On New Year’s Eve in 2020, three undercover detectives of the Newark Police Department (NPD) were patrolling a high-crime area in their unmarked vehicle. Upon hearing what sounded like gunshots, they sped to the location they believed the gunshots came from. One detective exited the car with his gun drawn, accidentally bumped into a man crossing the street, and immediately shot him in the chest, all under three seconds. The man’s hands were empty and he was not carrying a weapon. He later died at a local hospital. In Fong v. City of Newark, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 172225 (D.N.J. Sept. 4, 2025), the decedent’s estate sued Newark, alleging it was liable for having an official policy or custom that caused his death, permitting him to file a lawsuit for the deprivation of his constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a Monell claim, arising from the U.S. Supreme Court case Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1977).
Because municipalities cannot be held liable for the unconstitutional acts of its employees, such as police officers, a plaintiff claiming a violation of their constitutional rights must assert a Monell claim against the municipality directly. A successful Monell plaintiff must then establish he suffered a violation of his constitutional rights and that some municipal policy, custom, or practice was the cause, or “moving force,” behind the harm suffered.
In Fong, the plaintiff’s complaint argued that the NPD’s custom was to permit its officers to use excessive force, including the use of firearms, by identifying several documents to show the City had not done anything to correct a known prior pattern of unconstitutional policing. However, the court found that the documents plaintiff referenced actually undermined his theory. The plaintiff claimed the NPD never underwent an audit of its use of force; but, the Court noted, the City’s production of a “Force Audit Report” completed by an independent monitor in 2021 disproved that claim. In fact, the Report actually showed Newark made corrective policy changes and had shown improvement in training and discipline with its police officers in the relevant time frame.
Further, the court determined that even if the plaintiff had been able to identify an unconstitutional custom by the NPD, he could not show the causation requirement of a Monell claim, that some causal nexus existed between the custom and the injury. While Newark was certainly on notice of its prior custom of excessive use of force when it signed a court-enforced Consent Decree in 2016, the Force Audit Report noted the NPD’s use of force complied with those mandates thereafter and it had shown “substantial improvement” with regard to its officers’ discipline. As a result, on these two elements of the plaintiff’s Monell claim against Newark, the Court dismissed the plaintiff’s claims against the City.
An interesting element of this case was that this decision came as the result of a motion to dismiss on the pleadings for failure to state a claim; a very heavy burden for Newark to carry. Therefore, in its determination, the Court could not look outside of the plaintiff’s complaint and attached exhibits, it had to construe all facts in favor of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff would win if he could show a “plausible claim for relief.” That he lost here, particularly on an issue as weighty as a shooting death, underscores the proofs needed to satisfy the elements of a Monell claim.