Moran v. Farrier
| Decision Date | 10 January 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-1701,90-1701 |
| Citation | 924 F.2d 134 |
| Parties | Michael MORAN, Appellee, v. Hal FARRIER; Warden Nix; Grossheim; Jim Helling; Mr. Moline; Charles Harper; and Ron Welder, et al., Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Gordon E. Allen and Suzie A. Berregaard, Des Moines, Iowa, for appellants.
Ronald L. Mountsier, Des Moines, Iowa, for appellee.
Before WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge, HEANEY and FRIEDMAN, * Senior Circuit Judges.
Hal Farrier, director of the Iowa State Department of Corrections, appeals from the district court's determination that Farrier and his codefendants, officials of the Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP), deprived inmate Michael Moran of due process in connection with prison disciplinary proceedings. We affirm.
This case is before us for the second time. The district court initially granted defendants' motion for summary judgment for failure to state a claim. Moran appealed, and we remanded the case to the district court to determine whether ISP officials had followed internal prison regulations, and, if not, whether their actions denied Moran due process. Moran v. Farrier, No. 88-1735, slip op. at 2 (8th Cir. Sept. 1, 1988) [860 F.2d 1086 (Table) ].
On remand, the parties submitted the case by consent to a magistrate on a stipulated record. The relevant facts are as follows.
On July 29, 1986, Moran asked Warden Crispus Nix about a pair of eyeglasses he had given to Prison Chaplain Ronald Bronemann. Bronemann was to look into the possibility of having the glasses repaired, and Moran was concerned because he had heard that Bronemann had left his job at ISP. ISP's deputy warden and Correction Treatment Director located the glasses in Bronemann's desk. They then interviewed Moran and issued disciplinary notices charging him with violating ISP rules prohibiting possession of contraband, bartering, entering into a contract, and attempt An ISP investigator conducted an investigation of the disciplinary notices by interviewing Moran, the deputy warden, and the Correction Treatment Director. On July 31, 1986, ISP's Disciplinary Hearing Committee was to hold a hearing on the disciplinary reports, but the committee chair continued the hearing because the investigation was incomplete. Notwithstanding the continuance, the investigator conducted no further investigation.
or complicity. The notices alleged that Moran had asked Bronemann to get his glasses tightened and tinted and had agreed to pay Bronemann five dollars per month for the cost of the repairs.
On August 1, 1986, the Disciplinary Hearing Committee determined that Moran had violated each of the rules cited in the disciplinary notices. The Committee relied on the information from the investigator's interviews with Moran, the deputy warden, and the Correction Treatment Director. The Committee's report noted that Moran did not request any additional witnesses, but Moran claims that he requested that Bronemann be called as a witness when the ISP investigator first interviewed him and at the August 1 hearing. The Committee sentenced Moran to fifteen days in disciplinary detention and six months in administrative segregation, and subtracted sixteen days of good time credit from his record.
Moran appealed the August 1 decision through the appropriate prison channels, but all appeals were denied, although his punishment was modified. On August 20, 1986, the Department of Corrections rescinded its appeal decision and remanded the case to the Disciplinary Hearing Committee for a rehearing to answer "unresolved questions." On rehearing, the Committee upheld its original decision, but further reduced Moran's penalties to thirty-one days administrative segregation and loss of ten days good time credit. Moran again unsuccessfully pursued all his avenues of appeal.
On November 18, 1986, at a second rehearing held at the request of the Attorney General's office, the Disciplinary Hearing Committee dismissed the reports against Moran after finding that Moran merely consulted Bronemann for advice about his glasses, and then followed Bronemann's advice. Before the reports were dismissed, Moran had spent ten days in disciplinary detention and twenty-three days in administrative segregation. He also lost his prison job, which paid $27.00 per month.
On remand from this court, the magistrate found that defendants denied Moran the process due under Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), by failing to grant Moran's request to call Bronemann as a witness and by basing their disciplinary decision on an inadequate record. The magistrate awarded Moran $250 damages to compensate for time spent in disciplinary detention and administrative segregation and for lost wages. Defendants filed a timely notice of appeal, designating the parties appealing as "Hal Farrier, et al." Moran then moved to dismiss the appeal as to all persons other than Farrier, the named appellant, for the notice of appeal's failure to comply with the specificity requirement of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c). We consolidated Moran's motion with our consideration of the merits of the appeal.
In Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 108 S.Ct. 2405, 101 L.Ed.2d 285 (1988), the Supreme Court considered the requirement of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c) that a notice of appeal "shall specify the party or parties taking the appeal." 487 U.S. at 314, 108 S.Ct. at 2407 (citing Fed.R.App.P. 3(c)). The Court held that this language stated a prerequisite to appellate court jurisdiction over an appealing party, and that use of the phrase "et al." instead of listing the names of each party seeking to appeal was inadequate to meet the requirement. Id. at 317-18, 108 S.Ct. at 2408-09. The Court found that the court of appeals had no jurisdiction over an appellant whose name was inadvertently omitted from the notice of appeal, despite the use of the phrase "et al." following the named appellants. Id.
In his motion to dismiss, Moran contends that omission of the names of the defendants other than Farrier from the notice of appeal fails to comply with the jurisdictional specificity requirement of Rule 3(c). We agree. Defendants' attempts to distinguish this case from Torres are unpersuasive, and their assertion that "the Fed.R.App.P. 3(c) issue is one of first impression in the Eighth Circuit" is disingenuous.
This court has held that under Torres, an appellate court can consider only the claims of parties named in the notice of appeal. Madewell v. Roberts, 909 F.2d 1203, 1206 (8th Cir.1990); United States v. Spurgeon, 861 F.2d 181, 183 (8th Cir.1988). Explicitly relying on Torres ...
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Sisneros v. Nix
...constitute actual injuries if they result from a constitutional violation, and hence are compensable with damages. Moran v. Farrier, 924 F.2d 134, 137-38 (8th Cir.1991) ($250 damages for these injuries caused by due process violation). Compensable injuries in a § 1983 case also include ment......
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Boles v. BARTRUFF
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Wright v. Caspari, 91-2007C(5).
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