Rodi v. Ventetuolo, No. 90-1092

• Decision Date: 06 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-1092
• Citation: 941 F.2d 22
• Parties: Stephen Gerard RODI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Donald R. VENTETUOLO, et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 22

941 F.2d 22

Stephen Gerard RODI, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Donald R. VENTETUOLO, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 90-1092.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard June 6, 1991.

Decided Aug. 5, 1991.

Lynette Labinger, by appointment of the Court, with whom Roney & Labinger, Elizabeth Colt, Providence, R.I., and Robert S. Powers were on brief, East Greenwich, R.I., for plaintiff, appellant.

Anthony A. Cipriano, Deputy Chief, Legal Services, Rhode Island Dept. of Corrections, Providence, R.I., for defendants, appellees.

Before SELYA and CYR, Circuit Judges, and STAHL, ^* District Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

The Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) has in force regulations governing disciplinary and classification procedures, familiarly known as the "Morris Rules." This appeal requires us to consider whether the "Emergency or Temporary Provisions" of the Morris Rules (which we excerpt as an appendix and hereafter refer to as the "Emergency Provisions"), where applicable, imbue prison inmates with a liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population. We answer that question in the affirmative.

I. BACKGROUND

In this case, appellant Stephen Gerard Rodi, an inmate at Rhode Island's state penitentiary, the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI), sued three prison officials. ¹ Because Rodi appeared pro se, we read his complaint with an extra degree of solicitude. See, e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 99, 97 S.Ct. 285, 288, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976); Ferranti v. Moran, 618 F.2d 888, 890 (1st Cir.1980). And because the complaint was dismissed for failure to state a claim, we take as true all its factbound allegations and draw every reasonable inference in favor of the pleader. See Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth College, 889 F.2d 13, 16 (1st Cir.1989). We set the stage by describing in decurtate fashion the provenance of the Morris Rules, the facts undergirding Rodi's case, and the case's travel.

A

The Morris Rules were promulgated in consequence of a consent decree entered by the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island. That decree, dated April 20, 1972, memorialized the settlement of a class action brought by denizens of the ACI. The class comprised, essentially, all inmates then in situ and all future inmates. The litigation has been much chronicled, e.g., Morris v. Travisono, 310 F.Supp. 857 (D.R.I.1970) (Morris I ); Morris v. Travisono, 373 F.Supp. 177 (D.R.I.1974) (Morris II ), aff'd, 509 F.2d 1358 (1st Cir.1975) (Morris III ), and we refer the reader who thirsts for detail to those opinions. The current text of the rules is reproduced in Morris v. Travisono, 499 F.Supp. 149, 161-74 (D.R.I.1980) (Morris IV ).

B

On August 16, 1987, a fracas erupted in the yard of the ACI's maximum security facility. Rodi claims that, although he remained in the kitchen throughout the disturbance, he nonetheless was shifted to the segregation unit later that same evening. According to Rodi, this transfer was ordered by Ventetuolo. Neither Ventetuolo nor any other prison official informed him why he was being moved or gave him an opportunity to present his side of the story. Rodi further claimed that, during roll call the next morning, correctional officers were told, falsely, that he had been "running around crazy with a twelve (12) inch kitchen knife."

On August 25, 1987, nine days after his transfer, appellant filed a request for resolution of grievance form protesting his reassignment to, and confinement in, segregation without notice or hearing. On the following day, he was interviewed by a DOC staffer. On August 27, the plot thickened; appellant says that defendant Berard ordered a correctional officer to "fabricate" a disciplinary report tying Rodi to the events of August 16. Four days later, all inmates implicated in the August 16 disturbance, including the appellant, were returned to maximum security.

C

Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and seeking injunctive relief, a declaratory judgment, and money damages, Rodi filed suit in the federal district court on February 1, 1988. He alleged that the defendants violated his rights to due process and equal protection of the law by transferring him to administrative segregation without cause, notice, or an opportunity to be heard, ² and by later returning him to maximum security "in a willful and calculated attempt to cause him bodily harm" (presumably at the hands of persons who mistakenly believed that he had been involved in the August 16 disturbance). The complaint also alleged that the defendants flouted the final judgment entered in Morris II by denying Rodi a review of his temporary assignment within one week of its accomplishment; violated the eighth amendment by subjecting him to harassment and "r[iding] roughshod" over his liberty interests; and violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242 by conspiring to deprive him of his constitutional rights.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). On January 11, 1990, a magistrate judge, presiding by mutual consent, see 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), dismissed plaintiff's complaint, concluding that it failed to state a claim upon which relief might be granted. After Rodi filed a timeous notice of appeal, we appointed counsel, entertained briefing, and heard oral argument. We now decide that the Emergency Provisions sufficed to create a cognizable liberty interest and that, contrary to the magistrate's ruling, the complaint set forth an actionable claim for due process violations. Since we also believe that the individual defendants are shielded by qualified immunity, we hold that the appellant is entitled only to declaratory relief and not to damages.

II. ANALYSIS

In Kentucky Dept. of Corrections v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 109 S.Ct. 1904, 104 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989), a case where prison inmates unsuccessfully challenged state correctional regulations as violative of the fourteenth amendment, the Supreme Court formulated the analysis and principles which govern the core claim advanced by the appellant:

We examine procedural due process questions in two steps: the first asks whether there exists a liberty or property interest which has been interfered with by the State; the second examines whether the procedures attendant upon that deprivation were constitutionally sufficient. The types of interests that constitute "liberty" and "property" for Fourteenth Amendment purposes are not unlimited; the interest must rise to more than "an abstract need or desire" and must be based on more than "a unilateral hope." Rather, an individual claiming a protected interest must have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.

Id. 109 S.Ct. at 1908 (citations omitted). Hence, we inquire whether plaintiff's complaint revealed a protected liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population and if so, whether, in being transferred to administrative segregation, plaintiff arguably received less than the process that was constitutionally due.

A

It is well established that inmates do not have a right under the Constitution itself to remain in the general prison population or to be free from administrative segregation. See Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 467-68, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983); Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 2538, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). Thus, Rodi's entitlement vel non to a protected liberty interest in respect to such matters hinges on whether an enforceable interest has been created by the State.

The Court has held that "a State creates a protected liberty interest by placing substantive limitations on official discretion." Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 1747, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983). In the correctional context, laws and regulations have been found to limit discretion when the State thereby establishes "substantive predicates" governing official decisionmaking while simultaneously employing " 'explicitly mandatory language,' i.e., specific directives to the decisionmaker that if the regulations' substantive predicates are present, a particular outcome must follow." Thompson, 109 S.Ct. at 1909-10.

In a situation where prison regulations mandated that certain procedures "shall," "will," or "must" be followed and that administrative segregation would not come to pass "absent specified substantive predicates" such as "the need for control" or "the threat of serious disturbance," the Court has ruled "that the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific substantive predicates demands a conclusion that the State has created a protected liberty interest." Hewitt, 459 U.S. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871. Applying the Hewitt indicia, we have discerned that liberty interests were inherent in regulations governing the transfer and segregation of inmates in Massachusetts, Parenti v. Ponte, 727 F.2d 21, 25 (1st Cir.1984), and in Puerto Rico, Maldonado Santiago v. Velazquez Garcia, 821 F.2d 822, 827 (1st Cir.1987). See also Stokes v. Fair, 795 F.2d 235, 238 (1st Cir.1986) (correctional regulations held to create liberty interest in initiation and continuance of "awaiting action" status).

Here, a lengthy exegesis is unwarranted. Although the magistrate, relying on Hechavarria v. Quick, 670 F.Supp. 456 (D.R.I.1987), ³ opined that the Emergency Provisions did not create a liberty interest, the State forthrightly conceded at oral argument in this court that the language, structure, and context of the Emergency Provisions, taken at face value, fully satisfies the applicable Thompson/ Hewitt criteria. We agree. The preface, as well as numbered Articles I and II of the provisions, place definite substantive limitations on the availability of temporary reassignment. The Morris Rules expressly state that transfers can occur only "[w]hen [officials are] faced with an immediate threat to the security or safety of the [ACI] or any of its employees or inmates" and when one of several...