Causes of Action (Laws Allowing Lawsuit)

Your State will have statutes that explain the liability of the entity which employs your public officials - Your City - and what to do when tortious conduct occurs.

You also have rights under Common and Federal Law.

The most used Statute is Section 1983 of USC title 42.

Jurisdiction and Venue under USC titles is also important.
Review other lawsuits to see this pattern emerge.

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42 U.S. Code § 1983 - Civil action for deprivation of rights

http://federalpracticemanual.org/node/58

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

State and local officials can interfere with federal rights in two distinct ways. By enforcing state laws or policies that conflict with federal law, state and local officials deprive their victims of federal rights. In such a case, the public officials obviously act under “color of state law.”/92/ State and local officials can also interfere with federally-protected rights by misusing power entrusted to them under state law. In such a case, the official acts under color of state law only at those times he or she is “clothed with the authority of state law.”/93/ Thus, a sheriff who assaulted his wife did not act under color of state law even though he was a public official; his status as a public official was not the source of his power to act./94/ In a closer case, the Eleventh Circuit held that a city manager, who investigated a citizen by traveling to another state with a city police officer to ask questions of various people, did not act as a state actor because his conduct did not require state authority; a private citizen could have undertaken the same activity./95/