Cite as: 523 U. S. 574 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
provoked her.1 His claimed injury caused by the delay in receiving his boxes includes the costs of having the boxes shipped and purchasing new clothes and other items in the interim, as well as mental and emotional distress. Respondent denies any retaliatory motive and asserts that she entrusted the property to petitioner's brother-in-law, who was also a District of Columbia corrections employee, in order to ensure its prompt and safe delivery.
Although the factual dispute is relatively simple, it engendered litigation that has been both protracted and complex. We shall briefly describe the proceedings that led to the en banc Court of Appeals decision that we are reviewing, and then summarize that decision.
The Early Proceedings
Petitioner filed suit against respondent and the District of Columbia seeking damages under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983.2 The principal theory advanced in his origi-1 In 1986, petitioner had invited a Washington Post reporter to visit the Lorton prison and obtained a visitor application for the reporter, which resulted in a front-page article on the prison's overcrowding "crisis." Respondent had approved the visitor application, which did not disclose the visitor's affiliation with the newspaper; she allegedly accused petitioner of tricking her and threatened to make life "as hard for him as possible." App. to Pet. for Cert. 178a. Petitioner also alleges that when he had complained in 1988 about invasions of privacy, respondent told him, "You're a prisoner, you don't have any rights." Id., at 179a. Later in 1988, after another front-page Washington Post article quoted petitioner as saying that litigious prisoners had been "handpicked" for transfer to Spokane "so our lawsuits will be dismissed on procedural grounds," respondent allegedly referred to him as a "legal troublemaker." Id., at 180a-181a.
2 Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides: "Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws,
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