Kaufhold v. Bright

• Decision Date: 23 September 1993
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 92-0096-H.
• Citation: 835 F. Supp. 294
• Parties: Richard F. KAUFHOLD, Plaintiff, v. Edwin W. BRIGHT, Jr., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia

835 F. Supp. 294

Richard F. KAUFHOLD, Plaintiff, v. Edwin W. BRIGHT, Jr., et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 92-0096-H.

United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Harrisonburg Division.

September 30, 1993.

Judgment nunc pro tunc, September 23, 1993.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Linda Schorsch Jones, Gordon Wallace Poindexter, Jr., Poindexter, Schorsch & Patterson, Waynesboro, VA, for plaintiff.

Richard F. Kaufhold, pro se.

Pamela Anne Sargent, Office of Atty. Gen., Richmond, VA, for defendants.

ORDER

MICHAEL, District Judge.

Pursuant to a standing order entered in this court on June 30, 1992, this case was referred to the Honorable B. Waugh Crigler, United States Magistrate Judge, for proposed findings of fact and a recommended disposition. The Magistrate Judge filed his Report on September 2, 1993, and on September 10, 1993, the Plaintiff filed Objections to the Report and Recommendation. Said objections having been lodged with this court in a timely and appropriate manner, this court is required to undertake a de novo determination. Orpiano v. Johnson, 687 F.2d 44, 48 (4th Cir.1982). Since, after de novo review of the entire record, this court determines that the objections are without merit, it is this day

ADJUDGED AND ORDERED

as follows:

1. The objections to the Report and Recommendation of the United States Magistrate Judge are overruled, and said Report, filed September 2, 1993, shall be, and it hereby is, adopted in its entirety.

2. For the reasons stated in the Magistrate Judge's Report, Defendants' motion for summary judgment shall be, and it hereby is, granted. Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and motion to supplement shall be, and they hereby are, denied.

3. This case shall be, and it hereby is, dismissed and stricken from the docket of the court.

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

CRIGLER, United States Magistrate Judge.

In this action, plaintiff, a parolee, alleges that state parole officials overstepped their proper authority by impeding his potential employment as a paralegal. Plaintiff Richard F. Kaufhold, pro se, invokes 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 against his parole officer, Edwin W. Bright, Jr., and unnamed supervisory defendants within the state parole system. The Hon. James H. Michael, Jr., U.S. District Judge, referred the suit to this court under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). The complaint asserts that defendant Bright violated Kaufhold's constitutional right to privacy and improperly denied the parolee of his liberty and property interests by interfering with his right to work in his "chosen, lawful profession." Further, plaintiff alleges that certain "unknown employees" of the Virginia Parole Board ("Board") also violated his rights, either through complicity with Bright, or by failing to prevent Bright's interference. Plaintiff seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, and compensatory and punitive damages. Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment seeking dismissal on the grounds of absolute immunity, and, alternatively, qualified immunity. Plaintiff also has sought summary judgment. In addition, on August 10, 1993, plaintiff by counsel who entered an appearance in the case on August 25, 1993, moved to supplement the complaint and moved for partial summary judgment on the question of liability.

BACKGROUND

The material facts in the case are not disputed. In 1990, while imprisoned, Kaufhold enrolled in a paralegal correspondence course and completed its initial level. The Board released Kaufhold on parole in 1991, with two special conditions: that he receive mental health counseling; and that he refrain from contacting his ex-wife, the victim of his past crimes. Further conditions were added one month later, requiring the Board's approval either for travel outside Kaufhold's immediate parole district or for his transfer to another district.¹

Upon his release, Kaufhold spent more than a year unsuccessfully seeking full-time paralegal work, despite officer Bright's repeated demands that the parolee cease to hold himself out as a paralegal. Finally, in 1992, Kaufhold received an offer for employment outside his parole district with a Charlottesville "legal consultant." Kaufhold requested special permission to accept that offer and work in Charlottesville, but the request was denied.² At the time, he was under investigation by the state bar for practicing law without a license, a fact known to his parole officer.

The prospective employer in Charlottesville withdrew the job offer, apparently because Bright had informed him of the investigation. When Kaufhold faced formal charges for practicing law without a license, he pled guilty, under an agreement with Bright. The agreement provided that Kaufhold, in addition to pleading guilty, would limit or forego future practice as a paralegal; in return, Bright would not cite the resulting conviction as a parole violation. Kaufhold alleges that, after the conviction, Bright warned him that any attempts at paralegal work would jeopardize his parole. When a Staunton lawyer offered Kaufhold part-time employment as a legal secretary, Bright notified the attorney of Kaufhold's recent conviction, and suggested that hiring the parolee might violate state bar regulations.³ As an apparent result, the Staunton offer never materialized.

Defendant Board members, in their motion for summary judgment, plead absolute immunity, as does parole officer Bright. Defendants alternatively assert qualified immunity, arguing that no clear constitutional mandate prohibited their acts or omissions.

The plaintiff's proposed supplemental complaint sets forth acts occurring during the pendency of this litigation and appears also to relate to conduct surrounding the institution and adjudication of parole violation procedures in the state court. Contrary to plaintiff's assertion in the motion to supplement, these allegations do raise new and materially different matters not heretofore pled.

APPLICABLE LAW

The type of immunity available to a defendant in a § 1983 action initially depends upon whether that defendant is sued in an official capacity or a personal capacity. See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985) (unanimous decision). Official capacity suits, on the one hand, provide merely an alternative means of "pleading an action against an entity of which an officer is an agent." Id. at 165, 105 S.Ct. at 3104 (quoting Monell v. Dep't of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 690 n. 55, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2035 n. 55, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978)). Personal capacity suits, on the other hand, seek personal liability for a government official's actions taken under color of state law. Id. (citing Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 237-38, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686-87, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974)). In addition to determining which type of immunity may apply, the distinction between official and personal capacity suits generates differing standards of liability under § 1983.

An official capacity action requires more than a showing of personal liability: The relevant entity must itself have been a "moving force" behind the alleged deprivation. Polk County v. Dodson, 454 U.S. 312, 326, 102 S.Ct. 445, 454, 70 L.Ed.2d 509 (1981) (quoting Monell, 436 U.S. at 694, 98 S.Ct. at 2037). The only immunity applicable to an official capacity suit is the involved entity's sovereign immunity, such as that provided by the Eleventh Amendment. Graham, 473 U.S. at 166, 105 S.Ct. at 3105. Additionally, reliance on existing law is no defense in an official capacity action. Id. at 167, 105 S.Ct. at 3105. A personal capacity action, however, requires a showing that the defendant official caused a deprivation of a federal right while acting under color of state law. See, e.g., Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961). In a personal capacity suit, a defendant may avoid the threat of liability by invoking either absolute or qualified immunity.

Under Butz v. Economou, a defendant bears the burden of proving absolute immunity. 438 U.S. 478, 506, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2910, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978). Parole board members, however, generally receive absolute immunity. See Douglas v. Muncy, 570 F.2d 499 (4th Cir.1978); Pope v. Chew, 521 F.2d 400 (4th Cir.1975). Douglas has been interpreted also to accord absolute immunity to parole officers, see Arebaugh v. Dalton, 600 F.Supp. 1345, 1349 (E.D.Va.1985) (citing Douglas, 570 F.2d at 501), although this court does not construe Douglas so broadly. Notably, however, Douglas does cite with approval Burkes v. Callion, 433 F.2d 318 (9th Cir.1970), which states that "officers of government whose duties are related to the judicial process are immune from liability for damages under section 1983 for conduct in the performance of their official duties." Id. at 319 (citations omitted). Moreover, the Fourth Circuit stated recently that "government officials who are performing their official duties are generally shielded from liability for civil damages." Swanson v. Powers, 937 F.2d 965, 967 (4th Cir.1991) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)).

Qualified immunity protects public officials from liability for money damages when their challenged conduct did not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815-18, 102 S.Ct. at 2736-38. Even when immunity does apply, however, an official can still be subject to declaratory or injunctive relief. See Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 104 S.Ct. 1970, 80 L.Ed.2d 565 (1984). Further, qualified immunity is not available to a defendant in an official capacity suit. Brandon v. Holt, 469 U.S. 464, 105 S.Ct. 873, 83 L.Ed.2d 878 (1985); Hughes v. Blankenship, 672 F.2d 403 (4th Cir.1982). Nonetheless, where a § 1983 actions seeks personal liability, qualified immunity can obtain for defendants in those suits. See Graham, 473 U.S. at 167-69, 105 S.Ct. at 3105-07; Monell, ...