Jeffries v. Tennessee Dept. of Correction

• Decision Date: 31 December 2002
• Citation: 108 S.W.3d 862
• Parties: Hilton JEFFRIES v. TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

Page 862

108 S.W.3d 862

Hilton JEFFRIES v. TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville.

Assigned on Briefs May 14, 2002.

December 31, 2002.

Permission to Appeal Denied by Supreme Court May 12, 2003.

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Hilton Jeffries, Only, Tennessee, pro se.

Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; and Dawn Jordan, Assistant Attorney General, for the appellee, Tennessee Department of Correction.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM B. CAIN and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, JJ., joined.

This appeal involves a prison disciplinary proceeding. A prisoner at the Southeast Regional Correctional Facility was charged with four serious disciplinary infractions. He pleaded guilty to three charges, and a prison disciplinary board found him guilty of the fourth. The board placed the prisoner in punitive segregation for five days and ordered him to pay $810 in restitution from his inmate trust fund account. The prisoner filed a petition for common-law writ of certiorari in the Chancery Court for Davidson County alleging (1) that his guilty pleas had been coerced and (2) that he had been denied due process on the fourth charge by the board's failure to provide him twenty-four hours notice of the hearing and its interference with his opportunity to present exculpatory evidence. The trial court granted the Tennessee Department of Correction's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the prisoner's petition. We have determined that the trial court erred by granting the summary judgment with regard to the 10 restitution order because the record contains material factual disputes regarding whether the prisoner waived his right to twenty-four hours notice of the hearing and whether the board refused to permit him to call an exculpatory witness.

I.

Hilton G. Jeffries was indicted for aggravated rape in 1987 after his eight-yearold daughter complained to her stepmother that he had repeatedly raped and engaged in oral sex with her. A Montgomery County jury found him guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced him to serve forty years in the state penitentiary.¹ Mr. Jeffries was eventually housed in the Southeastern Tennessee State Regional Correctional Facility in Pikeville.

After arriving at the Pikeville facility, Mr. Jeffries struck up a friendship with Shelby A. Frazier, a prison employee who worked in the same area where his prison job was located. After the warden of the institution declined Mr. Jeffries's request for assistance on some sort of personal matter, Ms. Frazier took it upon herself to begin helping Mr. Jeffries. Accordingly, Ms. Frazier loaned Mr. Jeffries her cellular telephone which he used to make personal calls to Florida and other locations at Ms. Frazier's expense. She provided Mr. Jeffries with paper, envelopes, and mailing labels that she had purchased for him from local retailers. Ms. Frazier also used a state-owned copying machine during her working hours to make copies for Mr. Jeffries.

Sometime in 2000, the institution began an internal investigation into Ms. Frazier's relationship with Mr. Jeffries. During this investigation, an internal affairs officer discovered the cellular telephone, the office supplies, and the copied documents in Mr. Jeffries's work area. The officer filed disciplinary charges against both Ms. Frazier and Mr. Jeffries. On November 28, 2000, Mr. Jeffries received written notice that he had been charged with four violations of institutional rules: (1) possession of contraband for having a cell phone; (2) abuse of telephone privileges for using the cell phone; (3) solicitation of staff for striking up a friendship with Ms. Frazier and using her for his personal gain; and (4) larceny for acquiring office supplies and using a state-owned copy machine.

Mr. Jeffries was immediately transferred to the Northeast Correctional Complex in Mountain City; however, he was returned to the Pikeville facility on November 29, 2000 for a disciplinary hearing. At that time, Mr. Jeffries pleaded guilty to the possession of contraband, the abuse of telephone privileges, and the solicitation of staff charges. A prison disciplinary board then conducted a hearing on the larceny charge and ultimately found Mr. Jeffries guilty. The board ordered Mr. Jeffries to serve five days in punitive segregation and pay $810 restitution for the office supplies and the cost of the copies made on the prison's copying machine.

On February 16, 2001, Mr. Jeffries filed a petition for common-law writ of certiorari² in the Chancery Court for Davidson County.³ In addition to alleging that his three guilty pleas had been coerced, he alleged that the disciplinary board denied him due process by disregarding the Department's Uniform Disciplinary Procedures in two ways. First, he asserted that he had not been given the required twenty-four hours notice of the charges and that he was forced to proceed with the hearing even after he refused to waive his right to notice. Second, he asserted that he was denied the right to present exculpatory evidence at the hearing.

On July 10, 2001, after obtaining two 45-day extensions for reasons that are not apparent in the record,⁴ the Office of the Attorney General responded to Mr. Jeffries's petition. This response consisted of certified copies of the institutional records regarding Mr. Jeffries's four disciplinary offenses, an affidavit of the chairperson of the prison disciplinary board, a motion for summary judgment,⁵ and a statement of undisputed facts. Mr. Jeffries responded to the Attorney General's motion by filing his own affidavit as well as two affidavits by Ms. Frazier⁶ and a copy of a letter from the warden of the Southeast Regional Correctional Facility stating that Ms. Frazier had been terminated for providing the office supplies which served the basis for the punishment Mr. Jeffries received. On September 5, 2001, the trial court entered an order granting the Department a summary judgment and dismissing Mr. Jeffries's petition without explanation. Mr. Jeffries has appealed.

II. THE STANDARD OF REVIEW

We cannot review this appeal using the standards of review normally associated with common-law writs of certiorari because the Department elected to file a motion for summary judgment to dispose of Mr. Jeffries's petition. This is a curious tactical choice in light of the fact that the Department had filed its complete record of Mr. Jeffries's hearing before the prison disciplinary board. Ordinarily, once the complete record has been filed, the reviewing court may proceed to determine whether the petitioner is entitled to relief without any further motions and, if the court chooses, without a hearing. In doing so, the reviewing court may resolve any material factual disputes that may exist in the record.

The Department's decision to move for a summary judgment prevents the trial court from simply reviewing the record to determine whether the petitioner is entitled to relief because Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 does not permit the trial court to grant the motion if the record contains material factual disputes. Thus, by filing the motion, the Department has introduced a consideration into the decision-making process — the existence of material factual disputes — that is not ordinarily part of a certiorari proceeding. The Department has elected to use Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 as the vehicle for disposing of Mr. Jeffries's petition. Therefore, the Department must dance by the tune it has asked the piper to play.

The standards for reviewing summary judgments on appeal are well-settled. Summary judgments are proper in virtually any civil case that can be resolved on the basis of legal issues alone. Fruge v. Doe, 952 S.W.2d 408, 410 (Tenn.1997); Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d 208, 210 (Tenn. 1993); Church v. Perales, 39 S.W.3d 149, 156 (Tenn.Ct.App.2000). They are not, however, appropriate when genuine disputes regarding material facts exist. Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. Thus, a summary judgment should be granted only when the undisputed facts, and the inferences reasonably drawn from the undisputed facts, support one conclusion — that the party seeking the summary judgment is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Webber v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 49 S.W.3d 265, 269 (Tenn.2001); Brown v. Birman Managed Care, Inc., 42 S.W.3d 62, 66 (Tenn.2001); Goodloe v. State, 36 S.W.3d 62, 65 (Tenn.2001).

The party seeking a summary judgment bears the burden of demonstrating that no genuine dispute of material fact exists and that it is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Shadrick v. Coker, 963 S.W.2d 726, 731 (Tenn.1998); Pendleton v. Mills, 73 S.W.3d at 121; Armoneit v. Elliott Crane Serv., 65 S.W.3d 623, 627 (Tenn.Ct.App.2001). In order to be entitled to a judgment as a matter of law, the moving party must either affirmatively negate an essential element of the non-moving party's claim or establish an affirmative defense that conclusively defeats the non-moving party's claim. Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d at 215 n. 5; Cherry v. Williams, 36 S.W.3d 78, 82-83 (Tenn.Ct. App.2000).

Once the moving party demonstrates that it has satisfied Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56's requirements, the non-moving party must demonstrate how these requirements have not been satisfied. Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Tenn.1997). Mere conclusory generalizations will not suffice. Cawood v. Davis, 680 S.W.2d 795, 796-97 (Tenn.Ct.App.1984). The non-moving party must convince the trial court that there are sufficient factual disputes to warrant a trial (1) by pointing to evidence either overlooked or ignored by the moving party that creates a factual dispute, (2) by rehabilitating evidence challenged by the moving party, (3) by producing additional evidence that creates a material factual dispute, or (4) by submitting an affidavit in accordance with Tenn. R. Civ. P....