Lombardi v. McKee

• Decision Date: 29 March 2021
• Docket Number: C.A. No. 19-364 WES
• Citation: 529 F.Supp.3d 1
• Parties: James LOMBARDI and Joshua Davis, Plaintiffs, v. Daniel MCKEE, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

529 F.Supp.3d 1

James LOMBARDI and Joshua Davis, Plaintiffs,

v.Daniel MCKEE, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island, Defendant.

C.A. No. 19-364 WES

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

Signed March 29, 2021

Lynette J. Labinger, Lynette Labinger, Attorney at Law, Sonja L. Deyoe, Law Offices of Sonja L. Deyoe, Providence, RI, for Plaintiffs.

Katherine Connolly Sadeck, RI Attorney General, Lauren E. Hill, Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, Providence, RI, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WILLIAM E. SMITH, District Judge.

Before the Court is a Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 7, filed by the Governor¹ of the State of Rhode Island ("State"). For the reasons explained herein, the State's Motion is GRANTED in part, and DENIED in part.

I. INTRODUCTION

This action centers around the interpretation and application of R.I. Gen. Laws § 13-6-1, the so-called "Civil Death Act." Plaintiffs, two individuals sentenced to life without parole at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions ("ACI"), seek a declaratory judgment that the Civil Death Act violates the First, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and unconstitutionally restricts Plaintiffs’ right to seek redress via 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Am. Compl. 1-2, 8-9, ECF No. 17. The State moves to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint for lack of standing and failure to state a claim. See Def.’s Mot. to Dismiss 1. In the alternative, the State asks this Court to abstain from ruling, at least until the Rhode Island Supreme Court ("RISC") rules in two cases pending there (both of which are discussed below). Id.; Mem. Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 37-40, ECF No. 7-1. A hearing on the Motion to Dismiss was held on February 24, 2020. After the hearing, Plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint containing additional details regarding the underlying claim that Plaintiff Davis wishes to bring in state court. See Am. Compl. ¶ 28. As the State noted at the February 2020 hearing, the fundamental questions at issue here remain the same even after the Amended Complaint's filing. See Feb. 24, 2020 Hr'g Tr. 38.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs James Lombardi and Joshua Davis are inmates at the ACI sentenced to life in prison without parole.² Am. Compl. ¶¶ 6-7. According to the Amended Complaint, while in his cell on September 10, 2018, Plaintiff Lombardi injured himself on the sharp edge of a footlocker, "causing pain and resulting in permanent disfigurement, i.e. a 3/4-inch scar." Id. ¶ 9. Plaintiff Lombardi alleges that the Rhode Island Department of Corrections ("RIDOC") knew about this hazard, but failed to warn him or mitigate the danger it posed. Id. ¶ 14. Plaintiff Davis alleges that the RIDOC nursing staff administered contaminated insulin to him, constituting negligence, medical malpractice, battery, and cruel and unusual punishment. Id. ¶¶ 18-22. Plaintiffs both allege they have suffered damages from physical injury, as well as pain and suffering because of these incidents. Id. ¶¶ 23-24.

The crux of Plaintiffs’ claim here is that the Civil Death Act unconstitutionally prevents them from bringing lawsuits against the State of Rhode Island to recover damages for tortious conduct. Id. ¶¶ 30-37. They allege that but for the Civil Death Act, both would pursue negligence claims in Rhode Island state court, and Plaintiff Davis would also pursue a § 1983 claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 27-28. Plaintiffs allege that the Civil Death Act denies them rights protected by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and basic civil, statutory, and common law rights protected by the First, Fifth, and Seventh Amendments and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Id. ¶¶ 34-37. Plaintiffs pray that this Court: (1) declare the Civil Death Act unconstitutional; (2) issue a permanent injunction barring enforcement of the Act; and (3) award attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Id. at 8-9.

Rhode Island's 110-plus years’ old Civil Death Act provides in full:

Every person imprisoned in the adult correctional institutions for life shall, with respect to all rights of property, to the bond of matrimony and to all civil rights and relations of any nature whatsoever, be deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his or her natural death had taken place at the time of conviction. However, the bond of matrimony shall not be dissolved, nor shall the rights to property or other rights of the husband or wife of the imprisoned person be terminated or impaired, except on the entry of a lawfully obtained decree for divorce.

R.I. Gen. Laws § 13-6-1. While once quite commonplace, only Rhode Island, New York, and the Virgin Islands still have civil death statutes. See Gallop v. Adult Correctional Institutions, 182 A.3d 1137, 1141 (R.I. 2018) (" Gallop I"); see also Gabriel J. Chin, The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1789, 1794-98 (2012). The Rhode Island statute has been the subject of considerable litigation in recent years, and there have been several recent decisions of the RISC and Superior Court interpreting the law.³

The leading case, Gallop I, involved an inmate's attempt to sue the state and correctional officers over alleged injuries he suffered in an assault by another inmate, made possible because a correctional officer abandoned his post for a period of time. 182 A.3d at 1139. Ruling against inmate Gallop, the RISC stated that the Civil Death Act "unambiguously declares that a person such as plaintiff, who is serving a life sentence, is deemed civilly dead and thus does not possess most commonly recognized civil rights." Id. at 1141. Furthermore, the Court observed that "[t]he Legislature has enumerated certain exceptions [to the statute] ... but there is no exception for claims impacting a prisoner's civil rights." Id. Thus, the Court held the Superior Court was without authority to hear the case "because plaintiff's civil rights were extinguished by operation of law once his conviction became final." Id.

In his appeal, the plaintiff also argued that the trial justice erred by not allowing him to amend his complaint on the eve of trial to bring a § 1983 claim. Id. at 1143-45. The RISC remanded this claim, finding that the trial justice had not ruled on the plaintiff's motion. Id. at 1144-45. In dicta, however, the RISC noted that "plaintiff has failed to produce any authority that holds that a state court is bound to hear a § 1983 action where this Court has deemed the party to be civilly dead." Id. at 1144.

On remand, the trial justice predictably denied the plaintiff's motion to amend on the basis of timeliness and undue prejudice. Gallop v. Adult Correctional Institutions, 218 A.3d 543, 547 (R.I. 2019) (" Gallop II"). Gallop then appealed that denial to the RISC, arguing, inter alia, that the trial justice erred in failing to address his argument that the Civil Death Act violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. Id. The RISC affirmed the decision of the trial justice and refrained from taking up the merits of the plaintiff's constitutional challenge. Id. at 550-51.

The RISC next interpreted the Civil Death Act in the context of marriage. In Zab v. Zab, 203 A.3d 1175 (R.I. 2019) (" Zab I"), the court affirmed a Family Court order denying inmate Zab's motion to expunge his marriage record, finding that, pursuant to the Civil Death Act, he had no "legal capacity to seek relief in the Family Court." Id. at 1176. The RISC commented that "the appeal from the Family Court also is not properly before us, because plaintiff is civilly dead and therefore he has no right to litigate this issue." Id. ⁴

The Civil Death Act has also been the subject of two recent rulings by Rhode Island Superior Court. In the first, inmate Zab brought a claim for negligence and a § 1983 action claiming the Civil Death Act constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Compl. at ¶¶ 14-23, Zab v. R.I. Dept. of Corr. ("Zab II"), Case No. PM-2017-4195 (R.I. Super. Ct. Sept. 6, 2017). The State asserted the Civil Death Act as an affirmative defense to Zab's negligence claims only and attacked the merits of his Eighth Amendment claim. See Def.’s Mot. for Summ. J. at 1-2, Zab II, Case No. PM-2017-4195 (R.I. Super. Ct. June 24, 2019). Zab, in turn, argued that the Civil Death Act is unconstitutional, and could not be asserted as a valid defense. See Pl.’s Mem. Supp. Mot. for Summ. J. at 2, Zab II, Case No. PM-2017-4195 (R.I. Super. Ct. June 3, 2019). The second case, Rivera v. R.I. Dept. of Corr., similarly involved a negligence claim. Again, the State asserted as a defense that the Civil Death Act barred the claim. Aug. 21, 2019 Hr'g Tr. 44, Case No. PM-2017-4195 (ECF No. 10-2 in this case). The Trial Justice held that the Civil Death Act barred both plaintiffs’ negligence claims. Id. at 39-44. Ruling from the bench, Justice Lanphear concluded, based on the RISC's holding in Gallop I, that he neither had the authority to hear the claims nor the authority to address the constitutional challenge to the use of the Act as a ban, notwithstanding his "concern[s]."⁵ Id. As to Zab's § 1983 claim for Eighth Amendment violations, Justice Lanphear found that Zab had not sued "a person" as required by the statute. Id. at 40. Both Plaintiffs have appealed the decisions to the RISC, where the cases remain pending as of the time of this writing.

III. LEGAL STANDARD

The State moves to dismiss the Amended Complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, claiming various procedural and substantive inadequacies. See generally Mot. to Dismiss. A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) requires the Court to view the facts contained in the pleadings in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor. See ...