By: Derek Hawkins//August 29, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Christopher S. Streckenbach v. Charles VanDensen, et al.
Case No.: 16-1695
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Violation of Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment
Streckenbach contends in this suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 that VanDensen violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by destroying his property without notice. He maintains that the policy, which Redgranite’s warden promulgated in 2013, had not been communicated to the prisoners. Streckenbach contends that he did not see it on the bulletin board (he asks the court to infer that whatever he didn’t see was not there), that the prison’s library had only an older policy, and that the officer who received his boxes failed to calculate the shipping charges and warn him that he must maintain that amount in his account. According to Streckenbach, the older policy he read in the library provided that, if the property was not picked up within 30 days, the staff would ask the inmate how he wanted to proceed. VanDensen did not do that and, Streckenbach contends, thereby violated the Constitution.
We grant that some policies lead to more errors than others. The more complex the policy, the more occasions for something to go wrong. The 2013 policy may have been in that category, for it was replaced in 2015 with a simpler rule that remains in effect. Under the 2015 policy inmates who want to get rid of property have two options: ship it at their own expense or have it destroyed. The option to leave the property for pickup has been abolished. The new policy eliminates the risk that inmates will misunderstand their options, since they must pay shipping costs when they drop off the property. It also eliminates an option that some inmates found valuable. Whether the 2015 policy is beneficial for inmates on balance is not a question we need answer. All we hold today is that VanDensen, the prison’s warden, and the deputy warden are not personally liable in damages under §1983 for the negligence of other employees, or given Daniels even for their own negligence.
Affirmed