Irby v. Macht

• Decision Date: 28 November 1994
• Docket Number: No. 90-2662,90-2662
• Citation: 184 Wis.2d 831,522 N.W.2d 9
• Parties: Leon IRBY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Petitioner, v. Phillip G. MACHT, Lt. Larry J. Julson, Mary Klemz, David Warner and Gary Whitley, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 9

522 N.W.2d 9

184 Wis.2d 831

Leon IRBY, Plaintiff-Appellant-Petitioner, v. Phillip G. MACHT, Lt. Larry J. Julson, Mary Klemz, David Warner and Gary Whitley, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 90-2662.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Argued April 26, 1994.

Decided June 17, 1994.

Certiorari Denied Nov. 28, 1994.

See 115 S.Ct. 590.

For the defendants-respondents the cause was argued by Joanne F. Kloppenburg, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom on the brief was James E. Doyle, Atty. Gen.

WILCOX, Justice.

The petitioner, Leon J. Irby (Irby), seeks review of a decision of the court of appeals affirming the trial court's dismissal of his 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983 (sec. 1983) claims. ¹ Irby maintains that the defendants, all of whom were Department of Corrections (DOC) employees, violated his due process rights by placing him in segregation and reducing his earned good-time credits without according him the procedural protections mandated by the Wisconsin Administrative Code. The court of appeals held that Irby had not been deprived of due process because the defendants' acts were random and unauthorized and because the state afforded Irby adequate postdeprivation remedies. We affirm.

The issue before this court is whether Irby's complaint states a claim upon which relief can be granted. In determining whether a complaint should be dismissed, "the facts pleaded and all reasonable inferences from the pleadings are taken as true." State v. American TV, 146 Wis.2d 292, 300, 430 N.W.2d 709 (1988). The legal sufficiency of the complaint, however, is a question of law which this court reviews without deference to the trial court or the court of appeals. Ball v. District No. 4, Area Board, 117 Wis.2d 529, 537, 345 N.W.2d 389 (1984).

In September of 1988, while an inmate at the Wisconsin Resource Center (WRC), Irby was charged with several rule violations including attempted battery, making threats, and showing disrespect to prison employees. Wis.Admin.Code, secs. DOC 303.12, 303.16, and 303.25 respectively. The disciplinary committee at WRC met to consider these charges, and on September 29, 1988, determined that Irby committed the alleged violations. ² Irby was sentenced to 8 days of adjustment segregation and 360 days of program segregation. He also suffered the loss of earned good-time credits.

Irby sought certiorari review of the disciplinary proceedings in the Dane County Circuit Court, asserting that the disciplinary committee failed to observe the procedures mandated in the Wisconsin Administrative Code. The circuit court agreed and ordered that a second disciplinary hearing take place. At this rehearing, the disciplinary committee once again found Irby guilty.

Rather than petitioning the circuit court for certiorari review of the second disciplinary hearing, Irby initiated this sec. 1983 action. His complaint accuses the defendants of depriving him of constitutionally-protected liberty interests without due process of law. He is requesting money damages, costs, and the expungement of his prison record.

In October of 1990, the circuit court granted defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that Irby was required to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to bringing a sec. 1983 action.

This court held Irby's petition for review in abeyance pending our decision in Casteel v. Vaade, 167 Wis.2d 1, 481 N.W.2d 476 (1992). In Casteel, we concluded that plaintiffs need not exhaust their administrative remedies prior to initiating a sec. 1983 action in state court. Id. at 17, 481 N.W.2d 476. Based on Casteel, we vacated the court of appeals' dismissal of Irby's complaint and remanded the matter back to that court for further proceedings. On remand, the court of appeals again affirmed the dismissal of Irby's sec. 1983 complaint. Relying upon the United States Supreme Court's analysis in Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 110 S.Ct. 975, 108 L.Ed.2d 100 (1990), the court of appeals concluded that Irby had not been denied due process because the respondent's actions were "random and unauthorized rule violations," and because certiorari review provided Irby an adequate postdeprivation remedy.

As noted, Irby's sec. 1983 claim is grounded in his contention that he was deprived of protected liberty interests without due process of law. Accordingly, our first task is to determine whether Irby has in fact been deprived of a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. Irby argues that retention of his earned good-time credits, as well as his right to remain in the general prison population rather than being placed in segregation, are both protected liberty interests. We agree.

In Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), the Supreme Court concluded that the Due Process Clause in and of itself does not require states to provide inmates with good-time credits. Id. at 557, 94 S.Ct. at 2975. Furthermore, merely creating good-time credits does not oblige a state to provide inmates due process before such credits can be taken away. However, when states create the right to good-time, and then further condition its loss only upon proof of major misconduct, prisoners acquire a protected liberty interest. Thus, with respect to the Nebraska statutes at issue in Wolff, the Court concluded:

Since prisoners in Nebraska can only lose good-time credits if they are guilty of serious misconduct, the determination of whether such behavior has occurred becomes critical, and the minimum requirements of procedural due process appropriate for the circumstances must be observed.

Id. at 558, 94 S.Ct. at 2975.

The state concedes that the applicable Wisconsin regulations create a protected liberty interest in the retention of earned good time. The Wisconsin Administrative Code, sec. DOC 303.68 defines the loss of good time as a "major penalty," which can be imposed only when the inmate has been found guilty of a disciplinary rule. In addition, DOC 303.84 establishes the maximum amount by which an inmate's good time can be reduced for each type of violation. Under the reasoning expressed in Wolff, Irby has a protected liberty interest in the retention of his earned good-time credits.

The more disputed issue is whether he also has a liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population rather than being placed in segregation. The state maintains that Irby has no such interest, citing Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976).

The question in Meachum was whether an inmate in a Massachusetts state prison was deprived of a protected liberty interest when officials transferred him to a less favorable institution. As it did in Wolff, the Court in Meachum stressed the severely limited nature of a prisoner's liberty interests:

[G]iven a valid conviction, the criminal defendant has been constitutionally deprived of his liberty to the extent that the State may confine him and subject him to the rules of its prison system so long as the conditions of confinement do not otherwise violate the Constitution.

Id. at 224, 96 S.Ct. at 2538. As a result, the Court concluded that the Due Process Clause in and of itself does not protect an inmate's interest in being free from prison-to-prison transfers, even if "life in one prison is much more disagreeable than in another...." Id. at 225, 96 S.Ct. at 2538.

The state would have us take from Meachum the proposition that given a valid conviction, prisoners automatically forfeit their liberty interests with respect to the conditions of their incarceration, whether that be transfer to a less desirable institution, or, as in Irby's case, placement in segregation.

The state's interpretation, however, fails to acknowledge that in Meachum, the Court noted that unlike the Nebraska statutes in Wolff, Massachusetts law did not confer upon prisoners the right to remain in the prison to which they were initially assigned:

Insofar as we are advised, transfers between Massachusetts prisons are not conditioned upon the occurrence of specified events. On the contrary, transfer in a wide variety of circumstances is vested in prison officials. The predicate for invoking the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed and applied in Wolff is totally nonexistent in this case. (Emphasis added.)

Meachum, 427 U.S. at 226-27, 96 S.Ct. at 2539.

Any uncertainty which may have existed in this area was resolved in Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983). The issue in Hewitt was whether inmates in Pennsylvania state prisons had a liberty interest in not being placed in administrative segregation. In concluding that the Due Process Clause itself does not protect such an interest, the Court reiterated its view that "one cannot automatically apply procedural rules designed for free citizens in an open society ... to the very different situation presented by a disciplinary proceeding in a state prison." Id. at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871, quoting Wolff, 418 U.S. at 560, 94 S.Ct. at 2976. In addition, the Court believed that administrative segregation was the type of confinement that inmates should "reasonably anticipate" during their incarceration. Id. at 468, 103 S.Ct. at 869.

Nevertheless, the Court concluded that Pennsylvania's statutes and regulations gave inmates a protected liberty interest in remaining in the general prison population. First, the regulations required that certain due process procedures "shall," "will," and "must," be complied with before an inmate could be placed in segregation. Id. at 471-72, 103 S.Ct. at 871. Second, administrative segregation could only be imposed if specified "substantive predicates" existed, for example "the need for control," or "the threat of a serious disturbance." Id. at 472, 103 S.Ct. at 871. The Court concluded:

[O]n balance we are persuaded that the repeated use of explicitly mandatory language in connection with requiring specific...