Johnson v. Miller

• Decision Date: 07 February 1996
• Docket Number: Civ.A. No. 94-6499.
• Citation: 925 F. Supp. 334
• Parties: Edward JOHNSON v. Vivian MILLER, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

925 F. Supp. 334

Edward JOHNSON v. Vivian MILLER, et al.

Civ.A. No. 94-6499.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

February 7, 1996.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edward Johnson, Waymart, PA, pro se.

Jeffrey B. First, City of Phila. Law Dept.Asst. City Solicitor, Philadelphia, PA, for Vivian T. Miller.

Jeffrey B. First, City of Phila. Law Dept.Asst. City Solicitor, Philadelphia, PA, Elizabeth Brendze, City of Philadelphia Law Dept. Philadelphia, PA, for Whitney Burke.

OPINION

LOUIS H. POLLAK, Senior District Judge.

Now before the court is a Report and Recommendation ("R & R") by Magistrate Judge Welsh addressing a motion for partial summary judgment by the defendants in this case, Vivian Miller, a Clerk of Court, and Whitney Burke, a court reporter. (The R & R is appended to this opinion.) The defendants have not filed objections to the R & R; I write this memorandum only to add one or two explanatory notes to my approval of it.

The plaintiff, Edward Johnson, is an inmate at S.C.I. Waymart. His suit, which is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleges that the defendants have denied him access to the courts by failing for over fifteen months to fulfil his request for "transcripts, records and dockets" related to his prosecution and conviction in a previous case. The defendants admit in their answer that they received Johnson's initial request. Johnson's complaint, which is somewhat unclear, can be read to say that he later repeated his request; the defendants' answer does not speak to this point.

Judge Welsh's analysis of this case is very thorough, and I will not repeat it in detail here. As she observes, the Supreme Court has found that prisoners have a constitutional right to "adequate, effective and meaningful" access to the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 822, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1495, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). The Third Circuit has found this right to issue both from the first amendment right to petition the government for the redress of grievances and from the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments. See Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445, 1453-54 (3rd Cir.1995).

I will begin by briefly summarizing a number of elements of Judge Welsh's Report and Recommendation. The defendants make two arguments — that Johnson has failed to demonstrate actual injury and that they are entitled to judicial immunity — which Judge Welsh finds unmeritorious. I find her discussion of these claims entirely persuasive, and will adopt it without further comment. Judge Welsh also notes, sua sponte, that Johnson has, since this case was filed, received the transcripts that he sought, so that the injective element of Johnson's complaint must be dismissed. Once again, I agree. Finally, defendant Miller argues that she is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because there is no evidence in the record "that she was personally involved in the denial of transcripts and other documents related to the plaintiff's criminal trial." Judge Welsh finds, and I agree, that the absence of evidence of her personal involvement precludes her being found liable under section 1983, so that summary judgment must be entered in her favor.

The remaining defendant, Burke, argues that she is entitled to summary judgment because there is no evidence in the record that she intentionally deprived Johnson of access to the courts. In support of her claim that Johnson must present such evidence, she cites Crawford-El v. Britton, 951 F.2d 1314, 1318 (D.C.Cir.1991), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 818, 113 S.Ct. 62, 121 L.Ed.2d 29 (1992). In that case, Judge Williams stated that a defendant's conduct "would constitute a violation of Crawford-El's right of access to the courts only if the defendant knew his property contained legal papers and the defendant diverted the property with the purpose of interfering with his litigation, or at least with deliberate indifference to such interference." Id. at 1318 (emphasis in original).¹

The Third Circuit has not yet had occasion to decide what state of mind of a defendant a plaintiff must demonstrate in order to establish that the defendant has violated his right of access to the courts. Judge Welsh's Report and Recommendation provides a well-reasoned analysis of Crawford-El's rationale for adopting the standard of "deliberate indifference." She observes that all seven cases cited in Crawford-El as authority for that case's demanding state-of-mind requirement are also consistent with a less demanding standard. R & R at 10-15. Judge Welsh also notes that one of the cases cited in Crawford-El, Washington v. James, 782 F.2d 1134 (2nd Cir.1986), states that "prison officials cannot unreasonably obstruct" a prisoner's constitutional right of access to the courts, a phrase that appears to argue for a less exacting standard than one of "deliberate indifference."

Judge Welsh's analysis suggests that it might not be wise to rely on Crawford-El alone in determining what state of mind of the defendant a plaintiff must demonstrate in order to establish a violation of his right of access to the courts. However, at this stage of the case at bar I think it unnecessary to determine exactly what form of words should best describe the state-of-mind standard to be applied to the conduct of defendant Burke. This is not because I disagree with Judge Welsh's analysis on its merits.² Rather, it is because I am of the view that, supposing, arguendo, that the Third Circuit, when faced with the issue, accepts "deliberate indifference" — the Crawford-El talisman — as the governing standard for a case of this kind, Burke's motion for summary judgment must be denied under that standard.

The Third Circuit has treated "deliberate indifference" as essentially synonymous with "reckless indifference" and "reckless disregard" for purposes of section 1983 actions.³ There is certainly a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Burke's conduct amounts to "reckless indifference." Johnson sent his request for court records by certified mail, and waited fifteen months before filing his complaint. He also may have renewed his request one or more times. Burke, in her answer, acknowledges that Johnson filed his request; she also does not contest his claim that no materials were sent to him for fifteen months. Requests for court materials, particularly when sent certified mail by prison inmates, are very likely indeed to relate to pending or contemplated litigation. A jury could certainly conclude that Burke must have known that delaying for fifteen months in responding to Johnson's requests created a very grave risk of interfering with his access to the courts, and hence that her conduct exhibited reckless indifference to Johnson's right of access to the courts. Burke therefore could not prevail on her motion for summary judgment even if Crawford-El is the law of this circuit — a finding, I emphasize once again, that I do not make here.

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

WELSH, United States Magistrate Judge.

This is a civil rights lawsuit filed pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The named defendants are Vivian Miller, the Clerk of Quarter Sessions for the Court of Common Pleas for Philadelphia County, and Whitney Burke, a court reporter. The plaintiff is Edward Johnson, an inmate at S.C.I. Waymart. He alleges that on October 25, 1993, he requested that the Prisoner Liaison Unit of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas provide him with "transcripts, records and dockets" related to his prosecution and conviction in a case numbered CP# XXXX-XXXX, 2210, 2211, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023. The plaintiff alleges that on one or two later occasions he made the same request to the Prisoner Liaison Unit and that those requests were ignored. The plaintiff also alleges that, as a result of not obtaining the papers he requested, he was denied access to the courts and that his direct appeal was impeded. As relief, he requested that the defendants be enjoined from denying him his right of access to the courts and an award of money damages.

The defendants' answer was as follows:

The Defendants admit that the Plaintiff filed a request for materials related to his criminal case. By way of further answer, the defendants aver that the requested notes of testimony are in the process of being completed and will be provided to the Plaintiff in the near future. Additional information requested is not presently in the possession of the Defendants. Defendants will endeavor to locate the additional information and provide it to the plaintiff as soon as possible.

The defendants also raised the affirmative defense of qualified immunity.

Discovery closed on March 10, 1995. The plaintiff filed a discovery motion on March 17, 1995, to which the defendants have not responded. This motion is the subject of a separate Memorandum and Order which will be filed today. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on April 7, 1995, to which the plaintiff has responded. The defendants' motion for summary judgment is the subject of this Report and Recommendation.

The plaintiff's complaint alleges a violation of his right of access to the courts. The Supreme Court has held that "prisoners have a constitutional right of access to the courts." Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1494, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). In order to comply with the constitution, the access must be "adequate, effective and meaningful." Id. at 822, 97 S.Ct. at 1495. In Bounds, the Court did not identify the precise constitutional provision that was the source of the right of court access, hence the lower federal courts have been divided with respect to the source of the right of access. See Bieregu v. Reno, 59 F.3d 1445, 1453 (3d Cir.1995) (surveying the Circuit Courts of Appeal). The Third Circuit has recently held that the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances is a proper source for the right of access to the courts. Id. The court also held that...