Savidge v. Fincannon
| Decision Date | 03 February 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-1841,86-1841 |
| Citation | 836 F.2d 898 |
| Parties | Jonathan SAVIDGE, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Jaylon FINCANNON, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
David Ferleger, Barbara Hoffman, Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Leslie L. McCollom, Toni Hunter, Asst. Attys. Gen., Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before WISDOM, GEE, and KING *, Circuit Judges.
This appeal presents two questions. The first involves the plaintiffs' eligibility to recover attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 for legal work performed on an aspect of their case that became moot before reaching judgment and was arguably barred by res judicata. The second question concerns the scope of qualified official immunity doctrine. After reviewing the tortuous path that brought these parties before us, we conclude that in denying attorney's fees without a hearing, and in granting immunity to the individual defendants, the district court erred. We therefore remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The plaintiffs in this case are Jonathan Savidge and his parents, Wilbur and Felicia Savidge. At this time, Jonathan is a profoundly retarded fifteen-year-old boy. 1 From September 1980 until May 1986, Jonathan lived at the Fort Worth State School for the retarded (FWSS) in Forth Worth, Texas. In January 1983, the plaintiffs sued Texas, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (DMHMR), and four individual employees of the FWSS. The plaintiffs sought compensation for damages allegedly arising from past and continuing violations of Jonathan's constitutional rights.
According to the Savidges' complaint, living conditions at the FWSS were "oppressive, inappropriate, unhealthy, filthy, abusive and restrictive". Among other allegations, the plaintiffs allege that the building Jonathan lived in was "permeated with stench"; that Jonathan and other residents were left "to play in each other's feces"; that Jonathan's medications were poorly monitored; that Jonathan was repeatedly bitten by other residents; and that the wheelchair he used was so small (it was the original one he had when he entered FWSS) that it worsened the spinal condition (scoliosis) that afflicts him. In short, the complaint in this case describes an environment so unhealthy that it physically threatened Jonathan Savidge. 2
The plaintiffs contend that conditions at the FWSS violated Jonathan's constitutional right to reasonably safe institutional care from the time he arrived until the time he left. One episode in the winter of 1980-81 illustrates the seriousness of their claim. The plaintiffs maintain that the defendants assigned Jonathan, a child known to have a special susceptibility to infection, to a ward in the FWSS with a "dangerously high level of infectious staphlococcus [sic] bacteria". A few months after his arrival, Jonathan suffered a fever and "infected boils". By early 1981, the boils had enlarged and Jonathan's fever climbed as high as 105.8? Farenheit. Jonathan developed a hand-sized swelling on the right side of his ribcage. As it is described in the complaint, the treatment that the individually-named defendants provided for Jonathan was shockingly inadequate. As a direct result of the defendants' conduct, plaintiffs allege, Jonathan Savidge required surgery that left him partially paralyzed.
The complaint explains the relationship between each individual defendant and Jonathan Savidge. It further alleges that:
Defendants knew or should have known that their actions and inactions which resulted in harms to [the plaintiffs] were illegal and a violation of plaintiffs' rights under federal and state law. 3
The plaintiffs state that violations of their constitutional rights are actionable under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. In their prayer for relief they request damages and a declaratory judgment, but no injunction.
In September 1983, eight months after they had filed their complaint, the plaintiffs petitioned the district court for an "emergency" injunctive order requiring the defendants to place Jonathan in a community-based residence. The parties engaged in several months of discovery on the issue of Jonathan's right to injunctive relief. On January 5, 1984, the district court severed the motion for an injunction from the rest of the case, and scheduled the motion for trial.
The injunction hearing lasted for four days. Contrary to a suggestion the defendants have often made, the district judge did not hear evidence relating directly to the plaintiffs' claim for damages. The expert testimony focused on harms that might befall Jonathan in the future, not those he had already suffered. 4 There was a great deal of conflicting evidence about the potential cost of transferring Jonathan to a community-based residence; the conduct of the individual defendants, by contrast, was never mentioned. On March 1, 1984, the district court took the "emergency" motion for injunctive relief under advisement.
Some of the difficulty and much of the delay in this case are a result of Jonathan Savidge's participation in a class action against the FWSS and two similar Texas institutions. That class action, Lelsz v. Kavanaugh, began in 1974 in the Eastern District of Texas. The Lelsz plaintiffs alleged that the institutional care provided by the defendants violated both state and federal law. Roughly speaking, the Lelsz class sought more therapy, smaller residences, and cleaner surroundings. The Lelsz litigation was seemingly settled by a consent decree in mid-1983, several months after the filing of the initial complaint in Savidge, and several months before the "emergency" motion was filed.
The Lelsz decree established that the defendants would provide "habilitation", or individualized therapy, to each member of the plaintiff class. It also stated that "[d]efendants will provide each member of the plaintiff class with the least restrictive living conditions possible consistent with the person's particular circumstances ..." In return for these and other promises, the plaintiffs--including Jonathan Savidge--agreed to a statement that "[t]hese provisions include a final resolution of the defendants' obligations towards the members of the plaintiff class and of the issues raised by this litigation".
In February 1985, in an effort to correct what they viewed as unnecessary foot-dragging by the state, the Lelsz plaintiffs filed a "Motion for Community Placement". After a hearing, the district court granted this motion in part, and ordered that 279 members of the Lelsz class be transferred to community centers on or before September 1, 1986.
On appeal, a panel of this Court ruled that the district court was without jurisdiction to enforce key sections of the consent decree. 5 The Court, relying on Pennhurst, 6 reasoned that insofar as the consent decree was based upon state law it was entered in violation of the Eleventh Amendment. And to the extent the consent decree rested upon federal constitutional rights to "habilitation" and placement in a "least restrictive environment", the Court denied that the Lelsz class enjoyed such rights. The Court then concluded that:
[t]here being no constitutional scope to [the paragraphs in the settlement agreement invoked by the plaintiffs], the district court's decree purporting to enforce them may not rest on that authority and is unauthorized. 7
In other words, not only did the Court vacate the district court's enforcement order, it also cast doubt upon the underlying consent decree. 8 This doubt, as we shall see, complicates the res judicata effect of Lelsz upon Savidge.
When we left Savidge, the district court had bifurcated the case and had tried the plaintiffs' motion for an injunction. The next two years saw the following developments: 1) the case was transferred from the Northern to the Eastern District of Texas, then the exclusive forum for the Lelsz litigation; 9 2) the case was transferred back to the Northern District; 3) the case was dismissed without prejudice to the plaintiffs' right to refile in the Eastern District; and, 4) the dismissal was reversed on appeal. 10 At this point, in early May of 1986, with the Northern District finally established as the proper forum for the case, and with a decision on the plaintiffs' motion apparently imminent, the defendants transferred Jonathan to a community-based residence and agreed to furnish him a proper wheelchair. This effectively gave the plaintiffs all the injunctive relief they had ever sought. 11
Nonetheless, a few weeks later the plaintiffs filed a "Motion for Judgment on Permanent Injunction and for Discovery and Trial Schedule on Damage Portion of Case". The plaintiffs sought a "Judgment ... incorporating the new placement and allowing for appropriate professional program modifications". In a proposed order attached as an appendix to the motion, the plaintiffs suggested that they be awarded attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. The defendants opposed this motion and asked the court to rule on their motion--filed on September 23, 1983--for summary judgment on the damages portion of the case.
On October 30, without making reference to the possible mootness problem, the district court finally denied the plaintiffs' "emergency" motion for injunctive relief. The court ruled that "[a]s a member of the class which was afforded injunctive relief in the Lelsz settlement, plaintiff is barred from receiving extraordinary relief from this Court by the doctrine of res judicata ". 12 The court then denied the plaintiffs' indirect request for attorney's fees with the observation...
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