Langton v. Hogan
| Citation | 71 F.3d 930 |
| Decision Date | 03 October 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 95-1582,95-1582 |
| Parties | William LANGTON and David LeBlanc, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. William HOGAN, Jr., et al., Defendants-Appellants. . Heard |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit) |
Robert J. Munnelly, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, with whom Scott Harshbarger, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Karen Laufer, Assistant Attorney General, and Philip W. Silva IV, were on brief for appellants.
Dennis J. Bannon, Boston, MA, for appellees.
Before BOUDIN, Circuit Judge, BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge, and KEETON, * District Judge.
This is an appeal by Defendants-Appellants from a 1995 Judgment of the district court modifying, on motion of Defendants-Appellants, but not to the full extent they requested, a Permanent Injunction ordered in 1984. We treat the 1995 Judgment as in essence a ruling on a motion for modification of a consent decree that did no more than decide the issues before the court, as the matter was presented by Defendants-Appellants. Discerning no error of law, no clearly erroneous finding of fact, and no abuse of discretion, we affirm.
In 1979, the Plaintiffs-Appellees, two inmates of a Massachusetts correctional institution, filed a civil action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, claiming, among other things, that predecessors of Defendants-Appellants in positions of authority in the institution and the state correctional system had violated and were continuing to violate constitutionally protected rights of the inmates by intercepting and monitoring their telephone calls, including calls to their counsel as well as other private calls, and that such interception and monitoring violated the federal and state wiretapping statutes, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2510 et seq. and Mass.Gen.L. ch. 272, Secs. 99 et seq.
For convenience, we will refer to Plaintiffs-Appellees as plaintiffs or by name, and Defendants-Appellants as defendants or the Department of Correction.
In 1984, after negotiations of the parties, and consultations of counsel and the judge to whom the case had been randomly assigned, the parties entered into a Settlement Stipulation, dated October 17, 1984, providing for a Permanent Injunction in the form of an attached exhibit, and a Judgment of Dismissal in the form of another attached exhibit. The district court (Zobel, D.J.) approved the settlement and made the two orders. One was the Judgment of Dismissal, reciting that, in view of the Settlement Stipulation,
all of the claims by both plaintiffs in this action are dismissed with prejudice and without costs or attorney's fees to any party.
The other was a Permanent Injunction in view of the Settlement Stipulation:
1. All officers, agents, servants, employees and attorneys of the Department of Correction are enjoined permanently, under both 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2510 et seq. and M.G.L. c. 272, Secs. 99 et seq., from intercepting, endeavoring to intercept or procuring any other person to intercept, any wire communication by or to William Langton or David LeBlanc, inmates within the custody of the Department, without a specific court order or legislative authorization to do so, except as specifically permitted by these statutes, taken together, as they have been amended or may be amended and as they have been construed in reported decisions that are binding in this Court or in the state courts of Massachusetts.
2. This Permanent Injunction, entered pursuant to the Settlement Stipulation dated October 15, 1984, shall operate prospectively only. It shall not of its own force affect the rights of inmates of the Department other than William Langton and David LeBlanc.
The Department of Correction apparently complied with the Permanent Injunction without incident for almost a decade, until April 1994, when it promulgated new regulations governing telephone access and use by inmates, 103 C.M.R. Secs. 482.00 et seq. (hereinafter "the Regulations"). These Regulations, ostensibly applicable to all inmates in all Department institutions and facilities, instituted a system of routine monitoring of inmate telephone calls by the Department of Correction and required inmates to sign a form consenting to having their calls monitored, or be deprived of their telephone access. The Regulations also limited the number of telephone calls that could be made by inmates to ten monitored calls to non-lawyers, and five non-monitored calls to lawyers. All telephone calls, whether lawyer or non-lawyer, were required to be pre-approved.
The Department of Correction sought to apply the new Regulations to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs refused to sign the consent forms and were denied telephone access. In June 1994, plaintiffs filed a Petition for Contempt alleging that the Department of Correction had prohibited plaintiffs from placing telephone calls unless they agreed to permit the recording of all their telephone calls. Defendants moved to dismiss the petition for contempt, and plaintiffs filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss.
While the motion to dismiss was still pending, defendants filed, in January 1995, a Motion to Modify the Permanent Injunction
to allow for the restrictions, monitoring and recording of plaintiffs' telephone use in accordance with the Department of Correction's new telephone regulations, 103 CMR 482.00 et seq.
On February 21, 1995, Judge Zobel signed a Memorandum of Decision, the last paragraph of which is as follows:
Defendants' motion to modify the permanent injunction is allowed to the extent that the Department of Correction may limit plaintiffs' access in accordance with the Regulations, 403 CMR Secs. 482.00 et seq. It is denied to the extent that defendants shall not monitor plaintiffs' calls and Sec. 482.10 shall not apply to plaintiffs. Counsel shall submit a form of judgment reflecting the modification allowed.
Counsel having failed to agree upon a form of judgment reflecting the modification allowed, Judge Zobel, on May 3, 1995, signed a Judgment as follows:
After hearing on the defendants' Motion to Modify the Permanent injunction, and in accordance with the Court's Memorandum of Decision dated February 21, 1995, it is hereby ordered and adjudged:
1. The defendants shall not monitor or record the telephone calls of the plaintiffs, William Langton and David LeBlanc.
2. The provisions of 403 CMR Sec. 482.10, shall not apply to the plaintiffs (except for call detailing, which shall apply to the plaintiffs) pending further order of the court upon application of the defendants.
3. Acceptance by each plaintiff of a PIN and use of inmate telephones shall not be deemed as consent to the conditions and restrictions placed upon inmate telephone calls, including call monitoring or recording.
4. The defendants shall notify by letter each non-attorney whose name appears on the plaintiffs' lists of preauthorized telephone numbers that the message regarding recording and monitoring should be disregarded and that calls made by the plaintiffs are not subject to monitoring and recording.
5. The plaintiffs may request changes in their preauthorized telephone numbers at any time. Such changes shall be made expeditiously by the defendants provided they are in compliance with the restrictions on the total number of personal and attorney numbers plaintiffs are allowed to call pursuant to 403 CMR 482 et seq. If, at any time, defendants believe plaintiffs are abusing this arrangement, they may petition the court for further relief.
6. Defendants' Motion to Modify the Permanent Injunction is allowed to the extent that the Department of Correction may limit plaintiffs' access in accordance with the Regulations, 403 CMR Sec. 482.00 et seq., as amended, so long as such amendments do not change the substance of this order.
7. Modification of the Permanent Injunction entered by this court on October 15, 1984 is required for the Department of Correction to apply new inmate telephone access regulations to the plaintiffs.
The 1984 Permanent Injunction was not in the classic mold of consent decrees, as two orders were made rather than a single integrated consent decree. The terms of these two orders, however, were as surely part of the terms of the settlement as were the recitations in the document entitled Settlement Stipulation. In this case, we take account of the terms of all three documents in construing each, and we conclude that they do not support the interpretation urged upon the district court, and here, as the primary contention of defendants.
This is an appeal from the district court's ruling on a motion for modification, yet defendants have not presented arguments as to why the 1995 Judgment should be modified, in light of changes in law or fact, to allow the Regulations to be applied to the plaintiffs. Defendants instead contend that the Regulations should be applied to the plaintiffs because the Regulations do not violate, and never have violated, the 1984 Permanent Injunction. Defendants argue that the federal and state wiretapping statutes, as they interpret those statutes, do not prohibit the Regulations, and therefore the Permanent Injunction does not prohibit the Regulations.
Rather than argue for modification, defendants, in essence, argue that the Permanent Injunction did no more than prohibit them from violating law, that there was never any adjudication that they had violated any constitutionally protected right of plaintiffs, that they yielded nothing with regard to any reasonably disputable issue of law or mixed-legal-factual issue but merely stipulated that they would not commit certain types of violations of law in the future, and therefore that when the district court in 1995 purportedly granted in part but...
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