Maye v. Klee

• Decision Date: 14 February 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18-1460,18-1460
• Parties: Derrick MAYE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul KLEE, et al., Defendants, Joseph Serafin ; William Taylor, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

915 F.3d 1076

Derrick MAYE, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. Paul KLEE, et al., Defendants,Joseph Serafin ; William Taylor, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 18-1460

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 6, 2018

Decided and Filed: February 14, 2019

ARGUED: John L. Thurber, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellants. Sarah S. Firnschild, DICKINSON WRIGHT PLC, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: John L. Thurber, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellants. Sarah S. Firnschild, Daniel D. Quick, Zane S. Hatahet, DICKINSON WRIGHT PLC, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: COLE, Chief Judge; GRIFFIN and KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judges.

COLE, Chief Judge.

Eid al-Fitr is one of two annual religious feasts central to the Islamic faith. Michigan Department of Corrections ("MDOC") officials twice prevented Muslim inmate Derrick Maye from participating in Eid. In 2013, Chaplain Joseph Serafin told Maye he could only attend Eid if he changed his religion from Nation of Islam to Al-Islam. And according to Maye’s deposition testimony, Chaplain William Taylor denied his request to participate in Eid in 2014 without offering any justification for doing so.

Maye brought a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Serafin and Taylor deprived him of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court denied Serafin and Taylor qualified immunity, which gave rise to this interlocutory appeal. Because Maye sufficiently alleges the deprivation of his constitutional rights, and a reasonable official would have known that the constitutional rights at issue were clearly established when faced with a court order specifically instructing MDOC officials to allow Muslim inmates to participate in Eid, we affirm.

I.

Derrick Maye became a member of the Nation of Islam—one of several sects of Islam—in 1992. Maye has been a devout, active Muslim for the past two decades, including the years he spent incarcerated in MDOC facilities. Maye attended religious services twice a week while incarcerated at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in 2013, and he only missed two weekly services over the course of his two years at the Cooper Street Correctional Facility from 2013 through 2015. Maye was considered a leader and spokesperson for the Nation of Islam at the Cooper Street facility.

At both facilities, Maye participated in the observance of the holy month of Ramadan. The end of Ramadan is marked by a religious ceremony called Eid al-Fitr, which Maye describes as follows:

The Eid is a religious practice that is central to my religious belief. It means breaking the fast. At the end of Ramadan, within 72 hours of the end of Ramadan, the Muslim community or Islamic community comes together and has a feast to break the fast and then afterwards make congregational prayer.

(Maye Dep., R. 117-2, PageID 1582.) But in both 2013 and 2014, MDOC officials denied Maye the opportunity to participate in Eid al-Fitr, which led Maye to bring the cause of action that forms the basis for this appeal.

A.

Derrick Maye was not the first inmate to challenge MDOC’s policies regarding Eid al-Fitr. Since 2006, MDOC has been embroiled in litigation in the Eastern District of Michigan regarding its policy of refusing to allow Muslim inmates to participate in Eid. Dowdy-El v. Caruso , No. 2:06-CV-11765 (E.D. Mich. filed Apr. 12, 2006).

In Dowdy-El v. Caruso , multiple Muslim inmates brought a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a deprivation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Their complaint contained the following allegations regarding MDOC officials’ refusal to allow Muslim inmates to attend Eid feasts:

Muslims observe two annual feasts, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha (the "Eid feasts"). Eid ul-Fitr occurs at the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting. Eid ul-Adha is celebrated approximately 70 days after the end of Ramadan to commemorate God’s forgiveness of Abraham for vowing to sacrifice his son. These two feasts are the most holy days in Islam. ...

[D]espite the fact that Defendants ... permit Jews to have a seder at Passover, Defendants have refused to accommodate Representative Muslim Plaintiffs[ ] and other Muslim inmates[.] Specifically, Defendants have refused to ... accommodate Muslim inmates desiring to honor the Eid feasts. ... Defendants’ failure to accommodate these core Muslim beliefs and practices imposes a substantial burden for Representative Muslim Plaintiffs, interferes with their ability to practice the basic tenets of their religion, and is in violation of federal law, state and federal constitutional principles and basic human rights law.

(Second Am. Compl., R. 37, PageID 129–30.) The Muslim inmates alleged that MDOC’s failure to accommodate their religious requests while accommodating the "needs of similarly situated Jewish inmates" deprived them of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. (Id. at PageID 133–35.)

On May 24, 2013, the district court ordered that "a judgment shall enter in favor of plaintiffs as to participation in the Eid feasts." Dowdy-El v. Caruso , No. 2:06-CV-11765, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73612, *8–9 (E.D. Mich. May 24, 2013). At the end of its order granting summary judgment, the district court stated: "Plaintiffs are granted judgment regarding the Eid fea[s]ts. Plaintiffs shall submit a proposed judgment on or before Monday, June 3, 2013. Defendants may file a response to the proposed judgment on or before Monday, June 10, 2013. " Id. at *10–11 (emphasis in original).

The Dowdy-El plaintiffs submitted the proposed judgment on June 3, 2013 as directed. Defendants filed no response. After both parties "attended a hearing on July 31, 2013 and ... stipulated to the form of [the] Judgment," the judgment was ultimately issued on August 13, 2013. (J., R. 85, PageID 2872.) In the judgment, the district court reiterated that its order on May 24, 2013 "granted Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment in its entirety as to the issue of the Eid Feasts," and it thereby ordered and adjudged that MDOC officials deprived the inmates of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to "attend, congregate for, observe and celebrate ... the Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha feasts." (Id. at PageID 2872–73.) The district court also ordered that the judgment "applies to the named Defendants in their official capacity and shall be equally binding upon their successors, agents, officials, employees, representatives and assigns, including Daniel H. Heyns, the Director of the [MDOC]." (Id. )

In addition to stipulating to the form of the judgment on July 31, 2013, MDOC also took internal action in response to the Dowdy-El litigation before the judgment was formally entered. On July 26, 2013, MDOC amended Policy Directive 05.03.150 to recognize Eid al-Fitr as a protected religious holy day:

The Special Activities Coordinator shall maintain the Handbook of Religious Groups, which sets forth general information on the beliefs, practices, and customs of each recognized religious group. The Handbook also shall identify religious holy days, including any fasts or feasts that prisoners shall be permitted to observe consistent with Department policy. This includes but is not limited to Ramadan fasts, Seders, and Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha feasts.

(Am. Policy Directive, R. 112-5, PageID 1280–81.) This amended policy went into effect on July 26, 2013, and was circulated to MDOC employees on July 30, 2013.

B.

While MDOC’s Dowdy-El litigation was ongoing, Derrick Maye was an inmate at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility. On June 24, 2013, Maye submitted a request to participate in Ramadan to Chaplain Joseph Serafin, the MDOC employee tasked with accommodating religious requests at Gus Harrison. Serafin approved Maye’s request to participate in Ramadan.

On July 30, 2013, Maye submitted a second request to Serafin, asking to be called out from work to attend Eid al-Fitr. That same day, Serafin received the revised MDOC policy that included Eid al-Fitr as a protected holy day in line with the Dowdy-El judgment. Serafin conceded that he looks at policy amendments when he receives them, and when deposed about his understanding of why MDOC policies change, Serafin stated: "I’m assuming everything is lawsuit driven in the Department of Corrections, so there’s a lawsuit, there’s a remedy, and then MDOC goes, Okay, we’re going to change a policy, and then we, at each facility, get a memo from Lansing. Most of the time we don’t hear that there was a lawsuit, we just hear there’s been a change." (Serafin Dep., R. 112-7, PageID 1305.)

Even still, on July 31, 2013—the same day MDOC stipulated to the form of the Dowdy-El judgment, one day after Serafin received the amended policy, and over two months after the district court granted summary judgment against MDOC for refusing to allow Muslims to participate in Eid—Serafin denied Maye’s request to participate in Eid al-Fitr. In his response to Maye’s request, Serafin stated that, in order to participate in Eid, Maye "must change [his] religion" from Nation of Islam to Al-Islam, a different sect of Islam. (Serafin Kite Response, R. 112-9, PageID 1320.) Maye did not change his religion, so he was not permitted to participate in Eid al-Fitr in 2013.

In October 2013, Maye was transferred to the Cooper Street Correctional Facility. On July 16, 2014, Maye proposed a request for accommodation for Nation of Islam inmates to observe Eid al-Fitr at the new facility. Maye submitted his proposal to Chaplain William Taylor, the MDOC employee who handled religious programming and scheduling at Cooper Street.

On July 23, 2014, Maye met with Taylor to discuss the proposed accommodation. At the same meeting, Maye contends that he also requested an individual call-out from his work detail to participate in Eid al-Fitr, and he alleges that Taylor said he would "take care of it." (Maye Dep., R. 117-2, PageID 1604–06.) Taylor, however, denies that Maye ever...