Milonas v. Williams, s. 80-1569

Decision Date13 September 1982
Docket NumberNos. 80-1569,81-1407,s. 80-1569
Citation691 F.2d 931
Parties7 Ed. Law Rep. 247 Timothy MILONAS, Jr., and Kenneth Rice, by and through their Attorney and Guardian Ad Litem, Kathryn Collard, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Jack L. WILLIAMS, Owner and Administrative Director, Provo Canyon School; Robert H. Crist, Owner and Medical Director, Provo Canyon School; D. Eugene Thorne, Owner and Executive Director, Provo Canyon School, Defendants- Appellants, John F. McNamara, Director and Administrator, Interstate Compact on Juveniles, Defendant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Kathryn Collard of Collard, Kuhnhausen, Pixton & Downes, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mark I. Soler, San Francisco, Cal. (and Loren M. Warboys and Jan C. Costello, Juvenile Justice Legal Advocacy Project, San Francisco, Cal., with them on the brief), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Max D. Wheeler, Salt Lake City, Utah (Harold G. Christensen and Paul C. Droz of Snow, Christensen & Martineau, Salt Lake City, Utah, with him on the brief), for defendants-appellants.

Kathleen B. Boundy and Geraldine S. Hines, Attys., Cambridge, Mass., filed a brief on behalf of the Center for Law and Educ., amicus curiae.

Before McWILLIAMS and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges, and BRIMMER, * District Judge.

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

The Provo Canyon School for Boys, located near Provo, Utah, is a private school for boys between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Timothy Milonas, Jr., age fifteen, and Kenneth Rice, age sixteen, then students at the Provo Canyon School, brought the present action against the owners and operators of the Provo Canyon School. 1 Also named as parties defendant were various agencies, officers, and employees of the State of Utah. 2

The individual plaintiffs, Milonas and Rice, challenged the education, treatment and conditions of confinement of juvenile boys placed at the Provo Canyon School and averred that the school administrators, acting under color of state law, had caused the plaintiffs to suffer and to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, antitherapeutic and inhumane treatment, and denial of due process of law. Milonas and Rice sought class action certification and, both for themselves and the members of the class, asked for money damages and declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1976). The named plaintiffs also alleged that they had been denied a free appropriate public education and sought relief pursuant to the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1401-1461 (1976) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (1976). 3

Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a) and (b)(2), the district court provisionally certified the class. For purposes of the preliminary relief requested, the class was described as consisting of all juveniles residing at the Provo Canyon School during the pendency of the civil rights action. At that time, the district court also entered a preliminary injunction that enjoined four "behavior-modification" practices then in effect at the school.

The plaintiffs' claim for money damages was tried to a jury; the district court reserved for its determination the claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. At the conclusion of a lengthy trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants on the damages issue. Nonetheless, the trial judge later entered a permanent injunction as to those four school administrative practices that were the subject of the preliminary injunction previously entered. For purposes of this permanent relief, the district court certified a class consisting of all boys residing at the Provo Canyon School as of the date of the permanent injunction and in the future.

The permanent injunction specifically prohibited the defendants from: (1) opening, reading, monitoring or censoring the boys' mail; (2) administering polygraph examinations for any purpose whatsoever; (3) placing boys in isolation facilities for any reason other than to contain a boy who is physically violent; and (4) using physical force for any purpose other than to restrain a juvenile who is either physically violent and immediately dangerous to himself or others, or physically resisting institutional rules.

The district court later found that the plaintiffs were the "prevailing party" pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1976) and that they were entitled, therefore, to an award of attorneys' fees. The district court filed an exhaustive memorandum opinion wherein it made findings of fact and conclusions of law. This opinion was not published. The district court then entered final judgment and fixed the attorneys' fees at $133,546.54. For a discussion of the procedural history of this appeal, see Milonas v. Williams, 648 F.2d 688 (10th Cir. 1981).

The Provo Canyon School is privately owned and operated, although it does receive funds from both state governments and the United States. 4 The school was established in 1973 for the primary purpose of educating teenage boys whose problems are so severe that their treatment and education require a restricted, therapeutic environment. All of the boys admitted to the school have problems of one sort or another, including physical, psychological, and emotional problems, and are handicapped by a general inability to conform to normal behavioral standards. The district court described the school as follows:

The Provo Canyon School is not a school in the traditional, ordinary or classic sense. It does offer classes on a secondary level to its resident population, and in most instances does a good job in its formal teaching. Provo Canyon School is also a correctional and detention facility. Students are restricted to the grounds. Students are confined. Some students are locked in and locked up with varying degrees of personal liberty restored as each progresses through the institutional program. If a student leaves without permission, he is hunted down, taken into custody and returned.

Provo Canyon School is also a mental health facility. Adolescent males perceived to have mental health or emotional difficulties or who are chemically dependent persons, are counseled and treated. Adolescent males with forms of learning disability, physical, mental or emotional, are housed, counseled and "taught."

The student population, intermixed and various, is subjected to a form of "behavior modification" described by those who run the school as eclectic. Some of its salient features are isolation from the outside world, little or no communication with the outside world, physical confinement, physical punishment, progressive restoration of liberty, investigation and evaluation of student "attitude" and "truthfulness" and "future conduct" through the use of a machine, and counseling.

....

Regardless of origin, condition or motivation, once arrived, each person during the beginning phases of the school program was locked in, isolated from the outside world, and whether anti-social, crippled or learning disabled, was subject to mandated physical standing day after day after day to promote "right thinking" and "social conformity." Mail was censored. Visitors were discouraged. Disparaging remarks concerning the institution were prohibited and punished. To "graduate" from confinement to a more liberated phase, one had to "pass" a lie detector test relating to "attitude," "truthfulness" and "future conduct." Some failed to pass and remained in confinement for extended periods of time.

Students generally are admitted to the Provo Canyon School at the insistence of one or both of their parents. Typically, the parents have had extreme disciplinary problems and being unable to control their child, have contacted the Provo Canyon School as a "last resort." Other boys are received at the school directly from juvenile courts and probation officers from across the nation. Many of the youths are placed at the Provo Canyon School by the boy's local school districts, with tuition funding coming from state and federal agencies pursuant to state special education laws and the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

Plaintiff Timothy Milonas, Jr., had resided in the State of Nevada prior to being involuntarily committed to the Provo Canyon School by his mother. Milonas' commitment was a condition of probation imposed by a Nevada juvenile court. Milonas' father thereafter received a coded letter from his son, which letter implied that the son needed assistance. Because of that letter, Milonas' father independently contacted counsel regarding the school and how it was being run. Kenneth Rice, the other individual plaintiff, had resided in Alaska until his involuntary commitment to the Provo Canyon School. Rice was placed in the school pursuant to an order of an Alaska juvenile court. Four months after he was admitted to the Provo Canyon School, Rice ran away from the school, and, before he was returned, he made contact with an attorney and complained about conditions at the school. As a result of the complaints thus made by Milonas and Rice, the present action was instituted.

Class Certification

Both Milonas and Rice were students at the Provo Canyon School on the date this action was commenced. On the date the complaint was filed, counsel for Milonas and Rice, fearing that the boys would be subject to retaliation by the defendants because of the commencement of the lawsuit, sought and obtained an immediate hearing before the district court. Based on such hearing and a stipulation between the parties, the district court ordered that Milonas and Rice be removed temporarily from the school and placed for the time being with the Utah State Division of Family Services. Each boy sought damages and injunctive relief for himself, and, in addition, they also asked for damages and injunctive relief for a class which they sought to represent. The class,...

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