Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Christopher Fonte, Petitioner v. Memorial Hospital of Laramie County, dba Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, et al.

Supreme Court briefJan 22, 2026

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ORIGINAL

FILED

JAN 2 2 2026

OFFICE OF THE CLERK

SUPREME COURTuT

^5“1417

NO.

In The

Supreme Court of tlje Wnttefc States

Christopher Fonte,

Petitioner,

Memorial Hospital of Laramie County, et aL

Respondents.

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals

for the Tenth Circuit

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Christopher Fonte

PO BOX 7120

Dillon, Colorado 80435

CCFO1114@AOL.COM

(360) 837-0435

QUESTION PRESENTED

The Due Process Clause limits the authority of

federal courts to extinguish federal statutory causes

of action by enforcing state law in a form the state

itself does not recognize or apply. In cases such as

EMTALA, which ties its civil remedy to state

personal-injury law and disclaims preemption absent

direct conflict, due process is violated when a federal

court forecloses a federal claim by enforcing a state

procedural prerequisite in a form the state’s own

controlling precedent does not apply. Where federal

protections incorporate and coexist with state law,

this Court requires federal courts to ascertain and

apply controlling state law, not replace it with a

different rule before treating a prerequisite as

outcome-determinative.

Breaking from this Court’s precedent and its

own, the court below failed to apply controlling state

law, or to certify any perceived ambiguity to the

State’s highest court before creating and enforcing a

version of a notice-of-claim requirement that does not

exist under the State’s own controlling precedent.

The question presented is:

Whether federal courts exceed their authority by

enforcing state law in a form the State’s highest

court does not recognize, thereby nullifying a federal

statutory right in violation of the Due Process

Clause.

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

Petioner is Christopher Fonte, the Appellant

below and Plaintiff in the district court.

Respondents are the Appelles

Defendants in the district court.

below

and

RELATED PROCEEDINGS

1. United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth

Circuit, Fonte v. Memorial Hospital of Laramie

County, et al., No. 24-8037, order denying

rehearing en banc dated August 25, 2025

2. United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth

Circuit, Fonte v. Memorial Hospital of Laramie

County, et al., No. 24-8037, unpublished order

and judgment affirming the district court

dated May 5, 2025

3. United States District Court for the District of

Wyoming, No. l:23-cv-00140-SWS, Fonte v.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

.......... ii

LIST OF ALL PROCEEDINGS

..ii

APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

OPINIONS BELOW

STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY

PROVISIONS INVOLVED

INTRODUCTION

...........

................... 3

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

I. The decision below extinguishes a federal

statutory remedy by enforcing an alternate

version of state law

...... 13

A) This Court’s equitable tolling jurisprudence

rejects categorical foreclosure absent a clear

statement

......................

B) Wyoming law does not support the Tenth

Circuit’s categorical “no tolling” rule

C) The issue is recurring and vehicle-clean ....17

II. Retroactive statutory application, fair notice,

and conclusory harmlessness............................... 18

A) This Court’s presumption against retroactivity

requires a clear statement .............................. .19

B) Wyoming’s 2024 amendment contains no retro

activity directive...............................

C) This Court regularly vacates and remands when

the basis for judgment is too opaque for meaningful

review.................................................................. 20

III. Due process: Denial of meaningful access to

the courts............ ...... ......................

A) Logan and Boddie forbid terminating an accrued

claim through rigid procedure when the litigant is

blameless........ .............................................

B) Disability-related barriers that foreclose particip

ation deny “meaningful access” to courts..... 23

C) Perfunctory, nohresponsive disposition .compounds

the due process violation.................

IV. Pro se litigants’ rights and the obligation to

consider their claims ...................................

V. Unpublished dispositions and accountabilty in

reason-giving .................................

CONCLUSION......................

....30

APPENDIX TABLE OF CONTENTS

United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,

Order and Judgment in 24-8037

Issued May 5, 2025.............................

.....la

United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit,

Order Denying Rehearing En Banc in 24-8037

Issued August 25, 2025

17a

United States District Court for the District of

Wyoming, Order in l:23-cv-00140-SWS

Issued April 24, 2024

19a

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-113

..........

48a

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-103 (2023)

L..51a

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-103 (2024)

54a

42 U.S.C. § 1395dd

................

55a

U.S. Const, amend. V

............... 68a

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Board of Regents of Univ, of N.Y. v. Tomanio,

446 U.S. 478 (1980) ...............................

Boddie v. Connecticut,

401 U.S. 371 (1971) ............................................. 21, 22

Boag v. MacDougall,

454 U.S. 364 (1982) (per curiam) ............................ 25

Bouie v. City of Columbia,

378 U.S. 347 (1964) .....................

Bowen v. City of New York,

476 U.S. 467 (1986) ........

Carter v. Stanton,

405 U.S. 669 (1972).............................................. .20, 28

Dennison Mfg. Co. v. Panduit Corp.,

475 U.S. 809 (1986)..................... :............

20; 28

Erickson v. Pardus,

551 U.S. 89 (2007) (per curiam) ...............................25

Haines v. Kerner,

404 U.S. 519 (1972) (per curiam) ......................25, 26

Hamilton v. Northfield Ins. Co.,

954 F.3d 1302 (10th Cir. 2020)............

...12

Hardin v. Straub,

490 U.S. 536 (1989) )...... ;...................................

.14

Holland v. Florida,

560 U.S. 631 (2010) .'.....................................

Hull v. North Lincoln County Hospital District,

2025 WY 6,H 20-30 (Wyo. Jan.9,2025) ......... .4, 16

vii

Irwin v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs,

498 U.S. 89 (1990).........

Landgraf v. USI Film Prods.,

511 U.S. 244 (1994) ..................................... ....... :..... 19

Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co.,

455 U.S. 422 (1982) ............................................. 21, 22

M.L.B. v. S.L.J.,

519 U.S. 102 (1996) ............ ,.................................. ....23

Menominee Indian Tribe of Wis. v. United States,

577 U.S. 250 (2016) ..................................

Raley v. Ohio,

360 U.S. 423 (1959) .................................................... 22

Romero v. Brown,

899 P.2d 1324 (Wyo.1995) .................

Tennessee v. Lane,

541 U.S. 509 (2004) ..............................................v....23

United States v. Kwai Fun Wong,

575 U.S. 402 (2015)..................................................... 15

Vandenbark v. Owens-Illinois Glass Co.,

311 U.S. 538 (1941) ....................................................15

West v. AT&T Co.,

311 U.S. 223 (1940) ............................................... 3, 14

Wilkins v. United States,

598 U.S. 152 (2023) .................................................... 15

viii

Statutes

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-113 ......8, 9, 10,14, 15, 16, 18, 24

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-103 (2023)

........... 2

Wyo. Stat. §§ 1-39-103 (2024)

2, 19

42 U.S.C. § 1395dd

................ ...2, 6, 8, 9, 13, 21

U.S. Const, amend. V

................................... 2

Other Authorities

Merritt E. McAlister, “Downright Indifference”:

Examining Unpublished Decisions in the Federal

Courts of Appeals, 118 Mich. L. Rev. 533 (2020)...27

Is Unpublished Unequal1

? An Empirical Examination

of the 87% Nonpublication Rate in Federal Appeals,

107 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (2021)

■...............................7

3fn tlje Supreme (Court of tlje SIniteb States;

No.

Christopher Fonte, Petitioner

Memorial Hospital of Laramie County, et al

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United

States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Christopher Fonte respectfully petitions for a writ of

certiorari to review the judgment of the United

States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in this

case.

OPINIONS BELOW

The unpublished order and judgment of the United

States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is

reproduced in the Appendix at App. la—16a. The order

and opinion of the United States District Court for the

District of Wyoming is reproduced in the Appendix at

App. 19a-47a.

STATEMENT OF JURISDICTION

The Tenth Circuit entered judgment on May 5,

2025. The jurisdiction of this Court is in-voked under

28 U.S.C. 1254(1).

Constitutional and Statutory

Provisions Involved*

The Due Process Clause states, in relevant part:

“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or

property, without due process of law.”

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

(EMTALA), 42 U.S.C. § 1395dd.

§ 1395dd(d)(2)(A) — Civil enforcement provision

authorizing a private right of action for

personal harm resulting from a violation of

EMTALA.

§ 1395dd(f) — Non-preemption provision stating

that EMTALA does not preempt state or local

law except to the extent of a direct conflict

Wyoming Governmental Claims Act (WGCA).

Wyo. Stat. § 1-39-113 — Notice-of-claim

requirement governing actions against

governmental entities or public employees.

(2023 version; 2024 amended version).

WyO. Stat. § 1-39-103 — Definitions applicable

to the WGCA, including the definition of

“governmental entity.” (2023 version; 2024

-amended version).

*(A11 statutory provisions are set forth in the

Appendix.)

INTRODUCTION

This case concerns the constitutional limits on

federal courts when adjudicating federal statutory

claims that coexist with state-law predicates. When

state law is allowed to supply a governing,

prerequisite, a federal court must apply that law as

the State actually supplies it and as it existed at the

relevant time. Due process is violated when a federal

court both enforces a state procedural rule in a form

the State itself does not, and then applies a later

enacted or altered version of the state law as

retroactive reasoning to foreclose on an accrued

federal claim.

Congress sometimes designs federal causes of

action to operate alongside, rather than displace,

state-law regimes. In such cases, state law supplies

key predicates, such as damages rules or procedural

prerequisites, that federal courts must apply as the

State itself applies them. Due process requires

federal courts “to ascertain from all the available

data what the state law is and apply it.” West v.

AT&T Co., 311 U.S. 223, 237 (1940). It does not

permit federal courts to substitute a materially

different rule, or to treat a perceived ambiguity as

license to impose a stricter prerequisite that the

State itself has not adopted.

The courts below departed from these principles

by treating the relevant state-law prerequisite for a

notice-of-claim as an absolute and categorical bar,

foreclosing all equitable relief. Under the State’s

controlling precedent, equitable principles are

recognized, and have limited the operation of such

strict

preconsditions

and

prevented

rigid

enforcement where doing so would be unjust or

■inconsistent with the governing scheme. See Hull v.

N. Lincoln Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 2025 WY 6 (Wyo. Jan. 9,

2025). By denying the availability of equity

altogether, the federal courts erased a federal

statutory claim without consideration on the merits.

That categorical foreclosure was compounded by

the district court’s application of a later statutory

amendment and definition for the claims notice more

clearly defining ambiguity of a hospital’s government

nature. The district court applied this subsequently

enacted version of state law to events that occurred

earlier, using the later enactment to trigger and

enforce a procedural bar that was not reasonably

apparent from the governing law at the time of the

alleged violation. Due process forbids enforcement of

such an “unexpected and indefensible” construction,

because retroactive application of a materially new

rule deprives a litigant of fair notice and arbitrarily

extinguishes an accrued cause of action. See Bouie v.

City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964).

Finally, apart from denying equity and endorsing

the use of an amended definition, the Tenth Circuit

departed from controlling Wyoming law by supplying

its own post hoc construction of the State’s, notice-ofclaim framework. Rather than applying the State

Supreme Court’s governing precedents, or certifying

any genuine ambiguity for authoritative resolution,

the court imposed a stricter prerequisite than

Wyoming law provides and treated that judicially

supplied rule as controlling.

These errors were not merely technical. They

operated to deny meaningful access to the courts,

particularly where rigid procedural foreclosure

intersected with a litigant’s disability and the need

for equitable consideration and accommodation to

ensure fair participation in the judicial process. The

Constitution does not permit federal courts to close

the courthouse door through inflexible and

retroactively imposed procedural barriers that state

law itself does not demand.

This case presents an issue of national

importance where federal courts routinely adjudicate

federal statutory claims that incorporate or depend

upon state-law components. If federal courts may

invent stricter versions of state procedural rules,

deny equity categorically, and permit later-enacted

amendments to be applied retroactively that

extinguish federal rights, then the availability of

federal statutory remedies will turn on judicial

rewriting rather than governing law. This Court’s

review is necessary to restore due process limits on

federal adjudication and to ensure that federal

statutory causes of action are not extinguished

through procedures the law itself does not support or

authorize.

Statement of the Case

In August 2021, Petitioner suffered a serious

automobile accident and was transported to

Memorial Hospital of Laramie County, doing

business as Cheyenne Regional Medical Center,

seeking emergency treatment. Petitioner has a

traumatic brain injury with significant visual and

cognitive impairment, and he presented with urgent

symptoms including severe chest pain and difficulty

breathing normally. Because he could not safely wear

a mask while struggling to breathe, the hospital

refused, to provide emergency screening and

treatment. Petitioner received no stabilizing care.

Soon after Petitioner sought accountability

through state channels. In June 2022, the Wyoming

Department of Health told Petitioner that “some” of

his concerns were validated, but then withheld the

investigation results and provided secretive

misleading information about what had been

confirmed and what remained unresolved. As

Petitioner later learned, a federal investigation

ultimately substantiated that the hospital violated

EMTALA in refusing him treatment, information

Petitioner did not receive in a timely, transparent

way from the State.

This case begins with a basic point: Petitioner did

not sit on his rights. He sought emergency care, was

turned away, and then pursued the matter through

government channels, only to encounter withheld

information and misdirection at the very moment

clarity mattered most.

A central issue quickly became whether the

hospital was private or a governmental entity under

Wyoming law for purposes of a pre-suit notice

requirement. Petitioner attempted to determine the

hospital’s legal character through state agencies with

oversight responsibility. Multiple Wyoming agencies

represented to Petitioner that the hospital was

private and therefore not subject to governmental

control or notice prerequisites. Petitioner relied on

those direct representations.

Petitioner’s disability made this reliance

unavoidable in a practical sense. His traumatic brain

injury imposed visual and cognitive barriers that

limited his ability to independently navigate complex

procedural

requirements

verify

opaque

government-entity classifications without clear

guidance.

On August 5, 2023, within two years of the

incident, Petitioner filed this federal action in the

District of Wyoming against the hospital and related

Doe defendants. He pleaded an EMTALA claim for

refusal of emergency treatment and related state-law

claims arising from the hospital’s failure to treat.

At the time of filing, Petitioner had not filed a

notice of claim under the Wyoming Governmental

Claims Act (WGCA) because he had been led by state

agencies that the hospital was private and therefore

not governed by WGCA notice requirements.

The hospital moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)

(6). It argued that all claims were barred under the

WGCA on the theory that Memorial Hospital is a

governmental entity and that a pre-suit notice was

required. It also invoked a Wyoming COVID-19

immunity statute in an effort to obtain dismissal on

immunity grounds, but the district court declined to

entertain or proceed on that basis.

Petitioner opposed dismissal. He explained that

he relied on direct statements from state agencies

that the hospital was private and accordingly, not

subject to the WGCA. He described the real-world

impact of his brain-injury impairments and asked for

a fair procedural opportunity, including additional

time or leave to amend, once he discovered the

hospital’s asserted status. He also raised equitable

tolling and estoppel based on the State’s misleading

guidance and his disability.

This was not a request for special treatment. It

was a request not to have federal and state causes of

action terminated at the pleading stage because the

government itself delivered misinformation about a

threshold status issue that only the government

could reliably clarify.

On April 24, 2024, the district court dismissed all

claims with prejudice. The court held that the

hospital is a “governmental entity” covered by the

WGCA and directly relied on an updated Wyoming

authority treating the hospital as subject to WGCA

requirements.

Critically, the district court relied on a 2024

amended definition of “local government”, language

that was not in effect when Petitioner filed suit in

2023. The court then ruled that strict compliance

with WGCA notice was “mandatory” and concluded

that failure to satisfy the notice requirement was

fatal, without granting the additional time or

amendment Petitioner requested despite the

disability and reliance issues presented.

The district court further held that the WGCA

notice requirement applied to the federal EMTALA

claim. The court reasoned that because EMTALA’s

damages provision references recovery “under the

law of the State,” Wyoming’s notice-of-claim

requirement could be treated as part of the state-law

remedial framework. The result was categorical: the

court dismissed the EMTALA claim because

Petitioner had not filed a notice, and then ended the

case with prejudice at the Rule 12 stage.

Petitioner appealed to the Tenth Circuit (No. 248037). There he explained in detail that his

traumatic brain injury imposed significant visual

and cognitive barriers and that he relied on repeated,

direct representations from responsible Wyoming

agencies that the Hospital was private, facts bearing

directly on equitable relief and fair participation. He

requested a meaningful opportunity to present

evidence of government misconduct and disabilityrelated barriers affecting timely compliance and

presentation. The court refused to address these

points, refused to permit development of the record,

and provided no explanation for rejecting them.

While the appeal was pending, Petitioner also

moved to call attention to the statutory error in

applying the 2024 amended WGCA definition

retroactively to his case. The panel again refused to

consider the effect of that retroactive reasoning,

dismissed the issue as making “no impact” without

analysis, and affirmed on a post hoc rationale of its

own.

On May 5, 2025, a panel issued an unpublished

decision; Rather than thoroughly reviewing the

district court’s reasoning against controlling

Wyoming law, the panel supplied its own

construction of the WGCA, treating questions

Wyoming’s highest court has addressed, including

the availability of equitable exceptions in this

context, as foreclosed. In doing so, the panel

effectively endorsed the retroactive application of

later-enacted statutory language and imposed a rigid

interpretation of state law that the Wyoming

Supreme Court has not adopted and has rejected in

principle by reaffirming equitable exceptions. The

opinion did not address Petitioner’s equitable

arguments

grounded in reliance

on state

representations and disability barriers, did not

analyze tolling or accommodation principles, and did

not meaningfully vet whether its interpretation

comported with Wyoming precedent.

By the ruling date, Petitioner’s medical condition

had substantially deteriorated, leaving him unable to

research,

draft,

otherwise

participate

meaningfully in the process. Treating physicians

advised the court that he required a period of

medical recovery before he could engage in further

litigation. Petitioner sought additional time to permit

meaningful participation consistent with those

medical limitations. The court denied rehearing

without granting that opportunity and without

explaining why accommodation or additional time

was unavailable, effectively foreclosing Petitioner’s

ability to challenge the panel’s errors at the

rehearing stage. Petitioner’s petition for rehearing en

banc was denied on August 25, 2025. This petition

follows.

This case also arises against the Tenth Circuit’s

own stated principle that federal courts should not

expand state law absent clear direction from the

state’s highest court: “We are generally reticent to

expand state law without clear guidance from the

state’s ’ highest court, for it is not a federal court’s

place to expand state law beyond the bounds set by

the highest court of the state.” Hamilton v.

Northfield Ins. Co., 954 F.3d 1302, 1309 (10th Cir.

2020).

Petitioner contends that what occurred here is the

opposite: state-law boundaries were effectively

broadened and then treated as case-dispositive to

extinguish federal and state claims at the pleading

stage, despite the State’s misleading representations,

Petitioner’s disability barriers, and the disputed

statutory basis for the hospital’s asserted

governmental status.

This case is the tip of a broader and deeply

consequential problem in federal adjudication. When

federal courts confront claims that require care,

clarification, or engagement with state law, they are

not free to invent their own version of that law

simply to clear the docket. Yet that is what occurred

here. Rather than apply controlling state precedent,

seek

clarification,

remand

for

proper

consideration, the court of appeals supplied a rigid

construction of state law contrary to that State’s

highest court, then disposed of the case through an

nonprecedential decision. If federal courts may

bypass their own limits, disregard state authority,

and extinguish federal rights through unreviewed,

summary dispositions—particularly in cases brought

by unrepresented and disabled litigants—then the

safeguard against judicial overreach collapses. This

Court’s review is needed not because of one litigant’s

loss, but because no other court can police that

boundary.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

The decision below extinguishes a federal

statutory remedy by enforcing an alternate

version of state law

, This petition presents a recurring federal

question: whether lower federal courts may

extinguish federal statutory causes of action by

enforcing state notice prerequisites in a tolling-free

form that the State’s own law does not clearly

require.

EMTALA is designed to operate alongside state

personal-injury law absent direct conflict. Yet the

courts below, while purporting to apply Wyoming’s

notice regime, displaced Wyoming’s own equitable

framework by substituting a federal-court version of

state law. The result was a kind of de facto

preemption: not Congress displacing state law, but a

federal court displacing the State’s law while

claiming to apply it.

Petitioner sought equitable relief from Wyoming’s

notice-of-claim deadline based on circumstances that,

under ordinary tolling principles, warrant factual

and legal consideration (including impediments to

timely compliance and misleading official conduct

regarding the defendants). The court of appeals

nonetheless adopted a categorical rule that WGCA

notice compliance cannot be equitably tolled and

dismissed the federal claim with prejudice.

That premise is threshold foreclosure and wrong

as a matter of federal law and state-law

ascertainment. When federal law requires a federal

court to apply state timing machinery as part of the

remedial scheme, this Court has held that the

borrowed state framework includes the State’s

“coordinate tolling rules,” not a court-created, stricter

alternative. See Board of Regents, Univ, of N. Y. v.

Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478 (1980); Hardin v. Straub, 490

U.S. 536 (1989). And when the governing rule turns

on state law, federal courts must apply it as the

State’s highest court understands it, and not replace

it with a different rule. See West v. AT&T Co., 311

U.S. 223 (1940); Vandenbark v. Owens-Illinois Glass

Co., 311 U.S. 538(1941).

This Court’s equitable tolling

jurisprudence rejects categorical

foreclosure absent a clear statement.

This Court has repeatedly held that filing

deadlines are ordinarily nonjurisdictional claim

processing rules and that equitable tolling remains

available absent a clear statement foreclosing it. See,

e.g., Irwin v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89

(1990); Unitedr States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U.S.

402 (2015); Wilkins v. United States, 598 U.S. 152

(2023). The Court’s general tolling framework

requires

diligence

plus

extraordinary

circumstance that prevented timely filing. Holland v.

Florida, 560 U.S. 631 (2010); Menominee Indian

Tribe of Wis. v. United States, 577 U.S. 250 (2016).

And the Court has applied tolling where government

conduct concealed operative facts or prevented timely

compliance. Bowen v. City of New York, 476 U.S. 467

(1986).

Those federal principles matter here not because

the WGCA is a federal statute, but because the facts

cry out for equity, and the court below employed a

categorical no-equity rule to extinguish a federal

remedy.

B. Wyoming law does not support the Tenth

Circuit’s categorical “no tolling” rule.

Wyoming’s Supreme Court has rejected the

premise that the WGCA is categorically “tolling-free.”

In Hull v. North Lincoln County Hospital, it held:

“We assume without deciding that equitable estoppel

and equitable tolling can apply under the WGCA,”

and then analyzed the governing elements of those

doctrines without foreclosing their availability. Hullv. North Lincoln Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 2025 WY

20-30 (Wyo. Jan. 9, 2025).

Wyoming’s Supreme Court has not only

acknowledged the availability of equitable tolling,

but has applied it. Romero v. Brown, 899 P.2d 1324,

1328-29 (Wyo. 1995) In Romero, the court permitted

late comp Hance with the WGCA notice requirement

where the plaintiff could not reasonably have

discovered the defendant’s governmental status

earher, recognizing that equitable principles may

excuse noncompliance when operative facts are

obscured.

That posture is incompatible with the panel’s

statement that “nothing” in the WGCA allows

equitable tolHng. Whatever Wyoming’s ultimate

Emits on tolling may be, Wyoming has not adopted

the categorical rule the Tenth Circuit enforced; The

federal court therefore extinguished a federal

statutory claim by applying a materially harsher

version of Wyoming law than Wyoming itself has

adopted.

The issue is recurring and vehicle-clean.

Lower courts frequently enforce state notice and

timing regimes in cases where federal rights operate

alongside state remedial frameworks. When a federal

court misstates or rigidities state equity standards,

the resulting dismissal with prejudice denies a

federal remedy on an erroneous state-law premise.

This case is a clean vehicle because the

dispositive ruling is categorical: the court of appeals

treated equitable tolling as unavailable as a matter

of law, foreclosing any inquiry into diligence,

prevention, or misleading official guidance. This

Court should grant review to reaffirm that (1)

equitable tolling is not categorically foreclosed absent

a clear statement, and (2) when state timing

framework is applied to defeat a federal remedy,

federal courts must apply the State’s timing and

equitable doctrines as the State’s highest court

articulates them, rather than inventing a stricter,

no-equity forfeiture rule that ends federal claims at

the courthouse door.

II. Retroactive statutory application, fair

notice, and conclusory harmlessness.

A separate, independently certworthy issue is

how the lower courts addressed the use of laterenacted WGCA language to support a dispositive

public-status determination.

The district/ court relied

on a 2024 amended

.•

definition of “local government” as part of its

reasoning that the Hospital’s public status was

“unambiguous” and discoverable from public

materials. On appeal, the court of appeals disposed of

the retroactivity objection by stating, without

analysis, that the 2024 “expanded definition” had “no

impact” because the Hospital would qualify under

the pre-2024 statute.

That conclusory harmlessness assertion does not

explain (1) how the Court of Appeals determined that

the Hospital’s status was clear absent the new

statutory language (2) why the district court’s

reliance on later-enacted text is irrelevant to the fair

notice rationale it employed, or (3) why the

retroactivity problem is harmless in a case where

equitable doctrines are critical to the disposition. The

result is a judgment that rests on an opaque

harmlessness assertion rather than a principled

retroactivity and notice analysis.

This Court’s presumption against

retroactivity requires a clear statement.

This Court’s retroactivity cases begin with a

strong

default:

“prospectivity

remains

the

appropriate default rule,” and statutes are not

applied to pre-enactment events absent a clear

expression of legislative intent. See Landgraf v. USI

Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 265-73 (1994). The

presumption

grounded

“elementary

considerations of fairness” and the requirement of

notice: individuals should have an opportunity “to

know what the law is and to conform their conduct

accordingly.” Id. At 265.

B. Wyoming’s 2024 amendment contains no

retroactivity directive.

Wyoming’s 2024 enactment adding “entities

formed by a county memorial hospital ... wholly

owned by one (1) or more governmental entities” to

the definition of “local government” includes no

retroactivity clause; it provides only that the act is

“effective immediately upon completion of all acts

necessary for a bill to become law.” Under Landgraf s

default rule, that kind of amendment cannot be

treated as automatically governing past events or

past filings.

This Court regularly vacates and

remands when the basis for judgment is

too opaque for meaningful review.

Even when a lower court characterizes an

asserted error as “harmless,” this Court has vacated

and remanded where the basis for judgment is

“opaque and unilluminating” or where the Court

“lack[s] an adequate explanation of the basis for the

Court of Appeals’ judgment.” Carter v. Stanton, 405

U.S. 669, 671-72 (1972); Dennison Mfg. Co. v.

Panduit Corp., 475 U.S. 809, 811 (1986). Here, the

Tenth Circuit’s perfunctory “no impact” footnote

prevents meaningful review of whether the district

court’s reliance on later-enacted text was harmless,

and it collapses the key fairness question into a

hindsight assertion of governmental status.

III. Due Process: Denial of Meaningful Access

to the Courts.

Perhaps the most profound issue is the denial of

due process and meaningful access to justice. The

combined actions of the lower courts, enforcing a

procedurally obscure and dispositive prerequisite

without meaningful consideration of equitable relief,

disregarding preserved factual material bearing on

that prerequisite, and refusing to acknowledge

reasonable process accommodations for Petitioner’s

documented disabilities, produced a fundamentally

unfair

process.

This

Court’s

due

process

jurisprudence makes clear that procedural barriers

cannot be applied so rigidly as to extinguish a claim

without a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Logan and Boddie forbid terminating an

accrued claim through rigid procedure

when the litigant is blameless.

Two decisions frame the constitutional problem.

First, Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S.

422 (1982), holds that a State may not terminate a

claim through “established procedure” when the

claimant is not at fault and is denied a hearing “at a

meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.”

Logan treated an accrued cause of action as a

protected interest and rejected a system that

destroyed that interest through mechanical

procedure rather than adjudication.

Second, Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371

(1971), recognizes that where the courthouse is the

exclusive forum for vindicating a right, due process

limits procedural obstacles that operate as a

practical denial of access.

Here, the federal courts terminated Petitioner’s

EMTALA claim (and related claims) with prejudice

at the threshold. Petitioner’s noncompliance with a

notice prerequisite was not treated as a circumstance

calling for an equitable inquiry; it was treated as an

automatic forfeiture. That forfeiture was imposed

despite raised evidence that Petitioner’s late

compliance resulted from (1) materially misleading

official representations about the Hospital’s public

status and (2) cognitive and neurological impairment

that affected timely compliance and timely

presentation of evidence. Under Logan and Boddie, a

judicial process that ends the case before any merits

hearing, while refusing to consider whether the

litigant was prevented from timely compliance,

raises a core due process problem.

This Court’s due-process cases also forbid the

State from actively misleading a person. Petitioner

did not seek legal advice. He sought status

information from the Wyoming agency(and others)

responsible for licensing and regulatory oversight of

hospitals, the State office a reasonable person would

treat as the official channel for determining how the

State classifies a hospital. Petitioner was repeatedly

told the hospital was private, and he relied on those

official assurances in structuring his filings. In Raley

v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 423 (1959), the Court condemned

the “most indefensible sort of entrapment by the

State,” emphasizing that there was “active

misleading” by officials who were “the voice of the

State most presently speaking.” Under Raley, due

process does not permit the State to speak through

its responsible officials in a way that misleads a

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citizen and then impose a forfeiture based on. the

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citizen s reliance on what the State itself

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communicated. ,

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. B.< Disability-related barriers that foreclose s

j nparticipation deny ‘‘meaningful,access’’ to

the courts.

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This Court has recognized ..that due, process

includes a right of. access r to .the courts and that

disability-related

barriers Can operate

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a practical

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denial of participation in judicial proceedings.

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Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004); see also

M.L.B. V. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102 (1996).

t { Petitioner sought ? extensions, jand ; process

modifications supported .by medical documentation

showing that neurological impairment substantially

limited his ability; to meet accelerated deadlines1 and

tp-litigate effectively on the j&chedule imposed.+The

court granted limited extensions rand then abruptly

foreclosed additional time, even though , the

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dispositive issues turned on fact-bound equitable

considerations (including what Petitioner reasonably

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could discover, when, and how his. disabilities

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affected timely compliance and presentation). When

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a court’s administration of deadlines functions, on

the record. presented, as a practical bar to

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participation by a disabled litigant, the resulting

case turns on a technical, procedural prerequisite

that bars merits review, courts must fairly construe a

pro se litigant’s submissions addressing that

prerequisite and meaningfully consider preserved

arguments and record evidence that bear on

equitable relief, rather than treating them as

forfeited, irrelevant, or “no difference” by

unexplained decree.

Here, the lower courts’ handling reflects

departure from this Court’s instruction. The case was

terminated at the threshold on a procedurally

obscure notice prerequisite; the court of appeals

stated that key differences in statutory language

“made no difference” without analysis; and it

rejected, as a matter of law, equitable tolling

arguments that were supported by state authority,

and raised record evidence explaining why

compliance was not reasonably possible. Whatever

the ultimate merits, this Court’s pro se cases stand

for the proposition that courts should not use

technicalities and hyper-stringent construction to

dispose of a pro se litigant’s potentially meritorious

claims without engaging the substance of the

arguments or evidence presented. Haines v. Kerner

V. Unpublished dispositions and accountabil

ity in reason-giving.

This case also illustrates a broader, recurring

access-to-justice concern: the increasing use of

unpublished, abbreviated dispositions to resolve

appeals, especially pro se and indigent appeals,

through reasoning too thin to permit meaningful

review. Legal scholarship and empirical work

describe nonpublication rates approaching the high

eighties or higher across circuits and document a

“second-tier” track in which staff screening and

abbreviated

orders

disproportionately

shape

outcomes for unrepresented litigants. See Merritt E.

McAlister, “Downright Indifference”: Examining

Unpublished Decisions in the Federal Courts of

Appeals, 118 Mich. L. Rev. 533 (2020); see also Is

Unpublished Unequal? An Empirical Examination of

the 87% Nonpublication Rate in Federal Appeals, 107

Cornell L. Rev. 1 (2021).

Petitioner does not ask this Court to police

publication practices as such. The point is narrower

and constitutional as applied here: when a federal

statutory remedy is terminated with prejudice on a

technical prerequisite,

reason-giving matters.

Conclusory assertions, e.g., that a load-bearing

statutory-text error “made no difference,” or that an

equitable doctrine is categorically unavailable,

insulate dispositive issues from meaningful scrutiny.

Even if unpublished decisions are routine, they

cannot operate as a substitute for reasoned

adjudication where the result is the permanent

extinguishment of a federal claim, a mechanism that

extends beyond this case and will continue to shape

future dispositions.

This opacity has warranted vacatur and remand

in this Court’s prior cases. See Carter v. Stanton, 405

U.S. 669 (1972); Dennison Mfg. Co. v. Panduit Corp.,

475 U.S. 809 (1986). The same concern is present

here: the combination of a nonprecedential format,

abbreviated analysis, and categorical foreclosure of

equitable inquiry effectively denies meaningful

appellate review in a case raising serious questions

about state-law ascertainment, equitable relief,

disability-related access to the courts, and the

termination of a federal statutory remedy.

While unpublished decisions are permissible, this

Court requires reasoning to permit meaningful

review. Here, the panel’s unpublished disposition

failed to address central arguments and controlling

authority, effectively insulating its errors from

scrutiny and denying the petitioner meaningful

access to the courts. ■

Granting review would reinforce a basic rule-oflaw principle: regardless of publication status,

appellate courts must provide an adequate

reviewable rationale when they end a federal claim

at the threshold, especially where a Etigant is

unrepresented and has plausibly shown significant

due diligence and that compEance was impeded by

extraordinary factors.

This case also impEcates the position of countless

individuals whose meritorious claims never reach

meaningful adjudication at aU. As procedural

barriers harden and reasoned review is displaced by

abbreviated, unexplained dispositions, access to the

courts increasingly becomes a function of resources,

counsel, and institutional fluency rather than the

substance of the claim. Many Etigants, particularly

those proceeding without representation, suffering

from disabifity, or lacking legal sophistication,

attempt in good faith to comply with complex

procedural regimes, yet see their claims extinguished

without explanation and without any forum in which

their rights are actuaUy heard.

When courts of right increasingly cease to

function as places where claims may be heard and

resolved on their merits, and instead operate to

foreclose those claims at the threshold without

reasoned justification, the question is not merely

individual error but institutional failure. For those

excluded by such practices, there is no alternative

forum, no corrective mechanism, and no meaningful

avenue of redress. This Court’s intervention is

therefore necessary to reaffirm that the federal

judiciary remains a forum for the vindication of

rights, rather than a system in which access itself is

quietly withdrawn.

Without clear correction from this Court, the use

of nonprecedential, unexplained dispositions will

increasingly function as a means of insulating

dispositive legal errors from scrutiny, allowing courts

to terminate federal rights at will and without

effective oversight.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be

granted.

Respectfully submitted,

Christopher Fonte

PO BOX 7120

Dillon, Colorado 80435

CCFO1114@AOL.COM

(360) 837-0435

January 2026

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.