Blaisdell v. Frappiea
| Decision Date | 10 September 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 10–16845.,10–16845. |
| Parties | Richard H. BLAISDELL, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. C. FRAPPIEA, Defendant–Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Dawn Sestito, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, CA, argued the cause and filed the briefs for the plaintiff-appellant. Mica Doctoroff, UCLA School of Law Ninth Circuit Clinic, Los Angeles, CA, also argued the cause for the plaintiff-appellant. With them on the briefs was Katharine S. Mercer, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, Los Angeles, CA.
Nicholas D. Acedo, Struck Wieneke & Love, P.L.C., Chandler, AZ, argued the cause and filed a supplemental brief for the defendant-appellee. With him on the brief was Daniel P. Struck, Struck Wieneke & Love, P.L.C, Chandler, AZ. Jaleh Najafi, Jones, Skelton & Hochuli, P.L.C, Phoenix, AZ, filed the original brief for the defendant-appellant. With him on the brief were Eileen Dennis GilBride, Jones, Skelton & Hochuli, P.L.C., Phoenix, AZ, and Daniel P. Struck, Jones, Skelton & Hochuli, P.L.C., Phoenix, AZ.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, James A. Teilborg, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 2:08–cv–01462–JAT.
Before: ALFRED T. GOODWIN, DIARMUID F. O'SCANNLAIN, and N. RANDY SMITH, Circuit Judges.
We must decide whether an inmate engaged in constitutionally protected activity when he served a prison official with a summons and complaint on another inmate's behalf.
The State of Hawaii contracts with the Corrections Corporation of America (“CCA”) to house some of its prisoners within the Saguaro Correctional Center, a privately operated prison in Eloy, Arizona.1 Richard Blaisdell is one of those inmates. On April 23, 2008, Blaisdell visited Christina Frappiea—the prison's Classification Supervisor—to ask her to notarize a document for a new lawsuit he planned to file against the prison.2 This was not Blaisdell's first attempt at litigation. He had filed at least three lawsuits against the prison and its officers since 2007. Frappiea notarized the document.
As soon as Frappiea had finished, Blaisdell announced that she had been “served” and handed her a summons and complaint in a federal civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) suit prepared by another prisoner: Anthony Gouveia. Blaisdell had agreed to serve process as a favor to Gouveia and was not a party to his lawsuit. The suit against Frappiea concerned her apparent unwillingness to notarize a contract for Gouveia which pertained to a lawsuit he had already filed in Mississippi federal district court. After looking at the document, Frappiea reportedly said: Blaisdell claims he replied by stating:
Following this exchange of words, Frappiea prepared a disciplinary report charging Blaisdell with Conspiracy, Failure to Follow Rules, and “Violation of Federal, State or Local Laws.” Under the prison rules inmates are not permitted to possess another inmate's property, including his legal paperwork, without permission. The “Conspiracy” was Blaisdell's agreement to possess Gouveia's summons and complaint. As for the laws transgressed, Frappiea's disciplinary report references Arizona statutes that spell out the requirements to act as a process server. Frappiea later characterized Blaisdell's legal violation as a failure to comply with the screening provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) before attempting service. See28 U.S.C. § 1915A.3 A CCA hearing officer found Blaisdell guilty on all three counts and sentenced him to sixty days of administrative segregation.
Proceeding pro se, Blaisdell initiated the instant litigation in Arizona Superior Court. The case was removed to federal district court where Blaisdell subsequently filed an amended pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 containing four counts. Count One claimed that his discipline in connection with the events of April 23 had been unconstitutional retaliation. Counts Two, Three, and Four asserted violations of the Due Process Clause, Arizona state law, and the federal Freedom of Information Act. He sought $10,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
Pursuant to the PLRA, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c), the district court sua sponte screened the complaint, dismissing Counts Two, Three, and Four. During its screening, the district court perceived two distinct assertions within Count One. First, the court identified an allegation of retaliation by Frappiea for Blaisdell's attempt to serve Gouveia's lawsuit. Second, the court identified a possible assertion that Frappiea had prepared the disciplinary charge “to get even” with Blaisdell for his own prior lawsuits against CCA and its officers. The court's screening order, while expressing the view that Blaisdell's service of process was not an actionable basis for a retaliation claim, did not definitively screen that allegation. Instead, the order simply directed Frappiea to file an answer as to Count One.
Following discovery, both sides moved for summary judgment.4 Frappiea argued in her motion that (1) Blaisdell's “actions as a process server [did] not constitute protected conduct” under the Constitution and (2) there was no causal “nexus between the disciplinary report and [Blaisdell's] litigation activity.” The district court agreed that Blaisdell's service of process was not constitutionally protected. As for Blaisdell's own litigation activity, the court observed that, in responding to Frappiea's summary judgment briefing, Blaisdell had disclaimed a claim for retaliation on that basis. The court concluded that “[f]or this reason alone,” any such theory of retaliation necessarily failed.
Blaisdell timely appealed from the order granting summary judgment to Frappiea and received court-appointed counsel.
Blaisdell first argues that the district court erred in determining that he waived the claim that his prior litigation activity against the prison triggered retaliation.
Courts in this circuit have an obligation to give a liberal construction to the filings of pro se litigants, especially when they are civil rights claims by inmates. See Thomas v. Ponder, 611 F.3d 1144, 1150 (9th Cir.2010); Bretz v. Kelman, 773 F.2d 1026, 1027 n. 1 (9th Cir.1985) (en banc). This rule relieves pro se litigants from the strict application of procedural rules and demands that courts not hold missing or inaccurate legal terminology or muddled draftsmanship against them. See, e.g., Agyeman v. I.N.S., 296 F.3d 871, 877 (9th Cir.2002) ( ).
In this case, Blaisdell wrote in his summary judgment briefing that “[t]he issue in this case is not whether Frappiea wrote a false D.R. [disciplinary report] because of plaintiff's multiple lawsuits, it is because plaintiff legally served Frappiea with a federal summons and complaint naming her as a defendant in a Mississippi lawsuit.” (emphasis in original). Through counsel, Blaisdell now argues that our decision in Bretz and the rule of liberal construction compel us to ignore his statement.
In Bretz, we construed a pro se claim “drafted in terms of § 1983” as arising instead under section 1985—a related civil-rights provision. 773 F.2d at 1027 n. 1.Blaisdell is not asking us to identify which legal terminology describes his cause of action; instead, he is asking us to take up on appeal a claim which he clearly told the district court he was not bringing. We decline to do so. See Zixiang Li v. Kerry, 710 F.3d 995, 1000 n. 4 (9th Cir.2013) () (quoting G&S Holdings LLC v. Cont'l Cas. Co., 697 F.3d 534, 538 (7th Cir.2012) ()).
Without resort to Orwellian “Newspeak,” liberal construction cannot turn Blaisdell's explanation about what his “case is not ” into a description about what his case is. In part, we credit his disavowal because it conforms with how he described his claim at other times during the litigation. He used a form complaint designed to aid prisoners proceeding pro se. When the form complaint prompted him to state the right violated, Blaisdell wrote: “Retaliation against the plaintiff for exercising his right to serve Federal Summons and Complaint on Frappiea.” 5 Then, in his own motion for summary judgment Blaisdell argued that “Frappiea wrote a disciplinary report on plaintiff as a result of [p]laintiff's attempt to serve [d]efendant with a valid lawful federal summons and complaint” and stated that he was “entitled to perform the only act he did and that was to serve Frappiea.”
Blaisdell's “acknowledg[ment] that the disciplinary report was not issued because of his other litigation activities” compels the conclusion that Frappiea is entitled to summary judgment on the retaliation claim to the extent it is based on prior lawsuits.
Blaisdell's remaining claim for retaliation therefore hinges on whether he engaged in “protected conduct” when he served process on another inmate's behalf. Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567 (9th Cir.2005).
Resolving this question requires us to wade into doctrinal waters not often explored in detail by courts. Although commonly referred to as claims for “First Amendment retaliation,” id., such actions need not be tethered to the speech or associational freedoms secured by that Bill of Rights provision. 6 Instead—as an aspect of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine—a claim for retaliation can be based upon the theory that the government imposed a burden on the plaintiff, more generally, “because he exercise[d]...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Applegate v. Said
- Trujillo v. Sherman
- Country Mill Farms, LLC v. City of E. Lansing
- Casavelli v. Johanson
-
Prisoners' Rights
...officials denied prisoner’s requests to use legal computer to prove “actual injury” after court extension); Blaisdell v. Frappiea, 729 F.3d 1237, VI. P RISONERS R IGHTS 1190 51 Geo. L.J. Ann. Rev. Crim. Proc. (2022) or by providing adequate assistance from persons trained in the law. Priso......