District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)

Citation: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Parent Document: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 2021-05-13
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4882760/district-of-columbia-v-towers/ ↗

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The exact foundation for the right of access to the courts is unsettled. At
different times, the Supreme Court has grounded this right in the Privileges and
Immunities Clause of Article IV, the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Due Process Clauses
of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S.
403, 415 n.12 (2002). But at least one thing is clear: the right of access is “ancillary
to the underlying claim” sought to be litigated, “without which a plaintiff cannot
have suffered injury by being shut out of court.” Id. at 415; see also id. at 414–15
(explaining “the very point of recognizing any access claim is to provide some
effective vindication for a separate and distinct right to seek judicial relief for some
wrong”). In other words, in order to raise a right to access claim, an individual must
have a separate legal claim to litigate. Thus, for example, where a class of putative
plaintiffs could not afford to pay court fees to pursue an otherwise viable cause of
action (divorce), the Supreme Court held their right of access to the courts was
violated. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 374 (1971). Similarly, the Supreme
Court held that the denial of an adequate law library violated prisoners right of access
to the courts because it deprived them of “[t]he tools . . . [they] need[ed] in order to
attack their sentences, directly or collaterally, and in order to challenge the
conditions of their confinement.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 355 (1996).

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