Is Negligence Enough to Prove a Due Process Violation?
Most civil rights lawyers in New Mexico and elsewhere would answer the question posed with a resounding "No"! They would be correct. However, an intentional, non-malicious act that deprives a property or liberty right can lead to civil liability even when there was no intent to deprive the person of the right at issue. In Simkins v. Bruce, 04-3072, the jail defendants argued that their failure to forward legal mail to a transferred inmate was merely negligent. They argued that their negligent act did not give rise to a constitutional claim as they had no intent to deprive the plaintiff of his right of access to courts. The Tenth Circuit would have none of it and held that the defendant's conscious act of failing to forward legal mail gave rise to an inmate’s claim of denial of access to courts when his case was dismissed for his failure to respond to a summary judgment motion mailed to his old jail.
Inmate Simkins was housed in Hutchison, Kansas. While in Hutchison, Inmate Simkins had a pending federal civil suit concerning the conditions of a jail in Saline County, Kansas. In March, 2000, Mr. Simkins was transferred temporarily to Boulder, Colorado for legal proceedings there. In April, 2000 The Saline County Defendants mailed a motion for summary judgment to his address at the Hutchison jail. The mailroom supervisor at the Hutchison jail simply placed Mr. Simkins mail to the side awaiting his return. The problem was that Mr. Simkins did not return to Hutchison until March, 2001. In the interim, his suit against Saline County was dismissed for his failure to respond to the summary judgment motion. This lawsuit followed.
The district court found that the holding of the mail was merely negligent conduct and granted summary judgment to the defendants. The Tenth Circuit disagreed. First, the Tenth Circuit distinguished the Simkins matter from cases in which mail was inadvertently lost or misplaced:
In the present case, plaintiff's claim that a right of access to the courts has been impeded requires him to allege intentional conduct interfering with his legal mail, and does not require an additional showing of malicious motive.(3) See Treff v. Galetka, 74 F.3d 191, 195 (10th Cir. 1996); Jackson v. Procunier, 789 F.2d 307, 311 (5th Cir. 1986); Washington v. James, 782 F.2d 1134, 1139 (2d Cir. 1986). By contrast, when access to courts is impeded by mere negligence, as when legal mail is inadvertently lost or misdirected, no constitutional violation occurs. See Pink v. Lester, 52 F.3d 73, 77 (4th Cir. 1995) (discussing cases from several circuits). In its Memorandum and Order, the district court relied on cases involving inadvertently lost, not intentionally held mail. See, e.g., Richardson v. McDonnell, 841 F.2d 120, 122 (5th Cir. 1988) (holding that unintentional loss of mail does not support access-to-courts claims and distinguishing situations involving intentional withholding of mail).
The Court found that the mailroom supervisor’s intentional failure to forward the mail to Simkins was sufficient to support a claim for denial of right of access to courts. The Tenth Circuit reversed the entry of summary judgment in favor of the jail defendants.
For the lawyer confronting defenses of "mere negligence" in the failure to provide due process, you may wish to read Summers v. State of Utah, 927 F.2d 1165 (10th Cir. 1991) and Soubeer v. Robinson, 791 F.2d 1094 (3rd Cir. 1986). Both stand for the general proposition that the negligent failure to provide due process is actionable when the taking of the property or liberty right was intentional.