Freitas v. Ault

Decision Date04 April 1997
Docket NumberNos. 96-2460,96-2461,s. 96-2460
Citation109 F.3d 1335
PartiesRichard John FREITAS, Sr., Appellee/Cross-Appellant, v. John AULT, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, and Irene G. Howard, Defendant/Cross-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Layne M. Lindebak, Des Moines, IA, argued (Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, on the brief), for appellant/cross-appellee.

Webb Wassmer, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (argued), for appellee/cross-appellant Freitas.

Robert P. Montgomery, Des Moines, Iowa, argued (Matthew Boles, on the brief), for defendant/cross-appellee Howard.

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, and HANSEN and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

John Ault, one of the defendants in a suit brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, appeals the trial court's ruling that a prisoner's due process rights were violated when he was transferred to a higher-security facility without a hearing. He also appeals the amount of the damage award. The prisoner, Richard John Freitas, Sr., cross-appeals the amount of damages awarded to him, one of the trial court's factual findings, and the trial court's holding that he was not sexually harassed by Irene G. Howard, a prison official. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

After Mr. Freitas, an inmate at Iowa's minimum-security North Central Correctional Facility ("NCCF"), was assigned to a job as a painter under the supervision of Ms. Howard, a romantic relationship developed between the two that lasted several months. Mr. Freitas and Ms. Howard would meet in secluded areas of NCCF, where they would kiss, hug, and talk. At Ms. Howard's request, Mr. Freitas would write her "hot sexy" letters approximately every other day, and Ms. Howard occasionally dressed in tight skirts and high heels for Mr. Freitas's benefit.

Although the two discussed living together upon Mr. Freitas's release, Ms. Howard was apparently less serious about the relationship than Mr. Freitas, for she saw and slept with other men. After Mr. Freitas learned from Ms. Howard that a male companion would be staying with her over the weekend, he decided to inform Mr. Ault, the warden of NCCF, about the relationship. Mr. Freitas wrote Mr. Ault a letter informing him of the affair between the two in which he used the word "relationship" to characterize their interactions and stated that "I've been as much at fault" as Ms. Howard and that "[t]his isn't all my fault."

Mr. Ault read the letter, called Mr. Freitas into his office, and asked him to describe in writing his interactions with Ms. Howard. Mr. Freitas complied, producing a three-page statement in which he described the relationship and stated that he was "ending things" because Ms. Howard had lied to him. To avoid possible disruptions at NCCF, Mr. Ault immediately transferred Mr. Freitas to the Iowa Men's Reformatory in Anamosa ("Anamosa"), a medium-security institution in which Mr. Freitas had been housed before coming to NCCF.

Contrary to state and prison policies, Mr. Freitas received no written notice of his transfer to Anamosa and no oral or written notice that he had violated any NCCF rules, and he neither met with the NCCF classification committee (the group that ordinarily considers transfers and assignments) nor received a hearing. At the time of Mr. Freitas's transfer, it was anticipated that a disciplinary report would follow, although none did. Upon his arrival at Anamosa, therefore, Mr. Freitas was placed in administrative segregation. When no disciplinary report followed, he was placed in "on-call" status for thirty days. Mr. Freitas slowly regained Level V status, which he had at NCCF, but even then, he enjoyed fewer privileges than at NCCF.

Unhappy with all of these events, Mr. Freitas brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Mr. Ault and Ms. Howard, asserting that his due process rights had been violated when he was transferred to Anamosa without a hearing and that Ms. Howard had sexually harassed him. After a bench trial, the district court found for Mr. Freitas on the due process claim and for Ms. Howard on the sexual harassment claim. (Mr. Freitas was eventually paroled to his sister in Maine but was later convicted of a different, unrelated offense in Iowa and is now back in the Iowa Department of Corrections system.)

II.

On appeal, Mr. Ault argues that the trial court misapplied Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995), in holding that he violated Mr. Freitas's due process rights by involuntarily transferring him to another prison without a hearing. We agree. In Sandin, the Supreme Court redefined the analysis for determining whether a state has created a liberty interest on the part of prisoners that would implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court believed that its prior cases improperly emphasized the presence of mandatory language in state statutes and regulations giving rise to the claimed liberty interests. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2299. The Court held that the focus should properly be on whether the deprivation alleged by the prisoner imposed "atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life." Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2300. In Mr. Freitas's case, the trial court erroneously relied on mandatory language in certain state and prison policies to determine that Mr. Freitas had a liberty interest in not being transferred without a hearing, and then held that the resulting deprivation of a hearing was a denial of due process because Mr. Freitas's transfer to a higher-security institution imposed an "atypical and significant hardship," id., on him.

The appropriate inquiry is whether the conditions of Mr. Freitas's confinement after his transfer constituted a hardship that could reasonably be characterized as "atypical and significant," id. See, e.g., Wycoff v. Nichols, 94 F.3d 1187, 1189-90 (8th Cir.1996). It is undisputed that Mr. Freitas's transfer resulted in several changes in the conditions of his confinement. Upon his arrival at Anamosa, Mr. Freitas was placed in administrative segregation ("lock-up") for ten days while NCCF officials contemplated whether to take disciplinary action against him. While in "lock-up," Mr. Freitas was allowed out of his cell for approximately one hour a day. After no disciplinary action followed, Mr. Freitas was released into the general prison population and placed in "on-call" status for thirty days. During that time, Mr. Freitas was allowed out of his cell a few hours each day and could have a limited number of visitors, but he could neither work nor enjoy phone privileges.

Mr. Freitas did not regain Level V status for approximately three months. Even then, however, Mr. Freitas enjoyed fewer privileges than he had at NCCF. He had fewer phone and visiting rights, his ability to keep personal items in his cell was restricted, he was required to be in his cell more often, his movements within the prison were limited more, and he was in a higher-security facility. The job that Mr. Freitas eventually gained at Anamosa paid significantly less than his job at NCCF, and Mr. Freitas also lost the ability to earn a "good time" work bonus during the interim between his arrival at Anamosa and his new job, although this loss evidently had no practical effect on the duration of his sentence, because he was paroled approximately sixteen years before his release date and no previously earned time was revoked.

Mr. Freitas contends that the transfer deprived him of a favorable parole opportunity by causing his cousin to decide not to sponsor him after his release. The trial court found, however, that something that occurred between him and his cousin during a visit after his transfer caused her to change her mind. After a careful review of the record, we believe that that finding is not clearly erroneous and therefore find that the transfer's effects were limited to the undisputed facts described above.

We believe that as a matter of law these conditions do not constitute an "atypical and significant" hardship, Sandin, 515 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2300,...

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