Johnson v. Wetzel

• Decision Date: 01 October 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18 EAP 2019,18 EAP 2019
• Parties: Aquil JOHNSON, Appellant v. John WETZEL, Secretary PA, D.O.C., Mark Garman, Super., S.C.I. Rockview et. al., Officers, Agents, Servants, Employees and Attorneys, Appellees
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

238 A.3d 1172

Aquil JOHNSON, Appellant

v.John WETZEL, Secretary PA, D.O.C., Mark Garman, Super., S.C.I. Rockview et. al., Officers, Agents, Servants, Employees and Attorneys, Appellees

No. 18 EAP 2019

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted: September 30, 2020

Decided: October 1, 2020

OPINION

CHIEF JUSTICE SAYLOR

This is a direct appeal from a Commonwealth Court order dismissing Appellant's amended petition for review. In the petition, Appellant claimed he was entitled to a refund of monies deducted from his inmate account pursuant to Act 84 because no procedural safeguards were in place when the deductions began. Recent decisions by this Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals confirm that, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, certain safeguards must be applied before the first Act 84 deduction is made in connection with a given criminal sentence. See Bundy v. Wetzel , 646 Pa. 248, 261, 184 A.3d 551, 558-59 (2018) ; Montanez v. Secretary Pa. DOC , 773 F.3d 472, 486 (3d Cir. 2014). The issue here is whether relief is available where the first deduction was made before those decisions were announced.

I.

In March 2013, Appellant was sentenced in two criminal matters to an aggregate term of approximately 20-to-40 years’ incarceration. As part of the sentences, Appellant was required to pay a total of $1,166 in costs and contributions to the Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund (the "Victims’ Fund").¹ In light of these financial obligations, the Department of Corrections began deducting monies from Appellant's inmate account pursuant to Section 9728(b)(5) of the Sentencing Code. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9728(b)(5) (authorizing such deductions), quoted in Bundy , 646 Pa. at 248-53, 184 A.3d at 553-54. These withdrawals are known as Act 84 deductions because the provision authorizing them was added to Section 9728 by Act 84 of 1998. See Act of June 18, 1998, P.L. 640, No. 84, § 4; Bundy , 646 Pa. at 253, 184 A.3d at 554. The Department made the first withdrawal in June 2013, without notifying Appellant in advance.

In July 2013, upon learning of the deduction, Appellant filed an internal grievance questioning whether it was lawful. A prison counselor responded by stating that the deduction was, indeed, lawful in light of Act 84 and the financial responsibilities imposed on Appellant as part of his criminal sentences. The prison counselor added that the deductions would cease once Appellant's monetary obligations were paid in full.

In 2014, the federal court in Montanez held that, under the Due Process Clause, administrative pre-deprivation process was required. In particular, prior to the first Act 84 deduction the Department must notify the affected inmate of: the Department's policy concerning Act 84 deductions; the amount of his total obligation to the Commonwealth; the rate at which funds are to be deducted; and which funds will be subject to such withdrawals. Under Montanez , the Department must also give the inmate (again, prior to the first deduction) a reasonable opportunity to object as a means of avoiding any potential errors in the application of the Department's policy. See Montanez , 773 F.3d at 486.

Four years later, in 2018, this Court addressed the same due process issue in Bundy , and it reached a holding consistent with Montanez . See Bundy , 646 Pa. at 261, 184 A.3d at 558. Bundy observed that administrative pre-deprivation procedures are useful because, as Montanez had observed, they can help prevent errors before they occur. See id . at 258, 184 A.3d at 557 (recognizing a "general preference that procedural safeguards apply in the pre-deprivation timeframe").² The Bundy Court also noted that, in circumstances where procedural safeguards are not feasible in the pre-deprivation timeframe, the availability of a meaningful post-deprivation remedy satisfies the Due Process Clause. See id . at 258-59, 184 A.3d at 557 (citing cases).

Shortly after Bundy was issued, Appellant filed a grievance complaining that he never received pre-deprivation process as required by Bundy , and asking for a refund of all funds the Department had deducted since 2013, which totaled approximately $860. The Department denied the request for monetary relief, noting that Appellant had failed to provide documentation demonstrating that an assessment notice the Department previously issued relative to his financial obligations was in error. Still, the Department stated it would suspend further deductions for three weeks in order to give Appellant a chance to provide such documentation. Appellant did not forward any such documentation. Instead, he lodged an administrative appeal, expressing that the suggested post-deprivation remedy was insufficient in light of Bundy . The Department denied the appeal.

Appellant then filed a petition for review in the Commonwealth Court, directed to its original jurisdiction, and naming as respondents various employees of the Department.³ In his petition, Appellant stated a claim for replevin based on the Department's failure to comply with the procedures mandated in Bundy . He thus sought to recover the $860 the Department had deducted from his inmate account, together with interest and fees. He also requested nominal damages.⁴

Separately, Appellant alleged his due process rights were violated in that he should have received an administrative ability-to-pay hearing predicated on an alleged change in his circumstances. In this respect, Appellant referenced a passage in Bundy which clarified that, under prevailing Pennsylvania law as established by the Commonwealth Court, prisoners are entitled to an ability-to-pay hearing with regard to Act 84 deductions when there has been a material change of circumstances such as a threat of additional confinement, or increased supervision, as a result of unpaid financial obligations. Bundy noted that, under the Commonwealth Court's rationale, a valid issue arises as to whether that rule should be extended to encompass a situation where the Act 84 deductions interfere with the prisoner's ability to obtain meaningful merits review of the financial aspects of his sentence, his ability to litigate a PCRA petition, or the like. See Bundy , 646 Pa. at 261-62, 184 A.3d at 559.

After the Department preliminarily objected, Appellant was granted leave to file an amended petition. In it, he incorporated by reference the allegations in his first petition, and added a new cause of action purportedly sounding in negligence. Specifically, Appellant alleged that the prison counselor had negligently misinformed him in 2013 that the Act 84 deductions were lawful. He averred, more generally, that the Department was negligent in its administration of his inmate account because it withdrew funds without giving him the process which was due. In terms of relief, Appellant again asked for a refund of the monies the Department had withdrawn from his account, together with interest, fees, and nominal damages.

The Department filed preliminarily objections in the nature of a demurrer. It maintained that Act 84 gave it the authority to effectuate the deductions based on the sentencing orders, and that, in light of Buck v. Beard , 583 Pa. 431, 879 A.2d 157 (2005), the Department was not required to provide an ability-to-pay hearing before the first deduction.

Insofar as Appellant's claim pertained to alleged negligence, the Department made several arguments. First, it stated that the two-year limitations period pertaining to negligence claims had begun to run when the first deduction was made in 2013, and that it expired well before Appellant filed his petition for review in 2018.⁵ In any event, the Department continued, it was not clearly established under Pennsylvania law in 2013 – before Montanez or Bundy were decided – that the Department had a constitutional obligation to implement procedural safeguards before the first Act 84 deduction was effectuated. Thus, according to the Department, there was no standard of care pursuant to which the Department was required to afford pre-deprivation process, and, moreover, the Department was immunized from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity, which shields government officials from lawsuits based on allegedly unconstitutional actions so long as those officials did not violate individual rights which were clearly established at the time, and about which a reasonable government official would have known. See Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S. Ct. 808, 815, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) ; Montanez , 773 F.3d at 487-88. Finally, the Department contended that, in essence, Appellant's allegations referred to intentional, not negligent, conduct – specifically, the Department's intentional withdrawal of money from his account, and the prison counselor's intentional statement to Appellant in 2013 that the deductions were lawful – and that recovery for intentional conduct by the state is precluded under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

Appellant filed preliminary objections to the Department's preliminary objections, asserting that: the two-year time bar for negligence claims did not apply because the Department was guilty of fraudulent concealment; qualified immunity was inapplicable because Bundy ’s due process requirements were clearly established in 2013 by various judicial decisions; and the Department's own internal policy statement, entitled DC-ADM-005 (relating to the collection of inmate debts), recognized as early as 2007 that the Department was supposed to give him, prior to the first deduction, a memo informing him of the imminent deductions together with a copy of the official court documents relied on for such deductions.⁶

In a non-precedential decision, the Commonwealth Court sustained the Department's preliminary objections and dismissed the petition for review. See Johnson v. Dep't of Corr. , No. 497 M.D. 2018, 2019 WL 2400295, at *12 (Pa. Cmwlth. June 3, 2019). The court initially deemed the amended...