Court Opinion

ID: 9427055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:33.653612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.700213
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
dissenting.
I dissent because the Court’s opinion departs from our practice of considering only the question upon which certiorari *567was granted or questions “fairly comprised therein.” This Court’s Rule 23(l)(c). We agreed to consider only one question: “Whether negligent failure to mail certain of a prisoner’s outgoing letters states a cause of action under section 1983?” The Court decides a different question: Whether the petitioners in this case are immune from § 1983 damages for the negligent conduct alleged in count three of Navarette’s complaint. That question is not “comprised” within the question that we agreed to consider. Nor is this case within any “well-recognized exception” to our practice. See Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 320 n. 6 (1971); R. Stern &; E. Gressman, Supreme Court Practice § 6.37, p. 298 (4th ed. 1969).
The District Court granted summary judgment for the petitioners, without opinion, on a claim that petitioners confiscated Navarette’s mail in the course of a negligent and inadvertent application of mail regulations. The meaning of that allegation is by no means clear. Navarette may have intended to allege that petitioners were aware of the nature of the mail and intentionally confiscated it because they did not understand prison regulations. Or it may be that Navarette intended to claim that petitioners, apart from their understanding of prison mail regulations, confiscated the mail because they were mistaken as to its nature. The Court of Appeals appears to have adopted the latter interpretation of the allegation although its opinion is not entirely clear. It described the pertinent cause of action as alleging acts “committed negligently.” Having decided that the complaint alleged negligent acts, the Court of Appeals addressed the issue of whether a negligent act can give rise to § 1983 liability. It decided that “a deprivation of rights need not be purposeful to be actionable under § 1983” and held that Navarette’s allegation “that state officers negligently deprived him of [his rights] state [s] a § 1983 cause of action.”
The question before us is whether deprivation of a constitutional right by negligent conduct is actionable under § 1983. *568Neither the language nor the legislative history of § 1983 indicates that Congress intended to provide remedies for negligent acts.
1 would hold that one who does not intend to cause and does not exhibit deliberate indifference to- the risk of causing the harm that gives rise to- a constitutional claim is not liable for damages under § 1983. I would then remand the case to the Court of Appeals to construe the ambiguous complaint and determine whether the allegation regarding misapplication of prison mail regulations states a § 1983 cause of action.