such custom must be attributable to the governing body of the municipality or to an official to whom that body had delegated policy-making authority.

The court expressly rejected the broader line of authority—represented by Schneider v. City of Atlanta—that would permit policy or custom to be attributed to the city by any officer with final or supervisory authority. Only designated policymakers (as defined in part 4 of the opinion) can, by their declarations of formal policy or accession to custom, subject the city to liability.

The court affirmed, however, that an officer who obtains policymaking authority by virtue of elected office can bind the municipality through policy decisions within the scope of that authority.

Why This Case Matters for Your § 1983 Case

This is the blueprint for municipal liability in the Fifth Circuit. Bennett provides the framework that courts apply in every Monell case. If you are suing a city under § 1983, you must fit your claim into one of the two categories defined here.

Official policy (Category 1). If you can identify a written policy, ordinance, regulation, or formal decision by the city’s governing body or a delegated final policymaker that caused the constitutional violation, you have the strongest path to municipal liability.

Custom or practice (Category 2). If there is no written policy, you can still hold the city liable by proving a persistent, widespread practice that is so common it constitutes a custom. This requires showing:

• A pattern of similar violations (not just one or two incidents)
• That the pattern was so common that it fairly represented how the city operated
• That the city’s governing body or a policymaker knew about it (or should have known)

Not every supervisor is a policymaker. Just because an officer has supervisory authority does not mean their actions automatically bind the city. Only officials who have been delegated actual policymaking authority can create official policy for § 1983 purposes.

Pattern evidence is critical. If your case relies on a “custom” theory, you need evidence of multiple similar incidents—complaints, lawsuits, internal affairs reports, news coverage—to establish the persistent, widespread practice Bennett requires.

Key Takeaway

Under Fifth Circuit law, a city is liable under § 1983 only when its employees act pursuant to official policy: either a formally adopted policy by a policymaker, or a custom so persistent and widespread that it fairly represents how the municipality operates. Actions of individual officers or supervisors, standing alone, do not create municipal liability—you must connect the violation to a policy or custom that the city’s leadership adopted, tolerated, or should have known about.