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16 ¦ JANUARY 4, 2021 NEWS

Employment Law: This 2nd Circuit Ruling
Nixes ‘Supervisor Liability’ Test

By Tom McParland

T Steven Menashi. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
he U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit can only face liability for their “own individual ac-
on Monday nixed a rule for holding government tions” that violate a clearly established right.
officials responsible for constitutional violations The ruling reversed a lower court’s decision and
by their subordinates, in a decision that held a su- granted qualified immunity to Christine Bach-
pervisor at a Connecticut women’s prison could not mann, a counselor supervisor who was accused of
be sued over an inmate’s repeated sexual abuse at the Eighth Amendment violations for her “deliberate
hands of three corrections officers. indifference” to the threat posed by corrections
The ruling, from a panel of the Manhattan- officers at York Correctional Institute in Niantic,
based appeals court, held there was no special Connecticut.
test for supervisory liability in light of a 2009 The three guards were removed from their posts
U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, and criminally prosecuted after inmate Cara Tan-
which made it more difficult for civil rights greti complained of multiple instances of contin-
plaintiffs to sue officials under a federal statute ued sexual abuse starting in March 2014. Tangreti
that allows plaintiffs to recover damages for con- and her attorney, Antonio Ponvert III, later sued
stitutional violations. eight prison officials, alleging that they had shown
In a 19-page opinion, Second Circuit Judge Ste- deliberate indifference to the “substantial risk”
ven J. Menashi said that, after Iqbal, supervisors posed by the officers.

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