Kansas: District Court Holds for Plaintiffs in County Jail Mailing Issues
Kansas: District Court Holds for Plaintiffs in County Jail Mailing Issues
On March 25, 2014, the United States District Court for the District of Kansas granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification alleging First and Fourteenth Amendment rights violations perpetuated by defendant Donald Ash, Sheriff for Wynadotte County, in instituting a postcard-only mail policy (the Policy) for all non-privileged correspondence. The defendant instituted the policy at Wyandotte County Adult Detention Center (the Jail) located in Kansas City, Kansas, on or about June 9, 2009. The Policy required all incoming and outgoing mail between prisoners and their correspondents to be, with the exception of privileged mail, written on five-by-seven inch postcards.
Plaintiffs Tyrell Jackson, Randall Chapman, and Mabel Estes brought the action for themselves and like situated individuals alleging the policy not only limits the amount of correspondence, but also the quality of correspondence, available to them using the postcards. The plaintiffs further stated that the postcards allow “a whole host of people,” both in and out of the Jail, to read their mail.
The court, in its analysis, weighed whether the proposed class satisfied the requirements of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rather than the merits of the claim itself. The court looked to the proposed class for numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation. The defendant asserted that the plaintiffs proffered an arbitrary number of affected persons, but the court recognized that all prisoners and their correspondents were involved in the proposed class. The defendant also argued that the dissimilarities between the plaintiffs’ assertions failed the Rule 23 commonality test, but the court cited a single common issue shared by the class as sufficient to satisfy the test. As for typicality, the court cited case law that held members of a class need not be in an identical situation to meet typicality requirements and the defendant did not contest the adequacy of representation requirement.
Given that only one remedy was sought, and the possibility of the defendant mooting the issue with a holding for the three plaintiffs alone, the court issued class certification. See: Jackson v. Ash, U.S.D.C. (D. Kan.), Case no. 2:13-cv-02504-EFM-JPO, Filed 25 Mar 2014; 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38805 (D. Kan. Mar. 25, 2014).
Related legal case
Jackson v. Ash
| Year | 2014 |
|---|---|
| Cite | U.S.D.C. (D. Kan.), Case no. 2:13-cv-02504-EFM-JPO, Filed 25 Mar 2014; 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38805 (D. Kan. Mar. 25, 2014) |
| Level | District Court |