Nor are we persuaded by Wing's theory that the City of Springdale should be vicariously liable for the police chief's statutory liability under Arkansas law for the actions of his deputies. It is true that
Monell and
Owen articulate the proposition that liability for civil rights violations should usually be shifted to a government entity to promote “the principle of equitable loss-spreading ... as a factor in distributing the costs of official misconduct.”
Owen, 445 U.S. at 657, 100 S.Ct. at 1418. But these cases also establish that it is only “when execution of a government's policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the government as an entity is responsible under
§ 1983.”
Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037. In the present case, Wing does not provide a reason why the state law which makes a chief of police responsible for the acts of his deputies should be viewed as a policy or custom of the city so as to spread such costs to the city's taxpayers. We believe as a matter of law that it should not be so viewed, and that the District Court was correct in not submitting this theory of liability to the jury.