finding defendants to be on notice when complaint addressed the defendant officers as “individual defendants” “acting for themselves,” and when plaintiff responded to the motion to dismiss clarifying that the defendant officers were being sued in their individual capacities
How later courts described this case
- finding defendants to be on notice when complaint addressed the defendant officers as “individual defendants” “acting for themselves,” and when plaintiff responded to the motion to dismiss clarifying that the defendant officers were being sued in their individual capacities
- holding that, “[w]hen a § 1983 plaintiff fails to affirmatively plead capacity in the complaint,” we apply a “course of proceedings” test to determine whether the plaintiff brought the suit against the governmental officer in his official or individual capacity
- holding that failure to explicitly state in complaint whether a defendant is being sued in his or her individual capacity “is not fatal if the course of the proceedings otherwise indicate that the defendant received sufficient notice”
- finding that defendant officials had notice that they were being sued in their individual capacities in part because the caption listed defendants without providing their official titles
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in Sections I and II of the Court’s opinion but I find Section III unnecessary and, therefore, do not concur in that section. I do not think we should decide the amendment issue when we have just decided in this case that the plaintiff has stated a claim of individual capacity. It is not only unnecessary to go further, but it may be harmful to do so because the opinion will be read as applying to state officials for whom a clear statement of capacity is jurisdictional and probably should not relate back. I do think, however, that we should follow the majority of Circuits on the major- question of the meaning of our opinion in Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591 (6th Cir.1989).