Opinion ID: 4541259
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Filing Police Interference

Text: Even if the Harers lacked a remedy, and their access claim was thus ripe for review, the district court erred in any event when it upheld the access claim on the oﬃcers’ alleged postfiling obstruction. The district court appears to have declined to dismiss the Harers’ access-to-court claim solely based on the December 2018 meeting. The court reasoned that “Channahon fooled [the Harers] into dropping their suit” during that meeting, resulting in them having “to litigate an unnecessary motion to reopen.” The court recognized an access claim predicated on unnecessary delay and the litigation costs associated with reviving a lawsuit. As an initial matter, we agree with the Fifth Circuit that “showing delay alone is not enough; the plaintiﬀs must likewise show the delay caused some further harm to their cause of action.” Waller, 922 F.3d at 603; see also supra at 12–13 (delay does not necessarily spell the demise of litigation). Expense associated with delay, in and of itself, also does not tangibly harm a cause of action. Cf. Owsley, 2020 WL 2832116 at  (“None of the Supreme Court’s ‘access to the courts’ cases hints that a potential discovery problem can be the basis of a [separate] suit, when the … courts are open.”). Instead, the kind of injury cognized by judicial-access law is, as we stated above, the complete foreclosure of relief. Supra at 16; see also Lynch, 703 F.3d at 1157 (“Plaintiﬀ has already litigated his underlying claim of excessive force against Defendant Oﬃcers unsuccessfully, and so his opportunity to recover on that claim has passed. … Plaintiﬀ now seeks, by way of his denialof-access claim in the district court, relief against Defendant No. 19-3334 21 Oﬃcers that is unavailable on his underlying claim for excessive force.”). More to the point, the December 2018 meeting occurred well after the Harers filed their suit. We find instructive the framework our sister circuits have implemented to further refine the backward-looking claim into the following dichotomy: oﬃcers’ actions hindering judicial access that predate the lawsuit’s filing compared with those postdating it. See, e.g., Swekel, 119 F.3d at 1263. Importantly, if the abuse occurs post-filing, “the aggrieved party is already in court and that court usually can address the abuse, and thus, an access to courts claim typically will not be viable.” Id.; see also Estate of Smith, 318 F.3d at 511 (“[A] plaintiﬀ typically cannot recover for any cover-ups or discovery abuses after an action has been filed inasmuch as the trial court can deal with such situations in the ongoing action.”); Sousa, 702 F.3d at 128 (“If a governmental oﬃcial is lying, for instance, the plaintiﬀ can attempt to demonstrate the falsity of the oﬃcial’s statements through discovery and argument before the court.”). In this case, the district court’s justification for its disposition was the December 2018 meeting. Regardless of whether we believe defendants’ statements in the meeting were proper, the district court was in the best position to deal with any potential deception that occurred during that meeting. See Owsley, 2020 WL 2832116 at  (underscoring that courts can “issue[ ] discovery orders, and if the objects of those orders concealed or destroyed evidence, the [trial] judge [may find] them in contempt or impose[ ] other appropriate sanctions”); see also id. (“Spoliation of evidence all too often requires resolution in the course of litigation.”); Henderson v. Frank, 293 F. App’x 410, 413 (7th Cir. 2008) (“This alleged 22 No. 19-3334 violation took place after he had filed the suit in question, and so the proper forum for addressing the abuse was the court hearing that case, not another court in a later lawsuit.”). The right of access to court, after all, “encompasse[s] a right to file an action, but not the right to proceed free of discovery abuses after filing.” Foster v. City of Lake Jackson, 28 F.3d 425, 430 (5th Cir. 1994). The whole “point of the backwardlooking right of access … is to ensure that plaintiﬀs have that opportunity—not to convert every instance of deception by a governmental witness into a separate federal lawsuit.” Sousa, 702 F.3d at 128–29; see also Bell, 746 F.2d at 1265 (“Not every act of deception in connection with a judicial proceeding gives rise to an action under Section [1983].”). Accordingly, post-filing conduct generally cannot serve as a basis for an access-tocourt claim. Instead, a plaintiﬀ must utilize pre-filing actions to build any access-to-court claim.