When I was three years old, my dad received a notice from our local interpretive center banning him and his children from the premises. This museum is federal property, coordinated and overseen by US fish and wildlife and the Corps of Engineers. We were banned in 2002, and in 2015 my dad was sent another letter lifting our ban. I was 16 at this time. Is it lawful to ban a minor from federal property?
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Banning you from the museum raises questions about your due process, equal protection, and First Amendment rights.
Generally speaking, a person banned like this would be unlikely to collect any damages, but may be able to obtain injunctive relief to prevent the museum from enforcing its ban. Of course, it would depend on the reason for the ban and the procedures the museum went through in imposing the ban and permitting you to challenge it.
In your case, though, the ban has already been lifted, so there's probably not much room for any kind of legal action.
EDIT: Since there are several people contesting -- with no law to support them -- the validity of this answer, here's a case discussing the First Amendment implications of access to museums:
As a limited public forum, there are certain First Amendment activities permitted on [National Civil War Museum] grounds and others that are not. For example, lectures or programs on a Civil War topic authorized by the museum and the public's attendance at these activities would be permitted uses, but activities concerning other topics (including the immorality of homosexual activity) would not. Diener v. Reed, 232 F. Supp. 2d 362, 385 (M.D. Pa. 2002), aff'd, 77 F. App'x 601 (3d Cir. 2003).
bdb484
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12I don't think that a ban implicates rights per se, as far as I know even government agencies can ban someone from the property as long as it isn't for their membership in a protected class or their lawful exercise of rights (which, of course, may be subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions). – IllusiveBrian Sep 11 '20 at 15:02
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2@IllusiveBrian The second part of your comment seems to be a list of examples of why the first part of your sentence is incorrect. – bdb484 Sep 11 '20 at 15:13
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10By "per se" I mean in all cases. My point is that the manager of a government building still has wide latitude to ban citizens from a legal perspective. Thus, OP would have to show the ban was for an illegal reason, or at least that an actual policy was applied unfairly to them. I don't think that someone has an innate right to due process when they are banned from a government building, and in general the government does not have to make its buildings available for exercise of FA rights. – IllusiveBrian Sep 11 '20 at 17:06
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1I recommend rephrasing the first line of this answer to not use the word "implicates", since most people have only a vague idea of what that word means, and I myself cannot tell whether IllusiveBrian is correct because I don't understand that word well enough. – Brilliand Sep 11 '20 at 18:28
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4@IllusiveBrian Again, you contradict yourself. You say the citizen doesn't have "a right to due process when they are banned from a government building," but then you concede that the court will ask whether "an actual policy was applied unfairly to them" -- in other words, the court will perform a due-process analysis. – bdb484 Sep 11 '20 at 20:58
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It is of course true that there are cases where people can be legally banned from government property. The question is what criteria and procedures the government relies on in making those decisions. If we're talking about an NSA server farm, the bar is low. But in the context of a museum, your right to access approaches its zenith, under well-established First and Fifth Amendment principles. – bdb484 Sep 11 '20 at 20:58
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2@Brilliand Done. That may be where the confusion is coming from. To say a right is "implicated" doesn't mean that the right was violated -- more like there's some meaningful question as to whether it was violated. – bdb484 Sep 11 '20 at 21:02
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2@bdb484 Your answer now basically says what I was saying. If someone is banned from a museum they don't necessarily have a good FA complaint for a court, perhaps that would have been a better way to explain what I was saying. The original "implicates" wording sounded like you were saying in all cases someone's ban infringes on their first amendment rights. – IllusiveBrian Sep 11 '20 at 23:48
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@IllusiveBrian Perhaps we understand the word "implicate" differently. Either way, I'm glad we're all on the same page now. – bdb484 Sep 12 '20 at 05:15
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Might there also be a time bar to consider, since the contested actions ended in 2015? – President James K. Polk Sep 12 '20 at 14:54
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@PresidentJamesK.Polk The time bar (statute of limitations) started in 2002 – Trish Sep 13 '20 at 11:28
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You can no longer sue.
The ban was lifted, suing to have the ban lifted is moot.
Also note, that the end of the ban is more than 5 years ago and started 18 ago. That matters for the ability to sue too: the statute of limitations is often far shorter. I think whatever claim might have existed is now no longer available due to the statute of limitations.
As an example, relief under 42USC1983, in general, has no statute of limitations in the text, but whatever it is, it starts to run when the violation happens or the injured should have known about them - which was 18 years ago. In Wilson v Garcia SCOTUS determined that 3 years was appropriate in the discussed New Mexico case, and to use the state statutes of limitations for personal injury of the state the action happens in. In Shorters v Chicago the SCOTUS decided 5 years was appropriate as that was the general Illinois statute of limitations.
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1The concern over the suing is not that they are banned, but that they WERE banned for a period 13 years and were unable to use a museum that was supported in part by his families taxes (I am assuming) – Richie Frame Sep 12 '20 at 00:05
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2@MichaelHampton None, if the case is moot. moot means, there is no case. From the information given, the case is moot. We don't know anything to justify any suit but the relief of an injunction, which is moot. – Trish Sep 12 '20 at 06:25
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This is true for injunctive relief, but 42 U.S.C 1983 does not require an ongoing violation to provide a cause of action. It is enough that your constitutional rights were violated. Success, though, is unlikely. – President James K. Polk Sep 12 '20 at 15:00
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1@PresidentJamesK.Polk Success seems impossible under 1983, which requires action under color of state law. – bdb484 Sep 12 '20 at 17:51
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18 years after the injury only murder etc al. hasn't run it's statue of limitations. – Trish Sep 12 '20 at 18:19
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@bdb484: Thank you, I completely overlooked that. Perhaps a Biven's claim then. Regardless, re-reading what the OP wrote and even assuming the facts all support the OP, it seems very unlikely to succeed, and even if by some miracle it did succeed I can't imagine the damages would even begin to cover the costs of litigation. Being wrongly denied access to a museum is fairly minor injury. – President James K. Polk Sep 12 '20 at 20:07
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@Trish Why would we calculate it as though all that time had passed? Since she was a minor, wouldn't the SOL be tolled until she turned 18? That's only about three years ago. That's definitely recent enough for a lot of different kind of claims, though I still haven't been able to think of any she could raise, regardless of the SOL issue. – bdb484 Sep 13 '20 at 01:28
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@PresidentJamesK.Polk I have literally zero experience with Bivens, but I think it's limited to 4th Amendment claims. If it were available, though, fee shifting and the potential for punitive damages could address the cost issue. – bdb484 Sep 13 '20 at 01:28
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@Trish, the ban was lifted in 2015, so the clock has only run out for things where the time limit is five years or less. – Mark Sep 13 '20 at 03:34
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@Mark No, the elapsed time is starting from the start of the injury, which was the ban, because statue of limitation starts the moment the injury is known or should have been known. So, 18 years elapsed. Unless this was a sexual crime against minors, murder or some other offense with very long Statute of limitations, it's over. – Trish Sep 13 '20 at 11:06
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@bdb484 tolling does not always happen if the injured is a minor, it depends on the state and sometimes the injury. And especially, we don'T know how the ban extended to OP - if it was a blanket ban or "with the banned father" – Trish Sep 13 '20 at 11:31
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@Trish You seem to be making some assertions about the SOL that you can't possibly know to be true. We haven't identified a claim or a jurisdiction, so I don't see how you can be so certain as to what the statute of limitations was, whether it was tolled, or whether it operates on a discovery rule or allows for continuing violations. The First Amendment implications certainly suggest that the discovery rule would not control. – bdb484 Sep 13 '20 at 21:32
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If you could sue it would have to broadly for one of two reasons:
Did the museum deny some specific right, as for instance the family had a season ticket granting repeated access which they refused to honour?
Did the museum cause damage, real or reputational? Did they for instance, unreasonably publish the ban, which might in some circumstances be libellous?
My guess would be that lifting the ban might remove any claim for lost rights.
I don't think lifting the ban would relieve them of responsibility if, for instance, they had damaged your research career by suggesting you were not a fit and proper person to be allowed entry to the museum.
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discriminationtag in your question, along with telling us you are Native American, you really should explain the connection. As-is, it's just frivolous information and poisons the answer pool. – SnakeDoc Sep 11 '20 at 22:17