Introduction

This is a casebook for use in a law school course concerning civil rights litigation or civil rights enforcement against public/government actors in American law. Civil rights litigation exists at the intersection of constitutional and statutory law, remedies, procedure, and institutional design. It is a body of law that governs how rights are enforced through the civil justice system - what vehicles are available, who may be sued, what barriers shape access to relief, and what remedies may follow. 

This casebook covers the topics and questions lawyers confront in practice as a case moves from intake to disposition, whether representing a plaintiff deciding whether and how to sue, or representing a defendant evaluating exposure, defenses, and remedial risk. The book therefore proceeds through the recurring litigation questions that structure decisionmaking on both sides. What is the source of the right to be enforced, and what is the vehicle for enforcing it? Who is the proper defendant - an individual official, a municipality, a state entity, or the federal government - and what follows from that choice? What threshold doctrines shape access to a federal forum, the timing of review, and the scope of discovery? What defenses and immunities apply, and how do they alter the merits inquiry? If liability is established, what remedies are available, how are they measured, and what constraints apply to prospective relief? Finally, what role do attorney's fees play in the feasibility, valuation, and settlement dynamics of the case? 

A central theme throughout is cost allocation. Civil rights enforcement entails multiple kinds of costs, including direct litigation costs (investigation, pleading, discovery, expert testimony, and attorney time), the costs associated with uncertainty and error (screening, administrability, and the risk of over- or under-deterrence), and the costs of remedies (monetary awards, prospective relief, and compliance obligations). Doctrinal rules distribute these costs across injured individuals, individual officials, government entities, courts, and, in some contexts, the public fisc. The aim in this book is not to assume a certain normative position about how these costs should be distributed but to equip students to identify how particular doctrines allocate these costs in practice - whether explicitly or implicitly so - and to evaluate the consequences of certain allocations. 

The book is arranged as follows: Chapter 2 addresses constitutional rights claims against individuals, beginning with § 1983 litigation against state and local officials and the related issues of "under color of" state law and state action. Chapter 2 also considers constitutional claims against federal officials, including the U.S. Supreme Court's approach to implied remedies and the limits that have developed in that area. The chapter then turns to doctrines that can preclude, delay, or narrow civil rights suits against individuals, including abstention and other timing-related doctrines, as well as immunities. 

Chapter 3 focuses on constitutional claims against entities. It addresses sovereign immunity and related limits on suits against the federal government and the states, including doctrinal pathways through which prospective relief may remain available. The chapter then turns to municipal liability, where questions of attribution - policy, custom, and organizational responsibility - often determine whether litigation costs and remedial burdens are borne by an entity rather than an individual defendant. 

Chapter 4 examines remedies. It covers damages doctrine, including the relationship between constitutional injury and monetary recovery and the role of nominal damages. It addresses prospective relief and the justiciability constraints that commonly arise in suits seeking injunctions. It concludes with attorney's fees, which frequently shape not only post-judgment consequences but also the feasibility and trajectory of litigation from the outset. 

This casebook is designed for teaching, adaptation, and ongoing revision. It aims to present canonical materials and enduring debates in a way that clarifies the connections among causes of action, defendant selection, procedural constraints, defenses, and remedial design, while keeping in view a persistent question that helps unify the field: In a system that relies substantially on civil litigation to enforce public rights, how does the law allocate the costs of enforcement and with what practical effects? 

- Danielle C. Jefferis, January 2026