Dudley v. Stewart

Decision Date13 February 1984
Docket NumberNo. 82-8428,82-8428
Citation724 F.2d 1493
PartiesNathaniel DUDLEY, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. D. Lamar STEWART, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

James Finkelstein, Albany, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

C. Nathan Davis, Spencer Lee, Albany, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before HILL and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges, and MORGAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff-appellant Nathaniel Dudley, while incarcerated in the Daugherty County Jail as a convicted felon awaiting transfer to a state penitentiary, instituted this class action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 seeking damages, injunctive and declaratory relief against county jail officials for placing him in solitary confinement without due process. Dudley alleged that he was placed in an individual cell for over one hundred days for disciplinary reasons, but that he was neither afforded a hearing nor notified of any charges against him either before or during his incarceration. He also alleged that because the general practice of jailers in Daugherty County is to subject inmates to disciplinary confinement without notice or hearing, the case is appropriate for class action on behalf of all current and future inmates. Dudley contends that the disciplinary measures of the Daugherty County jailers violate prisoners' rights to due process as defined in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).

The district court dismissed Dudley's complaint on summary judgment on two alternative grounds. The court viewed the controversy as moot because Dudley had since been released from solitary confinement and transferred to a state penitentiary. Alternatively, even if the case were not moot, the court held that Dudley's due process rights were not violated because the principles enunciated in Wolff do not apply to county jails. In addition, the district court summarily ruled that the action was not appropriate for class certification.

I. Case or Controversy

The district court erred in viewing the controversy as moot, at least as to Dudley's claim for money damages. The Supreme Court has held that a damages claim by a prisoner whose due process rights have been violated is cognizable under section 1983. Wolff, 94 S.Ct. at 2974; Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972). The claim remains valid and a remedy is available whether or not the inmate is still incarcerated.

Dudley's request for injunctive and declaratory relief, however, presents a more difficult question. Without class certification, Dudley's claim for equitable relief fails to present a case or controversy. Past exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a pending case or controversy regarding injunctive relief if unaccompanied by any continuing, present injury or real and immediate threat of repeated injury. O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 669, 675-76, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974). Since Dudley is no longer in the custody of county jail officials, the most that can be said for his standing is that if he is released from prison, is convicted of another crime and is incarcerated in the Daugherty County Jail, he might again be subject to disciplinary confinement without due process. In a similar fact situation, the Court in O'Shea found the threat was not "sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy simply because [the plaintiffs] anticipate violating lawful criminal statutes and being tried for their offenses ...." Id. 94 S.Ct. at 676. O'Shea was recently reaffirmed in City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), where the Court held that a plaintiff's assertion that he may again be subject to an illegal police chokehold is too speculative to create an actual controversy sufficient for a declaratory judgment to be entered. Id. at 1666, 1669.

Dudley's standing to seek equitable relief as the representative of a class action, however, presents a different issue. The Supreme Court has held that an action brought on behalf of a class does not become moot upon expiration of the named plaintiff's substantive claim. United States Parole Comm'n. v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 100 S.Ct. 1202, 1212, 63 L.Ed.2d 479 (1980); Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 559, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975). Moreover, the case is not rendered moot when class certification is denied in the district court. If the appeal results in reversal of the denial, and the class is subsequently certified, the merits of the claim may be adjudicated. Geraghty, 100 S.Ct. at 1212-13.

Under Sosna, if Dudley had been certified as an appropriate representative of a class, his case could continue on the merits. See Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U.S. 747, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976) (mootness turns on whether an adversary relationship sufficient to sharpen presentation of issues exists; adversary relationship may be found in unnamed class members). But until a class has been properly certified a plaintiff whose individual claim no longer exists may not continue to press the appeal on the merits. Geraghty, 100 S.Ct. at 1213; see also Deposit Guaranty Nat. Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 100 S.Ct. 1166, 63 L.Ed.2d 427 (1980). Thus, until Dudley's class is certified, he may challenge the denial of certification, but he may not adjudicate the merits of his claim for equitable relief.

In summary, Dudley's claim for damages is not rendered moot by his transfer to the state penitentiary. His complaint presents a justiciable case or controversy for determination on the merits. His claim for injunctive and declaratory relief is moot unless the district court's denial of class certification was improper. Given our conclusion infra, however, that Dudley's claim was properly dismissed on summary judgment, we need not determine whether class certification was properly denied.

II. Due Process

Dudley's claim on the merits is that he was subjected to solitary confinement in the Daugherty County Jail without notice or hearing in violation of the due process clause as construed in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974). He alleges that the due process clause, standing alone, affords him some protection against being placed in solitary confinement. He has cited no state or county laws or regulations, or any jail practice or procedure, as the source of this right.

Wolff made clear that prisoners are not deprived of all due process rights when they enter the prison population. Although their rights may be diminished by the exigencies of the institutional environment, prisoners may claim a residuum of constitutional safeguards. Id. at 2974. The district court limited the applicability of Wolff to the specific facts of that case--the denial of "good time credits" for disciplinary reasons--and held that, since good time credits are not used in Daugherty County Jail, notice and hearing are not required before placing a county inmate in solitary confinement. The district court ruled that the due process clause itself does not invest prisoners with any procedural rights and that a prisoner's right to expect procedural safeguards before the imposition of disciplinary measures arises only if, as in Wolff, the state has created a statutory expectation of a liberty or property interest.

We disagree with the district court's ruling that Wolff does not apply to inmates in county jails. Wolff's procedural protections apply to the deprivation of any liberty interest, not only the forfeiture of good time credits in a state operated facility. See Wolff, 94 S.Ct. at 2982 n. 19. We discern no reason why inmates in county jails should not be afforded the same due process protections as inmates in state prisons. If a county inmate has a liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population, the principles of Wolff apply. See Jones v. Diamond, 636 F.2d 1364 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc) (constitutional safeguards apply to convicted individuals and pretrial detainees confined in county jail), cert. dismissed, 453 U.S. 950, 102 S.Ct. 27, 69 L.Ed.2d 1033 (1981). Nevertheless, we hold that convicted inmates are afforded no due process protections against the imposition of solitary confinement in the absence of some liberty interest created by the state. Because Dudley has alleged no state or county action granting him, in express or implied terms, an interest in remaining in the general prison population, we affirm the district court's order of summary judgment.

The Supreme Court in Wolff, although speaking at times in broad, general terms about a prisoner's constitutional rights, see, e.g., 94 S.Ct. at 2974 ("no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country"), recognized McDonnell's right to due process only because the state had created the right to good time and itself had provided that the credits could not be withheld as a disciplinary measure except for major misconduct [T]he State having created the right to good time and itself recognizing that its deprivation is a sanction authorized for major misconduct, the prisoner's interest has real substance and is sufficiently embraced within Fourteenth Amendment "liberty" to entitle him to those minimum procedures appropriate under the circumstances and required by the due process clause to insure that the state-created right is not arbitrarily abrogated.

94 S.Ct. at 2975.

Contrary to Dudley's assertion, the Court did not recognize an inmate's right to due process prior to the imposition of disciplinary confinement in the absence of a state-created right. The Court did state in a footnote that its holding would apply to disciplinary confinement as well as the withholding of good time credits, but only because "under the Nebraska system,...

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