From the ruling: "The purpose of suing a government official in his or her individual capacity is to impose personal liability for actions taken under color of

From the ruling: "The purpose of suing a government official in his or her individual capacity is to impose personal liability for actions taken under color of state law." This case sounds like a Section 1983 civil claim for violation of constitutional rights, where you can hold the individual official responsible for money damages if they violated a clearly-established constitutional right acting under color of state law. 42 USC § 1983. "Suing a government official in an official capacity, on the other hand, is an alternative way to assert a claim against the entity he or she represents. . . ." (citations omitted). This is really just suing the state government unit to which the official belongs, but stated differently. That's not getting into all the immunity issues that arise in suing officials/government units.