Friedl v. City of NY, Human Resources Admin., Docket No. 99-7158

Citation2000 WL 353210,210 F.3d 79
Decision Date20 October 1999
Docket NumberDocket No. 99-7158
Parties(2nd Cir. 2000) WALTER FRIEDL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK CITY HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, AND MRS. BLACKHEATH, PUBLIC ASSISTANCE WORKER WITH THE NEW YORK CITY HUMAN RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION, Defendants, MEMBERS OF THE TEMPORARY RELEASE COMMITTEE OF QUEENSBORO CORRECTIONAL FACILITY AND SUPERINTENDENT OF QUEENSBORO CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, Defendants-Appellees. August Term 1999 Argued:
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

Appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (John S. Martin, Jr., District Judge), granting defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint and denying plaintiff's motion for leave to amend the complaint.

Vacated and remanded.

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] WILLIAM J. ROLD, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

SUSAN H. ODESSKY, Assistant Attorney General (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, Edward Johnson, Deputy Solicitor General, Robert Forte, Assistant Attorney General, on the brief), State of New York, Albany, NY for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: WALKER, McLAUGHLIN, and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.

JOHN M. WALKER, JR., Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Walter Friedl appeals from the January 13, 1999 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (John S. Martin, Jr., District Judge), granting defendants' motion to dismiss Friedl's action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and denying Friedl's motion for leave to amend the complaint. We conclude that the district court erred by considering materials outside the pleadings in ruling on defendants' motion to dismiss and that Friedl has stated a claim under section 1983. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings. On remand, we direct the district court to allow plaintiff to amend his complaint.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are taken largely from plaintiff's complaint. Walter Friedl was convicted in 1982 for criminal possession of a forged instrument, but was not incarcerated until 1993, eleven years later, due to the misplacement of his conviction and commitment records by state and county officials. Ultimately, he was placed in the Queensboro Correctional Facility, which is operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS"). On December 15, 1993, plaintiff was granted work release pursuant to New York State Correction Law, which allows inmates to "leav[e] the premises of an institution . . . for the purpose of onthejob training or employment." N.Y. Correct. Law 851(3) (McKinney 1999). Over time, Friedl was allowed to spend most nights at home, residing in prison only two nights each week.

On May 24, 1994, plaintiff applied to defendant New York City Human Resources Administration ("HRA") for public assistance, food stamps, and Medicaid, disclosing his work release status and the fact that he was residing at home five nights a week. His application was denied on June 3, 1994, because he was "presently incarcerated and in [a] work release program" and thus allegedly "not eligible" for these benefits. Plaintiff requested and was granted a fair hearing with the New York State Department of Social Services ("DSS") to appeal the HRA's determination. On August 8, 1994, an administrative law judge ("ALJ") ruled in favor of Friedl and instructed the HRA to "continue to process the Appellant's application and afford the applicant the opportunity to submit any other documents necessary to establish eligibility." The ALJ wrote:

The dispositive issue . . . is not whether the Appellant is under supervision of the State of New York Department of Correctional Services, but whether the Appellant's income and resources are sufficient or insufficient . . . . The Appellant's credible testimony establishes that he is not incarcerated, nor residing in a public institution, that he lacks income and resources sufficient to meet his needs and that his needs are not being met. The denial of Appellant's application . . . is therefore improper.

Notwithstanding the ALJ's ruling, on August 19, 1994, HRA once again denied Friedl's application because he was "incarcerated and in a work release program" and thus "not eligible" for benefits.

According to the complaint, after the fair hearing decision was rendered, city defendant "Ms. Blackheath" (later identified as Ms. Blackett), an HRA supervisor, contacted Friedl's parole officer, Pedro Torres, to inform him of plaintiff's application for benefits. Torres then charged plaintiff with "Inmate Misbehavior" under DOCS's rules, alleging that Friedl had lied and attempted to commit welfare fraud. As a result, on August 25, 1994, Friedl appeared before the Queensboro Temporary Release Committee, which recommended his removal from the work release program, and the Queensboro superintendent, in turn, approved the recommendation. According to plaintiff, both the Committee and the superintendent refused to consider Friedl's favorable ALJ ruling and "the absence of any restriction on applying for public assistance in the written rules and regulations governing his Work Release" in making their determination that he had engaged in misconduct. Friedl appealed his removal from work release, but before receiving the decision, he was approved for a second work release on or about November 15, 1994, approximately eighty days after his first work release was revoked. When the decision was ultimately issued, it concluded that the appeal was "Moot" because Friedl had been "reapproved for work release."

On July 24, 1997, Friedl filed the instant action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, naming as defendants both: (1) the City of New York and "Ms. Blackheath" (the "city defendants"); and (2) the members of the Queensboro Temporary Release Committee and the Queensboro superintendent (the "state defendants"). He claimed that the state defendants had violated his rights by "revoking his Work Release and reincarcerating him for welfare fraud when they knew from the administrative law judge's decision . . . that he had not committed welfare fraud and was merely exercising his federal rights to apply for benefits." He alleged that these actions deprived him of liberty and property interests without due process of law, amounted to unlawful retaliation for his exercise of various constitutional and statutory rights and infringed his First Amendment right to petition the government.

While discovery was proceeding, all defendants moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12. Plaintiff then sought to amend his complaint to plead additional facts, identify various defendants individually rather than by occupational title, and add Officer Torres as a defendant. In reply papers, city defendants submitted, inter alia, excerpts from the deposition testimony of Blackett and Officer Torres. Plaintiff apparently objected to consideration of materials outside the pleadings.

On January 13, 1999, in an opinion that repeatedly indicated that Friedl's application for benefits violated a condition of his work release, the district court dismissed the complaint in its entirety and denied plaintiff's motion to amend. See Friedl v. City of New York, No. 97 CIV. 5453 (JSM), 1999 WL 11551 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 1999). The court found that, although Friedl "likely had a liberty interest in . . . continued participation in the work release program," he "failed to allege how this liberty interest was deprived without due process of law" since he received notice, a hearing, and review of the Committee's recommendation to revoke his release. Id. at *1. The district court also found no unlawful retaliation in the revocation of his work release since he had no constitutionally protected right under section 1983 to apply for public benefits. See id. at *2. Finally, the court found no violation of plaintiff's First Amendment right to petition the government because Friedl had failed to establish that the speech in his petition was a matter of public concern. See id. This appeal followed. Friedl later settled with the city defendants for $20,000 and withdrew the appeal as against them. Accordingly, we will confine our discussion to Friedl's claims against the state defendants.

DISCUSSION

On appeal, we consider whether the district court erred in, first, dismissing plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim, and second, denying plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint.

I. Dismissal of the Complaint

We review de novo a district court's decision to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim, taking all factual allegations in the complaint as true and construing all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Lee v. Bankers Trust Co., 166 F.3d 540, 543 (2d Cir. 1999). Dismissal is "appropriate only if 'it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.'" Harris v. City of New York, 186 F.3d 243, 250 (2d Cir. 1999) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 4546 (1957)). We conclude that the district court here erred in dismissing plaintiff's complaint against the state defendants because: (1) the court considered materials outside the pleadings in ruling on the motion to dismiss; and (2) the complaint states a claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983.

A. Materials Outside the Pleadings

"[W]hen matters outside the pleadings are presented in response to a 12(b)(6) motion," a district court must either "exclude the additional material and decide the motion on the complaint alone" or "convert the motion to one for summary judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 and afford all parties the opportunity to present supporting material." Fonte v. Board of Managers of Continental Towers Condominium, 848 F.2d 24, 25 (2d Cir. 1988). This conversion requirement is strictly enforced whenever there is a "legitimate possibility" ...

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