Glover v. Johnson

• Citation: 934 F.2d 703
• Decision Date: 30 May 1991
• Docket Number: 89-2421,Nos. 89-2191,s. 89-2191
• Parties: Mary GLOVER, Lynda Gates, Jimmie Ann Brown, Jane Doe, Manette Gant, Jacalyn M. Settles, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Perry JOHNSON; Florence R. Crane; G. Robert Cotton; Thomas K. Eardley, Jr.; B. James George, Jr.; Duane L. Waters; William Kim; Robert Brown, Jr.; Frank Beetham; Richard Nelson; Gloria Richardson; Dorothy Costen; Ronald Keim, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Page 703

934 F.2d 703

Mary GLOVER, Lynda Gates, Jimmie Ann Brown, Jane Doe Manette Gant, Jacalyn M. Settles, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Perry JOHNSON; Florence R. Crane; G. Robert Cotton Thomas K. Eardley, Jr.; B. James George, Jr.; Duane L Waters; William Kim; Robert Brown, Jr.; Frank Beetham Richard Nelson; Gloria Richardson; Dorothy Costen; Ronald Keim, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 89-2191, 89-2421.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued May 8, 1991.

Decided May 30, 1991.

Deborah A. Labelle (argued), Charlene M. Snow, Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Theodore E. Hughes, Richard M.C. Adams, Asst. Atty. Gen., Susan Przekop-Shaw (argued), Office of the Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Lansing, Mich., for defendants-appellants.

Before KENNEDY and RYAN, Circuit Judges, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

These consolidated appeals from eleven-year-old prisoner rights litigation are concerned with the district court's effort to require the Michigan corrections authorities to provide to female prison inmates educational and vocational opportunities comparable to those offered to male inmates.

In No. 89-2191, defendants, the director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, members of the Michigan Corrections Commission, and other prison officials, appeal the district court's order finding defendants in civil contempt and ordering remedies for failing to provide those opportunities as ordered by the court ten years ago. In No. 89-2421, defendants appeal the attorneys' fees award for services plaintiffs' counsel performed in 1987 and 1989.

For the reasons we shall discuss, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in holding defendants in contempt for noncompliance with the court's 1981 order. We also conclude that the district court's order requiring defendants to appoint a special administrator to develop a remedial plan is not an excessively intrusive remedy. Finally, plaintiffs are entitled to attorneys' fees as awarded by the district court.

I.

We decline to burden this opinion with still another account of the lengthy factual and legal history of this case. Instead, what follows is a recitation of so much of the history of the controversy as is necessary for an understanding of the specific issues before us today. The reader interested in all of the details may wish to consult Glover v. Johnson, 478 F.Supp. 1075 (E.D.Mich.1979); Glover v. Johnson, 510 F.Supp. 1019 (E.D.Mich.1981); Glover v. Johnson, 855 F.2d 277 (6th Cir.1988); and Glover v. Johnson, 721 F.Supp. 808 (E.D.Mich.1989), in that order.

In May 1977, female inmates in the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections filed a class action suit against the director of the Michigan Department of Corrections, members of the Michigan Corrections Commission, and other prison officials alleging that female inmates at Michigan prisons were not being provided educational and vocational training opportunities which were being provided to male inmates, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The suit was later consolidated with another class action brought on behalf of female inmates at Michigan prisons alleging denial of a right of access to the courts. The consolidated class action was certified by the district court "on behalf of all female inmates in Michigan." Glover v. Johnson, 85 F.R.D. 1, 2 (E.D.Mich.1977).

In 1979, following a bench trial, the district court found that the disparity in educational and vocational opportunities available to female inmates compared to those available to male inmates violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also held that meaningful access to the courts was not afforded to female inmates because of the dearth of female inmates skilled in legal procedures. The court's 1979 order set forth in general terms the remedies defendants would be required to implement and it directed the defendants to submit a plan detailing steps to be taken to comply with the order.

In 1981, the district court issued a final order. The 1981 order was the culmination of extensive negotiations and was agreed to by the parties. The district court later summarized its 1979 and 1981 orders as follows:

In addition to paralegal training, my orders require the [defendants] to provide female inmates with post-secondary education, to implement various vocational and apprenticeship programs, to make use of off-grounds and work pass programs with eligible prisoners, to establish prison industry programs, to pay back wages to a trust fund established for the benefit of the women prisoners, and to re-evaluate and standardize the prisoner wage scale used by the [defendants] to assure that it is applied to women fairly.

Glover, 721 F.Supp. at 811. Neither the 1979 nor the 1981 order was appealed, with the result that the finding of equal protection violations is the law of the case.

In June 1985, the district court granted plaintiffs' motion for contempt with respect to wages paid paralegals at Huron Valley Women's Facility. The court ordered defendants to pay inmate paralegal trustees at Huron Valley $1.50 per day.

In January 1986, plaintiffs filed a second contempt motion against defendants for failing to comply with the court's 1979 and 1981 orders. The ensuing contempt proceedings prompted defendants to arrange with Spring Arbor College, a private degree-granting institution located not far from the State Prison of Southern Michigan, to provide two baccalaureate courses at Huron Valley. Id. However, no arrangement was made for similar course offerings at Florence Crane Correctional Facility, a female prison facility which opened in April 1985. As a result, in October 1986, the district court issued a preliminary injunction ordering defendants to provide baccalaureate courses at both Huron Valley and Crane.

In 1987, the district court found that defendants failed to provide the post-secondary degree programming ordered in 1979 and 1981 and failed to implement baccalaureate programs comparable to those offered to male inmates. The district court, displeased with defendants' lack of compliance with its earlier orders, concluded that "ordinary contempt penalties will not bring compliance" and ordered a court administrator be appointed to "design and implement educational programs for female inmates on a parity with male inmates." Glover v. Johnson, 659 F.Supp. 621, 623 (E.D.Mich.1987). This 1987 order was appealed along with the 1986 injunctive order requiring defendants to provide a four-year degree program at Huron Valley and Crane.

On appeal, we vacated the injunctive order as not supported by sufficient findings of fact, and we set aside the order appointing an administrator finding insufficient evidentiary support to justify such an extreme intrusion into the constitutional prerogative of a state agency. We also found that the district court abused its discretion by failing to enforce its order through a less intrusive means than a court-appointed administrator. We remanded for specific findings of fact regarding defendants' compliance with the 1981 order and the least intrusive means to accomplish compliance.

On remand, the district court found that defendants failed to comply with its 1979 and 1981 orders, determined that civil contempt remedies were ineffective, and ordered defendants to appoint an administrator to develop a remedial plan of compliance. In a lengthy and carefully crafted opinion, the district court addressed defendants' alleged failure to comply with the court's orders concerning: (a) access to courts; (b) educational programming; (c) vocational programming; (d) apprenticeship opportunities; (e) prison industry, trust fund payments, and prisoner wages; and (f) off-grounds privileges and work pass programs.

The district court found that plaintiffs had proved by clear and convincing evidence that defendants disobeyed the court's orders and that defendants' failure to implement the court's 1979 and 1981 orders required a remedy. Because defendants had ignored the previous contempt citation and apparently remained unimpressed by threats of further contempt penalties, the court rejected traditional civil contempt sanctions as a satisfactory enforcement method. The district court stated:

Fines or imprisonment are not the best remedies in this case. A remedy is needed which will result in parity. This elusive concept needs to be structured in this case by skillful individuals who can create programs which will meet the constitutional demand. The Department needs to be helped to provide parity.

721 F.Supp. at 849.

The court ordered defendant members of the Michigan Corrections Commission to hire a special administrator approved by the court and, within sixty days thereafter, to design and implement a remedial plan. The court stated its intention to appoint a monitor to oversee the administrator's and commissions' efforts. The court held that the remedy it fashioned was the least intrusive means to insure that defendants do what they have not done for the last ten years--provide parity in educational and vocational opportunities for female inmates. Defendants now appeal the district court's finding of contempt and the remedy imposed.

II.

A.

Defendants argue that the district court should have compared the programs offered female and male inmates to determine whether parity had been achieved and they claim that the failure to make such a comparison precluded a finding of an equal protection violation warranting the appointment of a special administrator.

Apparently defendants overlook the fact that the equal protection violation was found by the court in its 1979 and 1981 orders and those orders were not appealed. As we noted in an earlier appeal:

[P]laintiffs' claims that they have been denied equal protection of the law under the fourteenth amendment by the defendants' failure to...