Beaver v. Chaffee
| Citation | 579 P.2d 1217,2 Kan.App.2d 364 |
| Decision Date | 09 June 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 49116,49116 |
| Parties | Winslow BEAVER and Kenneth E. Goodman, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Appellants, v. F. T. (Jim) CHAFFEE, Sheriff of Shawnee County, Kansas, and Roland G. Hug, Robert D. Wellshear, and Mary L. Bogart, Commissioners of Shawnee County, Kansas, and Robert R. Raines, Secretary of Corrections, State of Kansas, Appellees. |
| Court | Kansas Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
1. While habeas corpus is an appropriate vehicle for inquiring into conditions of confinement or mistreatment of a continuing nature of an inmate of a penal institution, it is not the exclusive remedy for an inmate who does not challenge the fact or duration of his confinement.
2. Where an inmate of a jail or correctional institution challenges the conditions of his confinement but does not challenge the fact or duration of that confinement relief may be sought by way of injunction or declaratory judgment as well as by habeas corpus.
3. Where administrative remedies are available they must be exhausted before resort may be had to the courts, but where such remedies are not available, or are inadequate to address the problem in issue, exhaustion is not required.
4. In order for the exhaustion doctrine to apply there must be a remedy provided through administrative action, and there can be no remedy in this connection where the action of the agency amounts to no more than a recommendation.
5. The mere possession by some official body of a continuing supervisory or investigatory power does not itself suffice to afford an "administrative remedy" unless the statute or regulation under which that power is exercised establishes clearly defined machinery for submission, evaluation, and resolution of complaints by aggrieved parties.
6. A class action is an appropriate vehicle for the resolution of issues common to all inmates of a county jail, although it is not appropriate for issues which depend on the particular circumstances of an individual inmate.
7. The fact that the named representatives of a class consisting of jail inmates are transferred from the jail to another institution while an action is pending does not render the action moot as to other members of the class so long as the other requirements of K.S.A. 60-223(b ) are met.
8. In a class action on behalf of inmates of the Shawnee county jail challenging the conditions of their confinement, it is held : (a) an action for declaratory and injunctive relief is an appropriate remedy; (b) there were no available and effective remedies which plaintiffs were required to exhaust; (c) a class action was proper as to those complaints which were common to all inmates of a jail; and (d) the action was not rendered moot by the transfer of the named class representatives to other institutions.
Thomas M. Blumenthal, of Legal Aid Society, Topeka, for appellants.
Joseph W. Zima, Topeka, for appellee F. T. (Jim) Chaffee.
Frank L. Johnson and Donna Voth, Topeka, for the commissioners of Shawnee county, appellees.
Curt T. Schneider, Atty. Gen., and Roger M. Theis, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee Robert L. Raines.
Before FOTH, C. J., and SPENCER, and SWINEHART, JJ.
This is a class action on behalf of inmates of the Shawnee county jail challenging the conditions of their confinement. Defendants are the sheriff and commissioners of Shawnee county, who are directly charged by statute with operating and maintaining the jail, and the state secretary of corrections, who has certain jurisdiction over sanitary and safety conditions in all jails under K.S.A. 75-5228. The trial court dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, and the plaintiffs have appealed.
The action had its genesis in two separate habeas corpus actions filed in 1974 by the named plaintiffs, Winslow Beaver and Kenneth E. Goodman. At the request of the trial court the Legal Aid Society of Topeka, Inc. assumed the representation of plaintiffs. A new petition was filed in December, 1974, with both plaintiffs purporting to represent all past, present and future jail inmates, as a class under K.S.A. 60-223. The relief sought was declaratory and injunctive in nature. The actions were consolidated, and on June 19, 1975, the trial court sustained plaintiffs' motion for class certification.
The next year and a half were consumed in discovery. During this time all judges of the Shawnee county district court disqualified themselves, and the case was assigned to the Honorable Ronald D. Innes, of Manhattan.
An amended petition was filed by leave of court in February, 1977, containing a shotgun blast of some 58 separately numbered "factual claims." With some effort these may be roughly categorized into a half-dozen overlapping areas: (1) The physical facilities were alleged to be inadequate, resulting in overcrowding and conditions hazardous to health and safety. (2) The jail's personnel are said to be inadequate in number, training and ethnic mix, resulting in beatings and sexual assaults among the inmates. (3) It is claimed that the inmates are not properly classified and segregated, particularly by age and sex, and are not afforded proper exercise or programs aimed at vocational training or other types of rehabilitation. (4) The food is said to be of poor quality, poorly prepared, and infested with insects and vermin. (5) The policies and procedures for governing the jail are alleged to be vague, and not properly followed anyway, resulting in harsh and arbitrary discipline. (6) It is alleged that inmate mail is improperly censored, and facilities for attorney-client conferences are inadequate.
The list is not all-inclusive, but covers the main areas of complaint. The first five are said to result in cruel and unusual punishment, the last to impinge on inmates' rights of free speech and to counsel.
After all defendants had answered the amended petition the court on its own motion dismissed the action, concluding: that it had no jurisdiction of the subject matter; that because the named plaintiffs were no longer in the jail they were not proper representatives of the plaintiff class; and that the nature of the action was such that it should not be certified as a class action. The court's reasoning was:
We are unable to agree fully with the trial court's conclusions and reasoning. In particular, we feel the result reached does not adequately distinguish between complaints which are peculiar to a particular inmate, depending on that inmate's own circumstances, and those which are common to all inmates regardless of their circumstances. This lack of discrimination appears first in the petition, of course, where the scattergun approach tends to obscure the justiciable issues we perceive hidden among the pleader's verbiage.
Specifically, it would appear that the physical condition of the jail, the quality of food, the censorship of mail, and the arrangements for attorney-client conferences would have the same basic impact on all inmates of the jail, regardless of age, sex, race, term of confinement, or the conduct of the particular inmate. On the other hand, segregation policies, the need for exercise and training programs, physical abuse by other inmates, and the type and manner of imposing discipline will have varying impacts on individual inmates, depending on the same factors just noted. With these distinctions in mind we shall examine the trial court's reasons for its decision.
1. The trial court found that habeas corpus was "the" appropriate remedy for inquiry by the courts into the care and treatment of jail inmates, and the defendants argue that it is the exclusive remedy. The argument is based largely on Levier v. State, 209 Kan. 442, 497 P.2d 265 (1972). In that case the court held it was error to summarily dismiss a petition in habeas corpus which challenged only the conditions of confinement, and did not claim a right to be released. The exact holding on this point was "Habeas corpus provides an appropriate remedy for inquiry into mistreatment of a continuing or probably continuing nature alleged by an inmate of a penal institution."
See, also, the companion case of Hamrick v. Hazelet, 209 Kan. 383, 497 P.2d 273 (1972).
In neither case did the court hold that habeas corpus was the exclusive remedy, but only that the form of action was broad enough to...
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