Libby v. Marshall

• Decision Date: 26 November 1986
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 83-2281-S.
• Citation: 653 F. Supp. 359
• Parties: David LIBBY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Clifford H. MARSHALL, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

653 F. Supp. 359

David LIBBY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Clifford H. MARSHALL, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 83-2281-S.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

November 26, 1986.

Choate, Hall & Stewart, Boston, Mass., Pamela Wood, for plaintiffs.

Carl Valvo, Asst. Atty. Gen., Henry Cashman, Boston, Mass., for defendants.

A. Stanley Littlefield, Rockland, Mass., for John Cawley.

William J. Carr, Boston, Mass., for Alvin J. Yorra.

William F. Carr, Dedham, Mass., for Town of Braintree.

Herbert Hanson, Counsel Dept. of Correction, Boston, Mass., for Fair.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON STATE DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

SKINNER, District Judge.

Introduction

Plaintiffs brought this action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the conditions of their confinement in the Norfolk County Jail and House of Correction ("jail"), violated their constitutional rights. On January 17, 1984, I issued a Memorandum and Order in which I found that certain conditions at the jail did violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights, and I granted a preliminary injunction requiring, inter alia, that the number of prisoners at the jail at any one time not exceed a Population Cap that now stands at 143. The number of prisoners at the jail exceeds the Population Cap.

On April 29, 1986, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add several defendants: Governor Michael Dukakis, Secretary of Human Services Philip Johnston, Secretary of Administration and Finance Frank Keefe, Chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee Patricia McGovern, and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Richard Voke. The substance of the amended complaint is that the unconstitutional conditions at the jail cannot be remedied without commonwealth funds. The executive department defendants are authorized by 1982 Mass.Acts chapter 347 and 1985 Mass.Acts chapter 799 to expend money to improve the commonwealth's correctional facilities, or to approve of expenditures or to request that bonds be issued for improvements at correctional facilities. McGovern and Voke chair legislative committees, the approval of which is necessary before funds can be expended to improve correctional facilities. Implicit in the complaint is the further allegation that these defendants' failure to expend money or request the issuance of bonds or approve the expenditure of money violates plaintiffs' constitutional rights. The amended complaint seeks an injunction requiring defendants to do those acts authorized by the abovementioned statutes.

The defendants named in the amended complaint have moved to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The defendants' Rule 12(b)(1) motion is predicated on the Eleventh Amendment. Defendants argue that the Eleventh Amendment bars a federal court from granting the relief that plaintiffs seek. The Rule 12(b)(6) argument is simply that plaintiffs have failed to allege successfully that these defendants have violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Because defendants' Eleventh Amendment argument is jurisdictional, I shall address it first.

Eleventh Amendment

The Eleventh Amendment states that:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens of Subjects of any Foreign State.

The Supreme Court "has consistently held that an unconsenting State is immune from suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by citizens of another state." Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662, 663, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1355, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). However, since Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), the Supreme Court has recognized an exception to the Eleventh Amendment prohibition on federal court jurisdiction. In Young, the Court held that where a state officer violates the federal Constitution, "he is in that case stripped of his official or representative character and is subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct. The state has no power to impart to him any immunity from responsibility to the supreme authority of the United States. Young, supra, at 160, 28 S.Ct. at 454. As the Supreme Court noted recently, the Young exception is "necessary to vindicate the federal interest in assuring the supremacy of federal law." Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 106 S.Ct. 423, 426, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985).

The Young exception to the Eleventh Amendment does not permit federal courts to grant whatever relief a plaintiff whose constitutional rights have been violated may seek. In Edelman, supra, the Court made clear that federal courts may grant prospective relief, but that retrospective relief is barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The Court approved of an injunction requiring the Illinois Department of Public Aid to process applications in a manner that did not violate the Constitution, but the Court reversed a lower court order which would have imposed an affirmative injunction on the defendants to make back payments to those applicants who had wrongly been denied benefits in the past. The Court stated that "the funds to satisfy the award in this case must inevitably come from the general revenues of the State of Illinois, and thus the award resembles far more closely the monetary award against the State itself, ... than it does the prospective injunctive relief awarded in Ex parte Young." Edelman, supra, 415 U.S. at 665, 94 S.Ct. at 1356.

Edelman makes clear that the difference between what remedies federal courts may adopt and those they may not is not simply between an order that the state pay money and an injunction, because any prospective, mandatory injunction necessitates some expenditure of state funds. The Edelman Court noted that several decisions, including Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), had significant impact on state treasuries.

But the fiscal consequences to state treasuries in these cases were the necessary result of compliance with decrees which by their terms were prospective in nature. State officials, in order to shape their official conduct to the mandate of the court's decrees, would more likely have to spend money from the state treasury than if they had been left free to pursue their previous course of conduct. Such an ancillary effect on the state treasury is a permissible and often an inevitable consequence of the principle announced in Ex parte Young, supra.

Edelman, supra, 415 U.S. at 667-68, 94 S.Ct. at 1357-58.

Later cases have made it even more clear that the relevant distinction for Eleventh Amendment purposes is that between a damage award and an injunction, not between one that would cost the state money and one that would not. In Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978), the district court had issued an injunction following a finding that conditions in the Arkansas penal system were unconstitutional. As the litigation progressed, the district judge found that the defendants had violated his orders. Because of the defendants' bad faith, the judge awarded attorney's fees to the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court affirmed the award, even though the award itself would not contribute directly towards improvement of conditions in the Arkansas prisons. The Court approved the award because the availability of such sanctions is a necessary element of the district courts' arsenal in attempting to enforce their prospective orders. Financial costs imposed which are "ancillary to the achievement of substantive remedial goals are not barred by the Eleventh Amendment." Hutto, supra, at 690, 98 S.Ct. at 2573. The "State and local authorities have primary responsibility for curing constitutional violations. `If, however "those authorities fail in their affirmative obligations ... judicial authority may be invoked." Swannv. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1, 15 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554. Once invoked, "the scope of a district court's equitable powers to remedy past wrongs is broad, for breadth and flexibility are inherent in equitable remedies."'" Id., at 687 n. 9, 98 S.Ct. at 2572 n. 9.

Furthermore, "`ancillary' costs may be very large indeed." Id. at 690 n. 15, 98 S.Ct. at 2573 n. 15 (referring to Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977) ("Milliken II"). Milliken II makes clear that the Eleventh Amendment not only permits federal courts to order injunctive relief which may be quite costly to states, but that injunctive relief may be granted which requires no substantive actions by a state whatsoever, other than the payment of money, as long as the money payment required is necessary to the success of the prospective remedy ordered by the court. The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court order which required that the State of Michigan contribute more than $5 million to help effectuate the substantive relief ordered by the court to desegregate the Detroit schools. The state had no substantive responsibilities; the desegregation plan was to be implemented by the Detroit school system. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court found that "the decree to share the future costs of educational components in this case fits squarely within the prospective-compliance exception reaffirmed by Edelman." Id., at 289, 97 S.Ct. at 2761. Payments which are future-oriented are not just permitted, but often will be necessary in these types of cases. "The decree must indeed be remedial in nature, that is, it must be designed as nearly as possible `to restore the victims of discriminatory conduct to the position they would have occupied in the absence of such conduct.'" Id., at 280, 97 S.Ct. at 2757 (citation omitted).

The cases cited in defendants' brief suggesting that plaintiffs' claims are barred even if based on federal law involved suits against the United States, and thus the Eleventh...