Wallace v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 26 September 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-1806,88-1806
• Citation: 914 F.2d 869
• Parties: Phillip WALLACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Merle D. ROBINSON, Zenon Symanski, Michael O'Leary, and Michael P. Lane, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 869

914 F.2d 869

Phillip WALLACE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Merle D. ROBINSON, Zenon Symanski, Michael O'Leary, and Michael P. Lane, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 88-1806.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 14, 1990.

Decided Sept. 26, 1990.

Cudahy, Circuit Judge, concurred in part and dissented in part and filed opinion.

Easterbrook, Circuit Judge, concurred in judgment and filed opinion.

Jerold S. Solovy, William A. VonHoene, Jr., Thomas S. O'Neill, Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

Phillip Wallace, Joliet, Ill., pro se.

Diane Curry Grapsas, Daniel N. Malato, Asst. Attys. Gen., Office of the Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before CUDAHY and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges, and SNEED, Senior Circuit Judge. ^*

SNEED, Senior Circuit Judge.

Illinois state prisoner Phillip Wallace appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of prison officials in his 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 action alleging that his prison work transfer violated his due process rights. We affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

Phillip Wallace is an inmate of Stateville Correctional Center ("Stateville") in Joliet, Illinois. He had worked for about twenty months at the prison tailor shop, earning $100/month, until he was terminated from that position on April 29, 1986. Wallace filed suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982) in federal district court against his tailor-shop supervisor, Merle Dean Robinson ("Robinson") and three other prison and corrections' department officials. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants.

On appeal, Wallace alleges that: (1) his termination was a disciplinary action, (2) prison officials failed to follow Illinois state regulations mandating certain procedures in disciplinary actions, and thereby (3) violated his due process rights. Specifically, Wallace alleges that he was terminated from his employment because his supervisor, Robinson, found homemade liquor ("hooch") in a cabinet near Wallace's work station. A termination following such an incident is disciplinary in nature, he insists, and triggered the protections articulated in Ill.Ann.Stat. ch. 38, pp 1003-8-7(b)(2), 1003-8-7(e)(6) (1982) ¹ and Ill.Admin.Code tit. 20, Sec. 504 (1985). ²

The defendants take issue with Wallace's characterization of the termination. ³ They view the termination as a change in Wallace's work assignment made necessary by a series of events that had led to increasingly poor relations between Wallace and his supervisor, Robinson. They allege that they sought to prevent further exacerbation of existing tensions. It follows, defendants argue, that the state statute and regulations cited by Wallace ⁴ are not applicable. They claim that the applicable statutes and regulations, which pertain to prison work assignments, do not create a liberty or property interest in prison employment and provide prison officials with considerable discretion. ⁵

The defendants set forth the following events. Wallace was suspected of assaulting another inmate on March 7, 1986. During a two-week investigation, he was not permitted to work. On his first day back from work, he did not return to his post after lunch. In the past, many employees had failed to return after lunch. During Wallace's two-week absence, Robinson wrote a memorandum to the inmates instructing them to return to their stations after lunch. The memorandum was posted on the bulletin board. Reportedly, Robinson and Wallace engaged in a "heated discussion" over the application to Wallace of the policy set forth in the memorandum. ⁶ Robinson recommended to the proper authorities that Wallace be terminated from the tailor shop assignment.

No action was taken by prison officials at that time. Several weeks later, Robinson found the hooch in a cabinet near Wallace's work station. Although Robinson prepared an "incident" report concerning Wallace's suspected involvement with the hooch, he did not prepare a "disciplinary" report.

On April 23, 1986, Wallace had a hearing before the Assignment Committee, after which he was instructed to continue working in the tailor shop. Six days later, April 29, 1986, Wallace was terminated from his position. The Committee subsequently stated in a memorandum:

The Committee voted to remove Wallace from the tailor shop. It was felt that such action was justified in order to preclude more serious problems between Wallace and Supervisor Robinson. However, this should not be construed as a disciplinary action and the inmate was advised that he has a right to file a grievance as he chooses.

As Wallace sees it, his termination was the direct result of the "hooch" incident which was never proven against him. The defendants, on the other hand, characterize Wallace's termination as a disciplinary transfer caused by a deteriorating relationship between an employee and his supervisor.

On May 20, 1987, Wallace (after exhausting prison grievance procedures) filed a pro se complaint in federal court. Defendants moved for summary judgment on November 25, 1987. Unfortunately, neither party focused on the disciplinary versus nondisciplinary distinction below. In fact, the defendants in their motion for summary judgment stated: "Plaintiff was removed from his assignment in the tailor shop on April 16, 1986 because his supervisor found homemade alcohol (hooch) in a cabinet by his desk."

Wallace, quite naturally, alleges that defendants' summary judgment motion directly contradicts the position now taken on appeal. He also points out that the district court concluded that the reason for the termination was the "hooch" incident. Nonetheless, the district court, in granting defendants' motion for summary judgment, ruled that "plaintiff has no property/liberty interest in his assignment" and that "his reassignment was not done arbitrarily or capriciously." Id. That is, the case was treated as a standard work reassignment. Our jurisdiction derives from 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 (1988).

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review grants of summary judgment de novo. We review the record to determine whether there is "a genuine issue with regard to any material fact and whether the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Cain v. Lane, 857 F.2d 1139, 1142 (7th Cir.1988). Furthermore, because Wallace "proceeded pro se in the district court, that court was obliged to read the complaint liberally." Id.

III. DISCUSSION

Due process rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, life, liberty, and property, arise from two sources: the Due Process Clause itself, and state law. See Kentucky Dep't of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 1908-09, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989); Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 466, 103 S.Ct. 864, 868, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Harris v. McDonald, 737 F.2d 662, 664 (7th Cir.1984); Shango v. Jurich, 681 F.2d 1091, 1098-99 (7th Cir.1982).

A. Does the Due Process Clause Alone Create a Protectible Liberty Interest in the Work Assignments of Inmates?

The Supreme Court has explicitly "rejected the notion 'that any change in the conditions of confinement having a substantial adverse impact on the prisoner involved is sufficient to invoke the protections of the Due Process Clause.' " Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1908 (quoting Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976)).

As long as the conditions or degree of confinement to which the prisoner is subjected is within the sentence imposed upon him and is not otherwise violative of the Constitution, the Due Process Clause does not in itself subject an inmate's treatment by prison authorities to judicial oversight. The Clause does not require hearings in connection with transfers whether or not they are the result of the inmate's misbehavior or may be labeled as disciplinary or punitive.

Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 2547, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976).

The Court has held that "prison officials have broad administrative and disciplinary authority over the institutions they manage and that lawfully incarcerated persons retain only a narrow range of protected liberty interests." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 467, 103 S.Ct. at 869. Thus, the Court has determined that the Due Process Clause does not create a right to parole, Greenholtz v. Nebraska Penal Inmates, 442 U.S. 1, 7, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 2103, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979), to good-time credit, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), to avoid transfer from one correctional facility to another, Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976), to remain in the general prison population and avoid administrative segregation, Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 468, 103 S.Ct. at 869, or to visitation, Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1909. In light of these precedents, it is clear that the Due Process Clause does not create a protectible liberty interest in a particular work assignment of an inmate. Cf. Harris, 737 F.2d at 664 (there is no constitutionally based liberty interest requiring that inmates be provided due process prior to transfer from one correctional facility to another); Shango, 681 F.2d at 1098 (same).

B. Does Illinois State Law Create a Liberty Interest in a Prison Work Assignment, the Deprivation of Which Must Be Accompanied by Due Process of Law? ⁷

"[S]tate law may create enforceable liberty interests in a prison setting." Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1909. To create a protectible liberty interest, state statutes or regulations "must use 'language of an unmistakably mandatory character, requiring that certain procedures "shall," "will," or "must" be employed ...,' and that certain action will not be taken by prison officials 'absent specified substantive predicates.' " Merritt v. Broglin, 891 F.2d 169, 172 (7th Cir.1989) (quoting Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871).

To determine whether Wallace's transfer invoked a protectible liberty interest, we must first determine...