Disco v. Thompson
| Decision Date | 09 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 2:19-cv-00130 |
| Parties | RICHARD ANTHONY DISCO, Plaintiff, v. SHELLY LEE THOMPSON, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
For the reasons set forth herein, it is respectfully recommended that Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Complaint (ECF No. 33) be granted as to Plaintiff's (1) claims against individual Defendants in their official capacities or against the Defendant Parole Board, and (2) claim for damages for mental or emotional injury, and that said Motion be otherwise denied. More specifically, the Court concludes that pro se Plaintiff's §1983 claim for Constitutional violation of his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights is sufficient to survive said Motion. In so recommending, the Court has thoroughly reviewed the parties' briefings and given pro se Plaintiff all due consideration.
A. Factual History
Plaintiff Richard Anthony Disco ("Disco" or "Plaintiff"), an inmate currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette, filed this civil rights action regarding the sentence recalculation made by Defendant Shelly Lee Thompson ("Thompson"), a Records Office Specialist employed by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (the "DOC"), and implemented by Defendant Doe, an employee of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole (the "Parole Board"). As set forth in relevant portions of Plaintiff's September 3, 2019 Amended Complaint, ECF No. 32, Plaintiff was scheduled for a release interview with the Parole Board in November, 2015, in accordance with his eligibility for parole on his minimum release date of March 23, 2016. Subsequent to cancellation of that meeting without explanation, Plaintiff learned that his sentence credit on a prior ("original") sentence had been modified by Defendant Thompson in October, 2015 and that his current sentence - and thus his current minimum and maximum release dates - had been extended by two years and nine months. Thus, Plaintiff's minimum release date was changed to December 31, 2018 and his release interview cancelled. The Amended Complaint exhibits indicate that the Defendants' "recomputations" related to a complex myriad of: Plaintiff's parole violation(s), credit "removal" and "reapplication", the DOC's correction of its own prior calculation "error", and the Parole Board's recission(s) and reestablishment(s) of its own related actions. See e.g., infra n. 2. At bottom, it appears to this Court that following the DOC's October, 2015 recalculation of credits, the Defendants (1) extended Plaintiff's original sentence "maximum [sentence] date" from August 4, 2006 to May 14, 2009 (although his maximum sentence on the original sentence had been designated as completed on August 4, 2006, i.e. approximately nine years prior),1 (2) correspondingly extended the start date of his "new conviction" sentence from August 5, 2006 to May 15, 2009, and (3) thus extended his current sentence minimum and maximum release dates by the same 33months. See Disco v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, No. 1615-CD-2016, Unreported Memorandum Opinion, January 8, 2018; ECF No. 32, Ex. C (the "Commonwealth Court Opinion").2 To be clear then, it appears that credit for 33 months incarceration time served by Plaintiff was rescinded from his current sentence on the basis of DOC employee Thompson's credit recalculation. See generally Commonwealth Court Opinion (more fully explicating the "complex sentencing history" of the case and summarizing that: "Based on DOC's [credit] restructures, the Board changed Disco's maximum sentence date for his Original Sentence - received in January 1986 and served in August 2006 - without intervening parole violations or sentencing orders from the courts."); id. at 13 ().
Plaintiff's timely filed grievance was denied,3 but his appeal to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court was ultimately granted. As Plaintiff correctly notes, the Commonwealth Court Opinion observed that: "It is axiomatic that an inmate may not serve additional time over the time ordered by the sentencing courts." The Court further observed that it appeared the DOC's "greatly delayed restructuring of credits" had been made without an intervening Court order, that "[s]ignificantly, DOC did not believe there would be any material change to Disco'ssentence",4 and that the Board offered no other explanation or authority for its alteration of Disco's sentence dates.5 Finally, the Court noted that Disco "completed serving his Original Sentence on August 4, 2006" and that he did so "in accordance with sentencing court orders." The Commonwealth Court reversed the Board's Order, and Plaintiff's prior sentence dates were reinstated. See Commonwealth Court Opinion ("Mindful of due process principles and absent any record support for requiring a change to a fully served sentence, we discern merit in Disco's appeal.").6
Plaintiff states that his minimum release interview date "was taken away because the Defendants decided to alter a sentence that expired 10 years earlier." ECF No. 37 at 1. The pleadings of record do not reflect if or when a minimum release interview was provided to Plaintiff following the Commonwealth Court's reversal of the Board's Order, more than two years after cancellation of Plaintiff's November 2015 release interview.7
In his Amended Complaint, Plaintiff seeks "punitive damages in excess of $100,000", but there is nothing in his pro se complaint to suggest the designation of the damages as "punitive" was purposefully to the exclusion of other damages (e.g., compensatory) to which Plaintiff could plausibly be entitled. Cf. Section II, infra, regarding the liberality afforded in construing a pro se Plaintiff's complaint; Section III(D), regarding Defendants' grounds for dismissal.
Plaintiff commenced this civil action on February 6, 2019. Defendants' April 29, 2019 Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 12, was rendered moot when Plaintiff was granted leave to file an Amended Complaint (by Order at ECF No. 21) which was ultimately docketed on September 3, 2019. ECF No. 32. See also ECF No. 26 (Order dismissing ECF No. 12 as moot). The pending Motion to Dismiss, together with Defendants' Brief in Support, was filed on September 4, 2019. ECF No. 33 and 34, respectively. Plaintiff's Response was filed on November 19, 2019. ECF No. 37. Accordingly, Defendants' Motion is ripe for disposition.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit summarized the standard to be applied in deciding motions to dismiss filed pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6):
Under the "notice pleading" standard embodied in Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a plaintiff must come forward with "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." As explicated in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009), a claimant must state a "plausible" claim for relief, and "[a] claim has facial plausibility when the pleaded factual content allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Although "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level," Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007), a plaintiff "need only put forth allegations that raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of the necessary element." Fowler, 578 F.3d at 213 (quotation marks and citations omitted); see alsoCovington v. Int'l Ass'n of Approved Basketball Officials, 710 F.3d 114, 117-18 (3d Cir. 2013).
Thompson v. Real Estate Mortg. Network, 748 F.3d 142, 147 (3d Cir. 2014).
In addition to the complaint, courts may consider matters of public record and other matters of which a court may take judicial notice, court orders, and exhibits attached to the complaint when adjudicating a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). Oshiver v. Levin,Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 38 F.3d 1380, 1384 n.2 (3d Cir. 1994) (). A court may also consider indisputably authentic documents. Spruill v. Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 223 (3d Cir. 2004); Pension Ben. Guar. Corp. v. White Consol. Indus., Inc., 998 F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir. 1993); Golden v. Cook, 293 F. Supp.2d 546, 551 (W.D. Pa. 2003) () (citations omitted). More specifically, the Court may take judicial notice of other court records without converting a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment.
When considering pro se pleadings, a court must employ less stringent standards than when judging the work product of an attorney. Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972). When presented with a pro se complaint, the court should construe the complaint liberally and draw fair inferences from what is not alleged as well as from what is alleged. Dluhos v. Strasberg, 321 F.3d 365, 369 (3d Cir. 2003). In a § 1983 action, the court must "apply the applicable law, irrespective of whether the pro se litigant has mentioned it by name." Higgins v. Beyer, 293 F.3d 683, 688 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting Holley v. Dep't of Veteran Affairs, 165 F.3d 244, 247-48 (3d Cir. 1999)). See also Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1996) (...
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