Dionne v. Bouley, Civ. A. No. 82-0602 P.

• Decision Date: 13 April 1984
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-0602 P.
• Citation: 583 F. Supp. 307
• Parties: Rose DIONNE, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated v. Gerard BOULEY, individually and in his capacity as Chief Clerk of the District Courts of the State of Rhode Island.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

583 F. Supp. 307

Rose DIONNE, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated v. Gerard BOULEY, individually and in his capacity as Chief Clerk of the District Courts of the State of Rhode Island.

Civ. A. No. 82-0602 P.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

March 23, 1984.

Addendum Opinion and Order April 13, 1984.

John W. Dineen, R.I. Legal Services, Andrew S. Richardson, Providence, R.I., for plaintiff.

Madeline Quirk, Providence, R.I., for defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

PETTINE, Senior District Judge.

In this case Plaintiff challenges the validity of R.I.Gen.Laws §§ 10-5-2, 9-25-12, and 9-28-1 (1969 reenactment & 1983 supp.) and state District Court Rule 4(j)(2) (1976 ed.)¹ as violative of her right to procedural due process of law as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. These laws pertain to Rhode Island's procedures for issuing writs of attachment to judgment creditors, as explained below. Plaintiff, who has filed her suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, seeks both a declaratory judgment that the statutes and rule cited are unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against Defendant ordering him to stop issuing writs of attachment "pursuant to the existing forms and procedures."² Plaintiff has now moved for summary judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. For the reasons explained below, Plaintiff's motion is granted.

The central issue in this case is whether the Rhode Island procedures set out above at note 1 adequately protect Plaintiff's statutory right to exempt certain property from postjudgment seizure by a creditor. As the Court will explain infra, the constitutional adequacy of procedures relating to the prejudgment seizure of a debtor's property has been analyzed thoroughly by the Supreme Court in a series of opinions dating from 1969. Indeed, in 1972 this Court found the precursor of one of the Rhode Island statutes at stake in this case to be unconstitutional as violative of the debtor's right to procedural due process. See McClellan v. Commercial Credit Corp., 350 F.Supp. 1013 (D.R.I.1972), aff'd, 409 U.S. 1120, 93 S.Ct. 935, 35 L.Ed.2d 253 (1973).

The parties have agreed to a statement of undisputed facts, from which the Court gleans the following scenario. In July, 1982, a creditor obtained a judgment in state court for $550.00 against the Plaintiff in this action. Pursuant to the judgment, an execution was issued against Plaintiff, but, approximately two weeks later, the execution was returned to the state court marked "unsatisfied." The judgment creditor than obtained from the clerk of the state court a writ of attachment form and served the writ on Plaintiff's bank. The result of this service was that as of August 13, 1982 Plaintiff's checking account was "frozen" and rendered inaccessible to her. On August 17, 1982, Plaintiff was served with process in a "debt on judgment" action filed by the judgment creditor pursuant to R.I.Gen.Laws § 9-28-1. This second suit sought another money judgment in the amount of $551.80 plus costs of $50.00. On the same day, Plaintiff received notice from her bank that one of her checks had been returned for insufficient funds and that the bank was imposing a $5.00 service charge for the check's return. In response to the notice, Plaintiff contacted her bank and learned for the first time that the funds in her checking account had been frozen in accordance with the writ of attachment.

The checking account contained $601.00 at the time of attachment, most of which consisted of Social Security benefits paid to her and her four minor children, with a small portion of the account being attributable to Plaintiff's wages. Also at the time of the attachment, Plaintiff was unaware of, and was not provided with notice of, any procedures through which she could challenge the attachment or raise a claim that some or all of the property was exempt from attachment.

The parties have also stipulated to the following facts:

(1) At all times relevant to this litigation, Plaintiff was responsible for the support of herself and her children.

(2) At all times relevant to this litigation, Plaintiff's sole income was as follows:

(a) Social Security Benefits for children —$465 per month.

(b) Social Security Widow's Benefits — $125 per month.

(c) Plaintiff's wages after mandatory deductions — $100 bi-weekly.

(3) It is the current practice to serve the writ of attachment on the "trustee" (i.e., bank, employer), and no motion to attach is required.

(4) There is no required hearing or notice of any possible hearing, either before or after the writ of attachment is issued and served.

(5) There is no notice to the judgment debtor of any possible defenses or exemption claims.

(6) It has been the practice of the state District Courts to issue blank writs of attachment upon request, with the name of the clerk and the seal already affixed, to creditors or their attorneys.

(7) Plaintiff is a person of very low income who will continue to be subject to the procedures and form challenged in this action.

(8) Subsequent to the attachment of her account, Plaintiff has now recovered the use of the account, the attachment having been released.

As stated above, Plaintiff requests a declaratory judgment that the procedures and forms used by Defendant and R.I.Gen. Laws §§ 10-5-2, 9-25-12, 9-28-1 and District Court Rule 4(j)(2) are unconstitutional. Plaintiff also asks this Court to enjoin Defendant permanently from issuing any further writs of attachment pursuant to the existing forms and procedures.

Before reaching the merits of the motion, the Court must respond to several preliminary arguments made by Defendant. The first is that "this Court should invoke the principles of abstention and comity and decline to consider Plaintiff's claims in the absence of state law on this question." (The Court assumes that here Defendant refers to the lack of any Rhode Island state court decision involving the constitutionality of the attachment procedures discussed above.) In rather cursory fashion Defendant invokes all three varieties of federal court abstention. Citing Calkins v. Blum, 511 F.Supp. 1073 (N.D.N.Y.1981), aff'd, 675 F.2d 44 (2d Cir.1982), Defendant states correctly that "abstention may be proper in cases presenting a federal constitutional issue which might be mooted or presented in a different posture by a state court determination of pertinent state law." As his citation to Calkins makes clear, Defendant here seeks this Court's invocation of abstention pursuant to Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Company, 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941).

In responding to this request for abstention, the Court notes first that "abstention by a federal court from the exercise of its proper jurisdiction `is the exception, not the rule.'" Santasucci v. Gallen, 607 F.2d 527, 528 (1st Cir.1979) (citing Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 813, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 1244, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976)). With reference to Pullman abstention specifically, it is clear that such abstention is appropriate only if the state law is ambiguous in some material way.

Crucial to the abstention decision ... is the ambiguity of the state statute. A clearly-worded law leaves even the most constitutionally-sensitive state court little room to maneuver its way to a saving construction. Remand under such circumstances serves no purpose of comity; it wastes the plaintiff's, the defendant's and the state court's time, and causes unseemly delay in the federal court adjudication.

Moe v. Dinkins, 635 F.2d 1045, 1048 (2d Cir.1980), cert. denied sub nom. Axelrod v. Coe, 459 U.S. 827, 103 S.Ct. 61, 74 L.Ed.2d 64 (1982).

See Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 341, 97 S.Ct. 1211, 1220, 51 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977) (Stevens, J., concurring). Although in this case Defendant suggests that "a state court determination of pertinent state law" might moot the constitutional issue now before the Court, Defendant does not identify the ambiguity it finds in these statutes from which a state court could fashion such a construction. Indeed, the Court finds the relevant statutes to be admirably free of ambiguity. See supra note 1. Pullman abstention is, therefore, inappropriate in this case.

In an attempt to invoke abstention under Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943), Defendant argues that "the doctrine may also be invoked in cases that present typical questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import whose importance transcends the results in the instant case." In support of this proposition, Defendant again cites Calkins v. Blum. Calkins, however, characterizes the questions of state law appropriate for Burford abstention not as "typical" but as "difficult." 511 F.Supp. at 1086 (quoting Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 814, 96 S.Ct. at 1244). Indeed, the fear that a federal court's interference with a complex and elaborate state statutory "system" would have an impermissibly disruptive effect on a "matter of substantial public concern" is at the heart of Burford abstention. See Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 814-815, 96 S.Ct. at 1244-45. In this case, the Court faces no such difficult questions of state law, as explained above. Therefore, Burford abstention is also inappropriate. See Board of Education v. Bosworth, 713 F.2d 1316, 1320 (7th Cir.1983).

Finally, Defendant requests that this Court abstain from ruling in this case in accordance with Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), and its progeny. While it is true that in recent years the Younger doctrine has enjoyed some degree of expansion beyond its original context, see, e.g., Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar Association, 457 U.S. 423, 102 S.Ct. 2515, 2521, 73 L.Ed.2d 116 (1982), its invocation apparently remains limited to situations involving pending state judicial proceedings. See id....