Brooks v. Wainwright

• Decision Date: 11 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. 75-790-Civ-J-S.,75-790-Civ-J-S.
• Citation: 439 F. Supp. 1335
• Parties: Wayne BROOKS, and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Individually and as Secretary of the Department of Offender Rehabilitation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

439 F. Supp. 1335

Wayne BROOKS, and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Louie L. WAINWRIGHT, Individually and as Secretary of the Department of Offender Rehabilitation, Defendant.

No. 75-790-Civ-J-S.

United States District Court, M. D. Florida, Jacksonville Division.

November 11, 1977.

Tobias Simon and Elizabeth deFresne, Miami, Fla., William J. Sheppard, Jacksonville, Fla., Jack Greenberg, New York City, John Stevens, Secretary, United-Union, Inc., Tallahassee, Fla., on behalf of the union intervenor, for plaintiff.

Clarence Holmes, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Civ. Div., Tallahassee, Fla., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

CHARLES R. SCOTT, Senior District Judge.

I. FACTS

This case is an off-shoot of North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc. v. Jones, 409 F.Supp. 937 (E.D.N.C.1976), rev'd, ___ U.S. ___, 97 S.Ct. 2532, 53 L.Ed.2d 629 (1977). Plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction and defendant requested dismissal on the merits. Both motions, along with numerous other procedural motions,¹ are pending.

Plaintiff was an inmate at Florida State Prison (`FSP') when he commenced this action. He first became an inmate of the State of Florida in 1964. In 1971 he walked away from a Florida, miminum-security road camp in Leon County, and became a fugitive. Later in 1971 he became an inmate of North Carolina until his parole to the custody of the State of Florida, in 1975, to complete his Florida sentence.

While an inmate of the State of North Carolina, plaintiff helped organize, and became the president of, the North Carolina Prisoners Union. Plaintiff's Exhibit 8. The nature and goals of that organization are described in its constitution and policy statement on goals, (plaintiff's Exhibits 5 and 6), as well as in North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc. v. Jones, 409 F.Supp. at 940 and n. 1, and Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc., ___ U.S. at ___, 97 S.Ct. at 2536, 53 L.Ed.2d at 636 and n. 1. When he was paroled to the custody of Florida, to complete his Florida sentence, plaintiff brought his organizational ardor and aims with him. While at the central receiving and classification institution of the Florida prison system, plaintiff contacted other inmates about forming a prisoners' organization or association. At that time, plaintiff asked prison officials for a list of all the state prison institutions, and addresses, to enable him to begin organizing the proposed prisoners' association or union. Plaintiff was taken to a conference with prison officials where he explained his ideas and plans. At a second conference, one day later, he showed prison officials the charter, and several newsletters, of the North Carolina prisoners' union. Only a few hours after the second conference, plaintiff was transferred to a medium security institution, Union Correctional Institution (`UCI').

When he arrived at UCI, plaintiff went out to the grounds where he began talking with other inmates about forming a prisoners' organization. Shortly thereafter, plaintiff was placed in solitary confinement pending transfer to FSP, a maximum security institution. At FSP plaintiff remained in solitary confinement, at first pending evaluation, but later at his own request. Prison officials, defendant's agents and employees, have expressed opposition to, and disfavor for, any attempt to organize prisoners of the state into unions or associations.

Plaintiff brought this action alleging (1) the denial of fundamental First Amendment freedoms (of speech and association) and of equal protection of the state's laws by defendant's forbiddance of a prisoners' union or association; and (2) the denial of basic due process in his transfer and custody classification to FSP by defendant. He sought to represent a class of inmates who desired to organize into unions or associations.² The Court permitted the United Hotel, Motel, Restaurant and Lounge Employees Union, Inc. (`the Union') to intervene under Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(b). In addition to asserting the First and Fourteenth Amendment claims of plaintiff (and of the possible class members, if the case were certified as a class action), the Union also asserted a claim arising under state law, Fla.Stat. § 447.201 et seq. (Supp.1974), known as "The Public Employees Relations Act" (`PERA'). The Union's state law claim was that plaintiff, and the potential members of a certified class of plaintiffs, might well be public employees under the Florida PERA, insofar as they were performing services for state institutions which might be public employers under the PERA. If so, then the right to organize and to bargain collectively, guaranteed by the Florida Constitution, Art. I. § 6, and implemented by the Florida PERA,³ would apply to state inmates. This pendent jurisdictional claim was raised because it arose from the common nucleus of operative facts that generated the federal claims. UMW v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 725-27, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138-1139, 16 L.Ed.2d 218, 227-29 (1966).

II. LAW

A. State Law Claim Under Pendent Jurisdiction.

In 1976, the Florida Legislature enacted session law 76-39, amending Fla.Stat. § 447.203 by adding subsection (3)(f) to expressly exclude state inmates from the definition of "public employee." The amendment became effective on May 31, 1976, upon the Governor's approval. When decisional or statutory law is altered, the new, existing law controls pending cases, whether the change occurs after the events that constitute the subject matter of the case, but before trial, Arick v. McTague, 292 So.2d 31, 32 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1973); Ingerson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 272 So.2d 862, 864 (3d D.C.A.Fla.1973); or even if the change occurs after a final judgment, during an appeal. FEC Ry. Co. v. Rouse, 194 So.2d 260, 262 (Fla.1966); Williams v. Estate of Long, 338 So.2d 563, 566 (1st D.C.A. Fla.1976); Richey v. Indian River Shores, 337 So.2d 410, 414 (4th D.C.A.Fla.1976); Department of Admin. v. Brown, 334 So.2d 355, 356 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1976), cert. den. 344 So.2d 323 (Fla.1977); Stephenson v. Department of Agric. & Consumer Services, 329 So.2d 373, 375 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1976), aff'd 342 So.2d 60 (Fla.1976); Rubin v. Randwest Corp., 292 So.2d 60, 62 n. 1 (4th D.C.A.Fla. 1974) (Mager, J., dissenting), cert. den. 305 So.2d 786 (Fla.1974); Van Meter v. Murphy, 287 So.2d 740, 742 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1973); Phillips v. Phillips, 287 So.2d 149, 150 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1973); R & R Lounge, Inc. v. Wynne, 286 So.2d 13, 15-16 (1st D.C.A.Fla. 1973); SCL R. R. Co. v. Campbell, 285 So.2d 62, 63 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1973).

An amendment to the specific state statute by which pendent jurisdiction is invoked (the Florida PERA, Fla.Stat. § 447.201 et seq.) was involved in the decision of Miami-Dade Community Coll. v. PERC, 341 So.2d 1054 (1st D.C.A.Fla.1977). Section 447.203 of the PERA, as originally enacted in 1974, and as it became effective on January 1, 1975, established a three-part, disjunctive definition of `managerial employees.' Managerial employees, are expressly excluded from the definition of `public employees' under the PERA. When the Commission considered a bargaining unit of public employees at Miami-Dade Community College, the original statutory definition of `managerial employees' was the current law. On the basis of the evidence presented, the Commission decided that chairpersons and program coordinators (having identical duties and responsibilities) did not meet the definitional criteria of `managerial employees,' were not excluded from the PERA's application for public employees, and therefore could be included in a bargaining unit. During the community college-public employer's petition for review of the Commission's decision, the Florida Legislature amended the statute, changing the definitional formula for `managerial employees.' The Florida First District Court of Appeal applied the amended, existing statutory definition to the case on review, 341 So.2d at 1055. In accordance with the new statutory definition, the Court found from the evidence that the chairpersons and program coordinators were managerial employees and therefore not covered by the statute's definition of `public employees.' Id. at 1056.

The present case is an even stronger instance of the controlling effect of a change in statutory law upon a pending case. When this case was commenced, state inmates were not mentioned in the PERA's definition of `public employees.' Fla.Stat. § 447.203(3) (Supp.1975).<sup>4</sup> It was, at best, arguable that state inmates might be included in the statute's definition of `public employees' if (1) the state prisons should be public employers under the statute, and (2) if the inmates were in any sense `employed by' the prisons. In 1976, however, the Florida legislature unmistakably expressed its intent to exclude state inmates from the PERA's coverage for public employees, Fla. Stat. § 447.203(3)(f) (Supp.1976).<sup>5</sup> That law is currently existing and controlling. This Court holds that state inmates are not included under the PERA's provisions because they are excluded from the statute's definition of `public employees.' The Court, therefore, holds further that plaintiff and the intervenor's assertions of the right of prisoners, under the pendent jurisdiction of the PERA, to organize and bargain collectively, fail as a matter of state law to state a remediable claim. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6).

B. Federal Claims.

1. Denial of Due Process in Transfers and Classifications.

Plaintiff claims that his transfer from the Reception & Medical Center to UCI, and from UCI to FSP (each a closer and more stringent form of custody), as well as his classification on evaluative confinement, deprived him of liberty without the basic guarantees of due process. In Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976), and Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976), the United States Supreme Court held that, unless state law grants an...