Harris v. Pernsley

• Citation: 654 F. Supp. 1042
• Decision Date: 19 February 1987
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-1847.
• Parties: Martin HARRIS, Albert Anthony, Orlando X. McCrea, Tyrone Glenn, Carlos Royster, Amin Abdullah, Khalid Allah Muhammad, and Arnold Furtick, Charles Oakes, Emanuel Gardner v. Irene PERNSLEY, individually and in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Human Services of the City of Philadelphia, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

654 F. Supp. 1042

Martin HARRIS, Albert Anthony, Orlando X. McCrea, Tyrone Glenn, Carlos Royster, Amin Abdullah, Khalid Allah Muhammad, and Arnold Furtick, Charles Oakes, Emanuel Gardner v. Irene PERNSLEY, individually and in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Human Services of the City of Philadelphia, et al.

Civ. A. No. 82-1847.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

February 19, 1987.

David Richman and Philip H. Lebowitz, Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Philadelphia, for plaintiffs.

Richard J. Gold, Chief Deputy City Sol. and Guy J. Villim, Asst. City Sol., Law Dept., Philadelphia, Pa., for City defendants.

Carl Vaccaro, Deputy General Counsel, Harrisburg, Pa., for defendants Marks and Jeffes.

Rosalyn Robinson, Deputy General Counsel, Harrisburg, Pa., for defendant Waldman.

Sarah Vandenbraak and Gaele Barthold, Asst. Dist. Attys., Philadelphia, Pa., for Dist. Atty. of Philadelphia, Ronald Castille.

MEMORANDUM

SHAPIRO, District Judge.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Plaintiffs assert this civil rights action on behalf of themselves and all persons similarly situated in regard to conditions of confinement in prisons in the City of Philadelphia. Plaintiffs allege that Commonwealth and City officials responsible for the conditions of confinement in City prisons are violating the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. A hearing on plaintiffs' motion to approve a settlement agreement between plaintiffs and the City defendants,¹ presented preliminarily to the court on October 10, 1986, was held on December 11, 1986. Upon full consideration of written submissions, including objections of the District Attorney of Philadelphia County, and a hearing on the settlement, the court approved the settlement between the plaintiffs and the City defendants as fair, reasonable and adequate to the class in an order dated December 30, 1986 (Order as amended January 6, 1987). This memorandum states the court's reasons for doing so.

This action was commenced by the filing of a pro se complaint and request to proceed in forma pauperis by ten Holmesburg Prison inmates on behalf of themselves and all other persons similarly situated. Plaintiffs' action, pursuant to 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 (West 1981), alleged that the conditions of confinement in Holmesburg Prison violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Plaintiffs sued the Commissioner of the Department of Human Services of the City of Philadelphia, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Philadelphia Prison System, the Superintendent of the Philadelphia Prisons, the Warden of Holmesburg Prison, and the Medical Director of the Philadelphia Prisons, in their individual and official capacities. Leave to proceed in forma pauperis was granted and counsel appointed. Plaintiffs then filed an amended complaint deleting as a defendant the Medical Director of the Philadelphia Prisons but adding as defendants the City of Philadelphia, the Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia, the Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Corrections, and General Counsel of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in their individual and official capacities. Defendants' motions to dismiss were granted on December 30, 1983 on two grounds, both of which were related to litigation pending in the state courts: res judicata and abstention. The claims against the Commonwealth defendants for money damages were dismissed on the grounds of official immunity.

In February, 1971, five inmates of the Philadelphia prison system had instituted Jackson v. Hendrick, a class action in equity in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, to attack the constitutionality of their conditions of confinement and request injunctive relief against prison and city officials and the City of Philadelphia. On April 7, 1972, a three-judge court held that conditions in the Philadelphia County prisons violated the rights of inmates under, inter alia, the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions; the decree nisi appointed a Prison Master to administer the court's corrective decree. On June 7, 1972, the decree became final; it was later affirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Jackson v. Hendrick, 457 Pa. 405, 321 A.2d 603 (1974). The three-judge state court retained jurisdiction and continued to issue remedial orders and approve consent decrees entered into by the parties.² One order established a maximum inmate capacity for the Philadelphia prison system based on "one man-one cell." Nonetheless, plaintiffs here contended that unconstitutional conditions persisted.

The United States Court of Appeals, reversing the judgment of this court (Opinion by Gibbons, J.; Garth, J., dissenting), held that the Court of Common Pleas' judgment was not res judicata of the claims made in this action. The court explained:

There is no identity of causes of action between the plaintiffs in the 1971 lawsuit and this one. No member of the present class even had a cause of action either for injunctive relief or for damages growing out of the conditions in Holmesburg in 1971, for no such class member was subjected to those conditions. A Pennsylvania judgment is not conclusive on matters which by reason of the nature of the case could not have been adjudicated.

Harris v. Pernsley, 755 F.2d 338, 342 (3d Cir.1984) (citations omitted).

The Court of Appeals also held that this was not a proper case for abstention under Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), because the plaintiffs sought money damages in federal court which the plaintiffs in the state court action did not. Harris, 755 F.2d at 346. The court stated,

The mere pendency of a state court injunction predicated on federal law, which according to the complaint has not produced an alleviation of ongoing violations of the Constitution, is not such an exceptional circumstance as to relieve the federal courts of `the virtually unflagging obligation ... to exercise the jurisdiction given them.'

755 F.2d at 345 (quoting Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 817, 96 S.Ct. at 1246). Although the Commonwealth defendants were entitled to qualified official immunity on claims for money damages, they had filed no summary judgment motions. Dismissing the damages claims against them was held an error of law.

Petitions for rehearing were denied on March 21, 1985. Harris v. Pernsley, 758 F.2d 83 (3d Cir.1985) (Judges Adams, Hunter, Weis, Garth, and Becker would have granted the petition for rehearing). Id. Defendants petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari; the petition was denied on November 4, 1985. ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 331, 88 L.Ed.2d 314 (1985) (Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor would have granted certiorari; Chief Justice Burger dissented from the denial of the writ). Id.

Following remand, the trial court granted leave to file a second amended complaint in order to provide adequate class representation. Plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint on behalf of an expanded class of past, present and future inmates of all Philadelphia prisons and added the wardens of the Detention Center and the House of Corrections in their individual and official capacities as party defendants. The plaintiffs and City defendants also began settlement negotiations. This court was informed on August 8, 1986, that proposed related settlements had been reached in both the state and federal actions. A preliminary hearing on approval of the federal settlement was tentatively scheduled.

On August 19, 1986, District Attorney Ronald D. Castille moved to intervene as a party defendant pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 24 in order to oppose the settlement. Mr. Castille sought intervention as of right pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a) or, in the alternative, permissive intervention pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(b). A revised proposed consent order, of which the District Attorney was notified, was preliminarily presented to the court on October 10, 1986 and thereafter incorporated in a settlement agreement of November 14, 1986, amended by Stipulation of December 23, 1986, filed with the court. Briefing on the District Attorney's motion to intervene in opposition to settlement, an evidentiary hearing and oral argument followed; after a joint memorandum in support of the revised settlement was filed, a hearing on the proposed revised settlement and consent order was scheduled and publicized in the news media. In addition to publication of the notice of the hearing in The Legal Intelligencer, articles appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News and the proposed settlement, District Attorney's opposition, and the court proceedings were reported by numerous radio and television broadcasts on several occasions.

The court stated on December 11, 1986 that the motion of District Attorney Castille to intervene as a party defendant would be denied, but the court also expressly agreed to hear the objections of the District Attorney to the settlement agreement regardless of that denial. The Order denying that motion and the Memorandum in support of the denial were filed on December 31, 1986.

The court having considered the oral submissions on December 11, 1986, the record made by the parties and the proposed intervenor, the information submitted on request of the court, and the court's personal tour of the prisons, determined upon an independent evaluation of the proposed settlement that it was fair, reasonable and adequate. Therefore, the court approved the settlement and entered a consent order on December 30, 1986.

The settlement is conditioned upon plaintiffs' filing a revised second amended complaint and certification, pursuant to Fed.R. Civ.P. 23(b)(2), of a plaintiff class of all individuals who are, or who have been, inmates of the Philadelphia prison system since April...