Green v. Ferrell, s. 80-3013

• Decision Date: 06 January 1982
• Docket Number: Nos. 80-3013,81-4047,s. 80-3013
• Parties: Tyrone GREEN, et al., Plaintiffs, John H. Owens, Jr., etc., Movant-Appellant, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Tyrone GREEN, et al., Plaintiffs, John Edney, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees. Moses BELTON, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1292

664 F.2d 1292

Tyrone GREEN, et al., Plaintiffs, John H. Owens, Jr., etc., Movant-Appellant, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Tyrone GREEN, et al., Plaintiffs, John Edney, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Moses BELTON, Individually and on behalf of all others

similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William T. (Billy) FERRELL, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 80-3013, 81-4047.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Jan. 6, 1982.

Shirley E. Payne, Hazlehurst, Miss., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Handy, Fitzpatrick, Gwin, Blough & Lewis, Lucien C. Gwin, Jr., Natchez, Miss., W. V. Westbrook, III, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Before CLARK, Chief Judge, RUBIN and TATE, Circuit Judges.

CLARK, Chief Judge:

These consolidated appeals arise from the dismissals for lack of subject matter jurisdiction of a prisoners' class action for equitable relief and an individual prisoner's action for damages, and from the denial of a pretrial detainee's motion for leave to intervene. The prisoners' actions challenged the conditions of confinement at Adams County Jail. After denying the intervention motion filed on behalf of a proposed sub-class of pretrial detainees, the district court certified the prisoner class to include only convicted inmates. The district court erred in dismissing the action and defining the class.

I.

Tyrone Green brought a class action on February 21, 1979, challenging the conditions of confinement at Adams County Jail and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to remedy violations of the first, eighth, and fourteenth amendments. Adams County Sheriff William T. Ferrell and the Adams County Board of Supervisors were named as defendants. Green, a convicted inmate, sought to represent a class of "all present and future inmates of the Adams County Jail." James H. Owens, Jr., who had been incarcerated in Adams County Jail since January 18, 1979, moved to intervene in the Green action on March 26, 1979, as representative of a proposed sub-class of present and future pretrial detainees. Owens was released from confinement in April 1979. Later that month, a magistrate, in an order subsequently affirmed by the district court, denied Owens' intervention motion on standing and mootness grounds. A motion by the class plaintiffs to join another pretrial detainee as a plaintiff, never acted upon by the court, was filed in May 1979. In November 1979, the district court certified the class in the Green action to include "all present and future convicted inmates serving their sentences within the Adams County Jail."

Meanwhile, Moses Belton, a former Adams County Jail inmate, filed an action against the Sheriff and Board of Supervisors of Adams County seeking damages for himself and equitable relief for a purported class. The district court dismissed the equitable portion of Belton's claim since he was no longer incarcerated, but permitted the individual damage claim to be maintained. A motion to consolidate the Green and Belton actions was denied by the district court.

Just over one year after the Green action was filed, the district court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment. The court ordered the parties to both the Green and Belton actions to prepare for a consolidated evidentiary hearing on the issue of jurisdiction. A two-day evidentiary hearing was held, and in November 1980, the district court dismissed both actions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Two separate appeals, consolidated by a previous order of this court, are before us now. First, Owens appeals the district court's denial of his motion to intervene on behalf of pretrial detainees. Second, the class and individual claimants appeal the district court's dismissal of their actions on jurisdictional grounds, and its narrow class definition.

II.

After the district court denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment, it required the plaintiffs to adduce proof demonstrating that its claims of constitutional deprivations had a substantial basis in fact. The court based its requirement of this unique factual showing on language contained in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), and Smith v. Sullivan, 611 F.2d 1039 (5th Cir. 1980). After examining plaintiffs' claims in the light of the "proof" presented, the district court found them groundless and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We reverse and remand for disposition of the actions on their merits.

A plaintiff's failure to state a meritorious cause of action does not defeat subject matter jurisdiction. See Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678, 682, 66 S.Ct. 773, 776, 90 L.Ed. 939, 943 (1946); Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 415-16 (5th Cir. 1981); Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: Jurisdiction § 3564. With few exceptions, subject matter jurisdiction should be determined on the basis of the plaintiff's complaint. Premerits factual inquiries which affect the existence of subject matter jurisdiction are restricted to such matters as the determination of citizenship of the parties or amount in controversy in a diversity action. See, e.g., Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 415-16 (5th Cir. 1981). The factual inquiry conducted by the district court here, rather than seeking to determine some discrete jurisdictional requisite, blanketed the merits of plaintiffs' claims. Such broad factual attacks on "jurisdiction" cannot be allowed to thwart the requirement that well-pleaded claims must be dealt with on their merits.

The district court misread Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), and Smith v. Sullivan, 611 F.2d 1039 (5th Cir. 1980). Neither case requires a pretrial evidentiary inquiry into the existence of...