Miller v. Carson

• Decision Date: 23 November 1977
• Docket Number: No. 75-4464,75-4464
• Citation: 563 F.2d 757
• Parties: Richard Franklin MILLER et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dale CARSON, etc., et al., Defendants, Louie L. Wainwright, Director, Division of Corrections, Defendant-Appellant, T. Edward Austin, Amicus Curiae.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 757

563 F.2d 757

Richard Franklin MILLER et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Dale CARSON, etc., et al., Defendants Louie L. Wainwright, Director, Division of Corrections Defendant-Appellant T. Edward Austin, Amicus Curiae.

No. 75-4464.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 23, 1977.

Donna H. Stinson, Richard A. Hixson, Asst. Attys. Gen., Dept. of Legal Affairs, Tallahassee, Fla., William L. Coalson, William Lee Allen, Jacksonville, Fla., for defendant-appellant.

William J. Sheppard, Jacksonville, Fla. (Court-appointed), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before TUTTLE, WISDOM, and COLEMAN, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

Detainees, incarcerated in the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida, brought this class action to improve conditions in the jail. The plaintiffs-appellees alleged that the defendants, county and state officials responsible for the operation of the jail, violated the detainees' civil rights, under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, and 1986, their constitutional rights, under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and certain statutory rights under Florida law. They asked for declaratory and injunctive relief, and for damages. Louie L. Wainwright was sued individually and in his capacity as Secretary of the Florida Department of Offender Rehabilitation. ¹ The district court ruled that the case was properly brought as a class action, and defined the class as consisting of "all persons, male and female, who are presently or in the future will be incarcerated in the Duval County Jail". ²

On October 25, 1974, the plaintiffs filed a motion for partial summary judgment contending that the Secretary had failed to promulgate rules, as directed under § 951.23 Fla.Stat. (1973), ³ prescribing jail standards for (a) the maximum number of prisoners In this appeal Wainwright, as a state official, contends that the district court erred in exercising pendent jurisdiction to decide that both his failure to promulgate regulations required by Fla.Stat. § 951.23(2)-(3) and the regulation he later promulgated were in violation of that statute. We hold that the district court properly invoked its pendent jurisdiction to hear these state law claims in connection with the plaintiffs' claim that Wainwright acted under color of law to deprive them of their federal constitutional rights. We certify the questions of state law to the Florida Supreme Court for decision under Florida's certification procedure. ⁴

subject to detention per unit of floor space within the facility; (b) the quantity, quality, and diversity of food served; and (c) the confinement of prisoners by classification. On November 8, 1974, the court granted the plaintiffs' motion, and made specific findings as to the unsanitary, overcrowded, and dangerous conditions in the jail and the lack of provision for confinement of prisoners by classifications. 392 F.Supp. 515; 401 F.Supp. 835. The court also found that Fla.Stat. § 951.23, authorizing and directing the Secretary of the Department of Offender Rehabilitation to adopt rules and regulations prescribing standards for the operation of detention facilities, imposed mandatory duties on the Secretary. The court enjoined the defendant from further violation of the statute and directed him to promulgate regulations that would comply with it. On February 5, 1975, the defendant, in response to the order, filed suggested regulations. On February 20 the plaintiffs filed an objection contending that the contents of the defendant's response did not comply with the terms of the court's order. After a hearing, the court found the proposed regulations inadequate and entered its order of October 28, 1975, again requiring the defendant to conform to the statute and to promulgate the necessary rules and regulations. The defendant Wainwright appeals from this order. He did not appeal from the original order of November 8, 1974.

The local officials, the Sheriff of Duval County and others, have filed a separate appeal (No. 75-2729) challenging the relief ordered and the award of attorneys fees to the plaintiffs.

Conditions in the Duval County Jail were so deplorable that the district court, among other conclusions, held that the detainees were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The facts are set out fully in the district court's opinions. 401 F.Supp. 835; 392 F.Supp. 515. They require but a brief summary here. The majority of persons held in the jail were detainees who were imprisoned not because of crimes they had committed but to assure their presence at trial. Many inmates, most of whom must be presumed innocent, were placed in holding cells, some of which were without water or toilet facilities, for up to eight days without bedding or a change of clothes. These cells were often so crowded that the inmates had to eat while standing because there was no room to sit. Sinks and commodes were filthy throughout the jail. Sometimes vomitus, urine, and feces were on the floor of the cells. Lighting and ventilation were poor. Medical care was grossly inadequate. Designed for 432 inmates, the jail usually held more than 100 over the stated maximum. Inmates were segregated racially in the holding cells. Pretrial detainees and juveniles were housed with convicted felons (some of them violent), mental cases, homosexuals, inmates with syphilis and gonorrhea. The court found: "In summary, the overall environment The plaintiffs' federal claim for declaratory and injunctive relief is primarily based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983 provides for actions in law and suits in equity against persons who, acting under color of state law, cause others to be subjected to the deprivation of constitutional rights. The plaintiffs contend that Fla.Stat. § 951.23(2)-(3) ⁵ makes Wainwright at least partly responsible for the improper conditions of their confinement. The Florida statute "authorized and directed" Wainwright to make and enforce rules for jails throughout the state. The rules are to prescribe "standards and requirements with reference" to cleanliness, nutrition, medical care, classification of inmates, and the operation of the facilities in general. The statute allows him to file suit to enjoin confinement that does not comply with the rules he has adopted. The plaintiffs alleged that Wainwright's failure to promulgate rules caused inmates to be deprived of their right to due process of law, equal protection, and their right not to be punished cruelly. After Wainwright promulgated rules in response to an order of the district court entered in 1974, the court found that they did not comply with the statutory requirements, ⁶ and ordered him to resubmit rules that would comply with the law. As noted, Wainwright appeals only from this second order of October 28, 1975.

of the inmate housing areas of the Duval County Jail gives one the psychological feeling of being really trapped in a dungeon."

I. Pendent Jurisdiction

For a federal court to have the power to hear a state claim under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction, the court must have before it a substantial federal claim, and the state and federal claims must "derive from a common nucleus of operative fact". United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 1966, 383 U.S. 715, 725, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138, 16 L.Ed.2d 218, 227-28. In addition, the federal and state claims must be such that a plaintiff "would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding". Id. 383 U.S. at 725, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 1138, 16 L.Ed.2d at 228.

Wainwright contends that the plaintiffs' claims against the state officials are based solely on state law and are distinct from any federal claim against county officials. We find that the claims against the defendant Wainwright relate both to federal and state law. And the federal claim against him is substantial. ⁷ The fact that Wainwright shares responsibility for the operation of the jail with county officials does not relieve him of liability cognizable under § 1983 because of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. In Rhem v. Malcolm, S.D.N.Y.1974, 371 F.Supp. 594, 635-36, modified, 2 Cir. 1974, 507 F.2d 333, opinion after remand, 2 Cir. 1975, 527 F.2d 1041, 1042 n.2, state officials were held liable along with local officials for constitutional deprivations We find also that the state and federal claims here are such that the plaintiffs would be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding and that they meet the Gibbs test that there be a common nucleus of operative fact. Once federal constitutional violations were established, as they were here, the basic question in the federal claim was the extent of Wainwright's duty under federal law; in the state claim, his duty under the Florida statute. These two questions are similar. Many of the matters made subject to Wainwright's regulation have also been the source of federal constitutional litigation. See, e. g., Gates v. Collier, N.D.Miss.1972, 349 F.Supp. 881, 887-88, aff'd, 5 Cir. 1974, 501 F.2d 1291 (medical attention, maintenance of physical facilities); Taylor v. Sterrett, 5 Cir. 1974, 499 F.2d 367, 368-69, cert. denied, 1975, 420 U.S. 983, 95 S.Ct. 1414, 43 L.Ed.2d 665 (modes of disciplinary treatment). The plaintiffs would hardly have been expected to litigate the requirements of state law in one proceeding and the requirements of federal law on the same matter in another. Not only would a parallel state court trial have been duplicative, it would have been meaningless if a federal court had found that the Constitution required a higher duty of Wainwright.

in the Manhattan House of Detention. New York law gave them the responsibility to inspect local jails, aid in their administration, and close...