Court Opinion

ID: 9497306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:47:52.466318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:06.682256
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join the Per Curiam opinion. That joint opinion leaves off at the question *292whether a clerk’s failure to file a complaint violates the due process clause by denying the plaintiff “access” to the courts. Nolen returned Snyder’s complaint; this was a mistake as a matter of Illinois law. But errors of state law differ from offenses against the Constitution. Clerks (and judges too) are fallible; litigants have “access” to the court when there are avenues to correct mistakes.
What Nolen did has parallels in many courts’ practice. The Clerk of the Supreme Court returns, without filing, petitions that he believes to be untimely or procedurally deficient, see Sup.Ct. R. 1.1, and until a recent amendment to Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(e) clerks of other federal courts screened documents for compliance with the federal rules and returned those that flunked. (The Clerk of the Supreme Court of Illinois still has that authority. Ill. Sup.Ct. R. 131(a).) How can those gatekeeping steps, or Nolen’s similar act, be thought to deprive anyone of “access” to the courts, given the litigant’s opportunity to ask a judge to direct the clerk to accept and file the paper? It won’t do to say that Nolen’s action was ultra vires while the Clerk of the Supreme Court is authorized to return petitions. No public employee is authorized to err, but all do occasionally; the Clerk of the Supreme Court can slip up in thinking a given petition deficient. The question is whether a public employee’s gaffe in the application of state rules violates the fourteenth amendment. That question has an established, and negative, answer. See, e.g., DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 202, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989); Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 11, 64 S.Ct. 397, 88 L.Ed. 497 (1944); Archie v. Racine, 847 F.2d 1211, 1215-18 (7th Cir.1988) (en banc).
A forum that offers an opportunity to be heard before a decision becomes final provides due process of law. Litigants disappointed by the acts of a court’s administrative staff have that opportunity. The Supreme Court entertains motions to direct its Clerk to file documents. See Sup.Ct. R. 21. Only if the staff prevented the judiciary from seeing such a request would there be a plausible claim that the litigant lacked access to the courts. Yet Snyder does not contend that Nolen would have refused to transmit a motion to a judge. Illinois authorizes judges to direct clerks to file papers they have returned. 705 ILCS 25/11. Cf. Doe v. Carlson, 250 Ill.App.3d 570, 189 Ill.Dec. 205, 619 N.E.2d 906 (1994). As Nolen blundered by returning Snyder’s complaint, a judge would have fixed things pronto. Instead of filing a motion in state court, however, Snyder filed this federal suit demanding money from the clerk. He is in the wrong judicial system, seeking the wrong relief. Perhaps his lack of counsel in the state litigation is responsible. Snyder’s status as a legal amateur does not, however, excuse his failure to take the steps provided or required by the judicial system. See McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113, 113 S.Ct. 1980, 124 L.Ed.2d 21 (1993). His ignorance of the right way to proceed certainly does not support an award of damages against a clerk of court.
My point is not that the opportunity to litigate in state court is the process “due” for a completed wrong, à la Parrott v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), and Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). That would pose the question whether, after Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002), and Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996), access to the courts is a procedural entitlement, to which Parratt and its *293successors apply, or a substantive entitlement, to which they do not. Instead my point is that opportunities to correct mistakes before a suit reaches its conclusion means that there is no constitutional problem in the first place. To see this consider an example. The clerk must notify the parties immediately on entering judgment, as the time to appeal starts -with entry. Sometimes, however, a clerk neglects that duty. It was established doctrine for many years that litigants (and their lawyers) are responsible for checking the docket to see whether a decision has been made, and that they can’t take a late appeal if the clerk errs. Today Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(6) allows reopening if the losing side acts within 180 days; thereafter the judgment is beyond review. Each litigant’s opportunity to protect his interests within the case itself — by checking the docket often enough to make a motion under Rule 4(a)(6) (and before that, by checking the docket every 30 days)— means that the clerk’s error does not deny anyone “access to the courts.” Just so here. Snyder could have asked a judge to direct Nolen to file the pleading. That option provides ready access to the courts.
Suppose that Nolen had accepted Snyder’s pleading and that the judge had immediately dismissed it for failure to state a claim, with the notation “[b]ecause there is a child involved in this case, you must go thru [sic] an attorney for a divorce.” (This is the same language Nolen used.) Suppose further that Snyder had not asked for reconsideration — or had appealed but not asked for expedition, and that his spouse had squandered the assets before the appellate court reversed. Would we say “Snyder suffered a denial of his constitutional right of access to the courts, but judicial immunity blocks relief’? I do not think so. We would say that the opportunity to protest the initial misstep is the access to the courts that the Constitution guarantees. Access neither implies nor ensures an error-free process. Here the clerk rather than the judge made the notation, but the case was just beginning; Snyder had many options. Electing to let the blunder stand without protest does not bootstrap a mistake into a constitutional violation. The State of Illinois did not deprive Snyder of “access” to its courts; rather, it made an error in handling his suit. Errors in the course of litigation may justify motions and appeals; they do not support damages litigation under the federal Constitution.