Klinger v. Department of Corrections
| Decision Date | 25 February 1997 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 96-1241,96-1243,s. 96-1241 |
| Citation | 107 F.3d 609 |
| Parties | Cheryl KLINGER; Linda Lange; Gweniver Lay; Stacy Finn, Appellants, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Harold W. Clarke, Director; Larry Tewes, Assistant Director, Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and former Acting Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women; Victor Lofgreen, Former Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women; Larry Wayne, Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women; Judith Danielsen, Psychologist, Nebraska Center for Women; Margaret Wehland, Medical Nurse, Nebraska Center for Women, Appellees. State of Alabama; State of California; State of Louisiana; State of Maryland; State of Minnesota; State of Missouri; State of Nevada; State of New Mexico; State of North Dakota; State of South Dakota; State of Vermont; State of Alaska, Amici Curiae. Cheryl KLINGER; Linda Lange; Gweniver Lay; Stacy Finn, Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; Harold W. Clarke, Director, Defendants. Larry Tewes, Assistant Director, Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and former Acting Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women; Victor Lofgreen, Former Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women, Appellants, Larry Wayne, Superintendent of Nebraska Center for Women; Judith Danielsen, Psychologist, Nebraska Center for Women; Margaret Wehland, Medical Nurse, Nebraska Center for Women, Appellees. State of Alabama; State of California; State of Louisiana; State of Maryland; State of Minnesota; State of Missouri; State of Nevada; State of New Mexico; State of North Dakota; State of South Dakota; State of Vermont; State of Alaska, Amici Curiae. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Gail S. Perry, Lincoln, NE, argued (Robert T. Grimit and Stephanie F. Stacy, on the brief), for Appellants/Cross-Appellees.
Laurie Smith Camp, Lincoln NE, argued (Don Stenberg, Attorney General, on the brief), for Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
James R. McAdams and Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General, Jefferson City, MO, on the brief, for amicus curiae, States of Alabama, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont.
Before McMILLIAN, MAGILL and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, C.JJ.
Women prisoners, incarcerated at the Nebraska Center for Women (NCW), brought this § 1983 action in the United States District Court 1 for the District of Nebraska, alleging, among other things, that defendants, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (DCS) and several DCS officials, violated their rights under the equal protection clause and Title IX of the Education Amendments, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688, by failing to provide equal educational opportunities for male and female Nebraska prisoners, and that defendants violated their constitutional right of meaningful access to the courts by failing to provide an adequate law library at NCW. After holding a bench trial on liability issues, the district court issued an opinion in Klinger v. Nebraska Dep't of Correctional Servs., 824 F.Supp. 1374 (D.Neb.1993) (Klinger I ), rev'd, 31 F.3d 727 (8th Cir.1994) (Klinger II ), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1185, 115 S.Ct. 1177, 130 L.Ed.2d 1130 (1995), and certified certain questions to this court for interlocutory review. On appeal in Klinger II, we reversed the district court's finding of an equal protection violation and remanded the case to the district court, which thereafter issued three more opinions. Id., 887 F.Supp. 1281 (D.Neb.1995) (Klinger III ); id., 902 F.Supp. 1036 (D.Neb.1995) (Klinger IV ); id., 909 F.Supp. 1329 (D.Neb.1995) (Klinger V ). Following the district court's entry of final judgment, the parties filed the present appeal and cross-appeal. Plaintiffs appeal from the district court's judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs' Title IX claim. For reversal, plaintiffs argue that the district court erroneously concluded that our decision in Klinger II required judgment in favor of defendants on the Title IX claim. Individual defendants Victor Lofgreen and Larry Tewes cross-appeal from the district court's judgment in favor of plaintiffs on plaintiffs' access-to-courts claim, for which defendants Lofgreen and Tewes were held personally liable to pay $2.00 in nominal damages and plaintiffs were awarded $40,642.44 in attorneys' fees and expenses. For reversal, defendants Lofgreen and Tewes argue that (1) plaintiffs failed to establish a constitutional violation as a matter of law because there was no complete and systemic denial of access or because plaintiffs suffered no actual injury, (2) they are protected by qualified immunity from personal liability for damages, and (3) the award of attorneys' fees and expenses is unreasonable under Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992). Upon careful review and for the reasons set forth below, we now affirm the district court's judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs' Title IX claim, reverse the district court's judgment in favor of plaintiffs on their access-to-courts claim, and vacate the award of attorneys' fees and expenses.
The background facts of this case are set forth in detail in the district court's opinion in Klinger I, 824 F.Supp. at 1380-86, and are partially and more briefly summarized in the remaining opinions cited above. For purposes of this appeal, the following is a summary of the procedural history of this case. In 1988, four NCW inmates, acting pro se, initiated this § 1983 action. The district court appointed counsel and certified the plaintiff class, which includes all persons incarcerated at NCW on or after January 1, 1988. NCW is the only Nebraska prison for women; accordingly, all women incarcerated in Nebraska are housed at NCW. 2 In their amended complaint, plaintiffs alleged that the educational and vocational training opportunities at NCW were inferior to those of male inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP). Consistent with plaintiffs' limited factual allegations, the district court confined plaintiffs' equal protection and Title IX claims to a comparison between NCW and NSP. Klinger I, 824 F.Supp. at 1388 & n. 14. Plaintiffs also alleged, among other things, that defendants had failed to provide NCW inmates with an adequate law library or assistance from persons trained in the law.
After the district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants, the case proceeded to trial, which the district court had bifurcated into a liability phase and a remedial phase. Following a four-week trial on liability issues, the district court concluded that plaintiffs had proven an equal protection violation, a Title IX violation, and a deprivation of their right of meaningful access to the courts. Id. at 1466-69. The district court found defendants Frank Gunter and Harold Clarke personally liable for the equal protection and Title IX violations, id. at 1466, and defendants Lofgreen and Tewes personally liable for the access-to-courts violation, notwithstanding their claims of qualified immunity, id. at 1468-69.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), the district court then certified to this court three issues of law related to the equal protection claim. On interlocutory appeal, this court reversed the district court's finding of liability on the equal protection claim and dismissed that claim. Klinger II, 31 F.3d at 734. This court reasoned that Id. at 732 (citation omitted). "[C]omparing programs at NSP to those at NCW is like the proverbial comparison of apples to oranges." Id. at 733. This court thus concluded that plaintiffs' equal protection claim failed as a matter of law because inmates at NCW and inmates at NSP are not "similarly situated." Id.
After the case was remanded to the district court, plaintiffs sought permission to recharacterize their equal protection claims as Title IX claims. Klinger III, 887 F.Supp. at 1285. The district court instead sua sponte elected to reverse its earlier finding of a Title IX violation. Id. The district court reasoned that the holding of Klinger II destroyed the probative force of the evidence upon which it relied in deciding both the equal protection and the Title IX claims (i.e., the comparative inequality between NSP and NCW educational and vocational training programs). Id.
The case then proceeded to the second phase of the trial (the remedial phase) which, by this time, had been narrowed to assessing damages resulting from the access-to-courts violation. Following a bench trial, the district court set forth findings of fact and conclusions of law, Klinger IV, 902 F.Supp. at 1039-45, and established a schedule for resolving the issue of attorneys' fees, id. at 1045-46. On the access-to-courts issue, the district court found that the general inmate population at NCW had been completely and systematically denied meaningful access to the courts for the time period prior to January 1989. Id. at 1043. However, because there was no evidence that anyone suffered any actual injury as a result of the deprivation, and there was no evidence to show that defendants Lofgreen or Tewes acted deliberately or with reckless indifference to the rights of the general population prisoners, the district court awarded only $1.00 in nominal damages. Id. at 1043-44. The district court separately found that segregation and orientation inmates were also completely and systematically denied meaningful access to the courts. Id. at 1044-45. The district court reasoned that, although those inmates theoretically could order law books, the privilege was meaningless because those inmates were not provided any legal assistance or access to a law library. Id. at 1045. The district court then awarded the...
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