Parratt v. Taylor
Encyclopedia
Parratt v. Taylor, , was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which the court considered the applicability of Due Process
to a claim brought under Section 1983.
was an inmate at the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex who had ordered hobby materials by mail. When the hobby materials were lost, he brought suit under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 to recover their value, $23.50.
The Court found that the deprivation did not occur as the result of some established state procedure, but as the result of the unauthorized failure of state agents to follow established state procedure, and because Nebraska had a tort claims procedure that provided a remedy to persons who had suffered a tortious loss at the hands of the State, but which respondent did not use, such procedure could have fully compensated respondent for his property loss and were sufficient to satisfy the requirements of due process.
The Court found that although the respondent was deprived of property under color of state law, he had not sufficiently alleged a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
to a claim brought under Section 1983.
Background
The respondentRespondent
A respondent is a person who is called upon to issue a response to a communication made by another. In legal usage, this specifically refers to the defendant in a legal proceeding commenced by a petition, or to an appellee, or the opposing party, in an appeal of a decision by an initial fact-finder...
was an inmate at the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex who had ordered hobby materials by mail. When the hobby materials were lost, he brought suit under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 to recover their value, $23.50.
Opinion of the Court
The Court held that when procedural due process guarantees only a post-deprivation hearing, provision of a right to sue in state court was provision of that hearing.The Court found that the deprivation did not occur as the result of some established state procedure, but as the result of the unauthorized failure of state agents to follow established state procedure, and because Nebraska had a tort claims procedure that provided a remedy to persons who had suffered a tortious loss at the hands of the State, but which respondent did not use, such procedure could have fully compensated respondent for his property loss and were sufficient to satisfy the requirements of due process.
The Court found that although the respondent was deprived of property under color of state law, he had not sufficiently alleged a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.