Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/183

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 21 (1991)

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Opinion of the Court

II In Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159 (1985), the Court sought to eliminate lingering confusion about the distinction between personal- and official-capacity suits. We emphasized that official-capacity suits “ ‘generally represent only another way of pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent.’ ” Id., at 165 (quoting Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 690, n. 55 (1978)). Suits against state officials in their official capacity therefore should be treated as suits against the State. 473 U. S., at 166. Indeed, when officials sued in this capacity in federal court die or leave office, their successors automatically assume their roles in the litigation. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 25(d)(1); Fed. Rule App. Proc. 43(c)(1); this Court’s Rule 35.3. Because the real party in interest in an officialcapacity suit is the governmental entity and not the named official, “the entity’s ‘policy or custom’ must have played a part in the violation of federal law.” Graham, supra, at 166 (quoting Monell, supra, at 694). For the same reason, the only immunities available to the defendant in an officialcapacity action are those that the governmental entity possesses. 473 U. S., at 167. Personal-capacity suits, on the other hand, seek to impose individual liability upon a government officer for actions taken under color of state law. Thus, “[o]n the merits, to establish personal liability in a § 1983 action, it is enough to show that the official, acting under color of state law, caused the deprivation of a federal right.” Id., at 166. While the plaintiff in a personal-capacity suit need not establish a connection to governmental “policy or custom,” officials sued in their personal capacities, unlike those sued in their official capacities, may assert personal immunity defenses such as objectively reasonable reliance on existing law. Id., at 166–167. Our decision in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 (1989), turned in part on these differences between