Nilsson v. Coughlin, 86 Civ. 8494 (RWS).

• Decision Date: 02 October 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86 Civ. 8494 (RWS).,86 Civ. 8494 (RWS).
• Parties: Kenneth J. NILSSON, 85-A-2225, Franklin McNair, 81-A-3317, Ronnie Dobson, 80-A-242, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, and Robert H. Kuhlman, Superintendent of Sullivan Correctional Facility, personally and in their official capacities, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

670 F. Supp. 1186

Kenneth J. NILSSON, 85-A-2225, Franklin McNair, 81-A-3317, Ronnie Dobson, 80-A-242, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Correctional Services, and Robert H. Kuhlman, Superintendent of Sullivan Correctional Facility, personally and in their official capacities, Defendants.

No. 86 Civ. 8494 (RWS).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

October 2, 1987.

Kenneth J. Nilsson, pro se.

Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen. of the State of N.Y. (Stephen M. Jacoby, Asst. Atty. Gen., of counsel), New York City, for defendants.

OPINION

SWEET, District Judge.

Defendants Thomas A. Coughlin III ("Coughlin"), Commissioner of the New York State Department of Correctional Services and Robert H. Kuhlmann ("Kuhlmann"), Superintendent of Sullivan Correctional Facility have moved to dismiss the complaint of pro se plaintiffs Kenneth J. Nilsson ("Nilsson"), Franklin McNair ("McNair"), and Ronnie Dobson ("Dobson") pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) and 12(h)(3) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The motion was submitted on May 15, 1987. Nilsson has opposed the defendants' application and moved the court in an "Affirmation in Opposition to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss" to certify the action as a class action. In the alternative, plaintiffs have asked the court to appoint counsel if the court finds "that the plaintiff class representative cannot adequately represent the plaintiff."

For the reasons set forth below, defendants' motion to dismiss is denied with leave to renew, plaintiff's application for class certification is denied with leave to renew, and plaintiff's application for appointment of counsel is granted.

Facts

Plaintiffs Nilsson, McNair and Dobson were all at one time inmates at Sullivan Correction Facility ("Sullivan"), a facility operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS"). Sullivan is a "maxi-max" (Maximum A Security) facility which houses approximately 500 people. None of the named plaintiffs are currently at Sullivan. At the time that the defendants moved to dismiss, McNair and Dobson had been transferred to Green Haven Correctional Facility and Great Meadow Correctional Facility respectively. Nilsson had been paroled, and at the time of his Affidavit in Opposition was in the custody of the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility.

In a complaint dated September 15, 1986, received by the Pro Se Office of this court on October 10, 1986, and filed with the Clerk on November 5, 1986, plaintiffs filed a class action suit on behalf of the inmates at Sullivan pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging violation of the plaintiff class's rights under the First, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

The substance of the allegations in the complaint, all of which must be taken as true for the purposes of a 12(b)(6) application, include the following:

The plumbing at Sullivan is flawed so that when there is a heavy rain the cells are filled with backed-up urine and feces. Aside from the health hazards that exposure to sewage and bodily fluids poses, inmates' property and legal papers are damaged during these floods because the only storage areas in the cells are on the floor.

The conditions for serving food at Sullivan are highly unsanitary. Inmates are made to use eating implements that have not been properly cleaned, and there are no sanitary safeguards to protect against communicable diseases.

The noise level at Sullivan is so high that it injures inmates both physically and mentally.

Inmates are not supplied with the basic clothing to which they are entitled under law, including underwear and winter coats. In addition, there is often a wait of as much as a month before they are permitted to purchase personal health and hygiene items at the commissary.

Inmates are allowed to make telephone calls only at night, which effectively denies them the opportunity to speak with their counsel.

On a routine basis, inmates with chronic medical and dental problems are denied appropriate treatment and monitoring. There is inadequate review of psychiatric services provided to inmates, including the regular review or prescriptions for potentially life threatening psychotropic medications. The defendants exhibit deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of the inmates.

Inmates at Sullivan are in constant danger of physical attack. Prisoners are often forced to pay money to other prisoners to avoid being raped or otherwise assaulted. Stabbings and other violent attacks are frequent. The common areas, hallways and recreation areas are severely understaffed, contributing to the danger to inmates from other inmates, and when Corrections Officers are present they sometimes actually exacerbate the situation by harassing prisoners.

Part of the violence problem at Sullivan is attributable to staffing procedures. Under their contracts, security staff may bid for job openings at other facilities on the basis of seniority. Because Sullivan is so violent a facility, senior officers "bid out," leaving an extremely high percentage of junior officers and on-the-job trainees. This has the perverse effect of removing experienced guards from the situation in which they are needed most, increasing danger to inmates and the remaining guards alike.

The classification system is so inadequate that inmates in need of mental observation, inmates with medical problems, adults and adolescents are commingled in population, endangering the well-being of all. Because of the lack of security personnel at Sullivan inmates are locked in their cells for excessive periods of time. The lockers at Sullivan are too small to contain all of a prisoner's belongings, leading to theft among the population heightening the tension and potential for violence. Mail and packages are delayed, impeding communication with family and with counsel. The visiting room at Sullivan is insufficient to meet the needs of the inmates visitors and families and visitors are discouraged from bringing the inmates' children to see them. There is a lack of meaningful vocational, educational or recreational programming.

Pro Se Prisoner Complaints

In general, pro se complaints are construed liberally for the purpose of Rule 12(b)(6) motions, Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 595, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972) (per curiam), and when they implicate the vindication of civil rights or civil liberties, they are construed particularly liberally, see Ferguson v. Mobil Oil Corp., 443 F.Supp. 1334, 1336-37 (S.D. N.Y.) (liberal construction of pro se Title VII claim), dismissed on other grounds, 18 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) ¶ 8660, at 4610 (1978), aff'd, 607 F.2d 995 (2nd Cir.1979); Morgan v. LaValle, 526 F.2d 221, 224 (2d Cir.1975) (liberal construction of pro se prisoner's rights complaint); U.S. ex rel. Buford v. Henderson, 524 F.2d 147 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 923, 96 S.Ct. 1133, 47 L.Ed.2d 332 (1976) (liberal construction of pro se habeas corpus petition). This Circuit has also noted the special problems that pro se prisoners face in prosecuting lawsuits, including being dependent on prison law libraries and unable, by dint of their confinement, to take steps that a plaintiff at liberty would be able to. See Romandette v. Weetabix Co., 807 F.2d 309 (2d Cir.1986). For instance, in his papers opposing the defendants' motion to dismiss, plaintiff Nilsson has represented that his research has suffered because he was not allowed sufficient research time at the law library. Consequently, all of the plaintiffs' applications must be viewed through the lens of procedural leniency.

Perhaps more important to this case is that plaintiffs are bringing it pro se and have requested counsel for the purposes of aiding them in properly representing their class. The recent case Hodge v. Police Officers, 802 F.2d 58 (2d Cir.1986), discusses the criteria which a court should apply in trying to locate an attorney to prosecute civil cases for indigent plaintiffs. Included among the factors listed by the Hodge court are the ease with which a plaintiff can conduct his necessary factual investigation, the complexity of the legal issues involved, and whether the appointment of counsel will lead to a quicker and more just result by sharpening the issues and shaping examination. Here, plaintiffs have done a far better job than the average pro se plaintiff in shaping the outlines of their complaint. They have described with greater than the normal specificity the factual conditions upon which they base their claim, and have shaped these facts into a sophisticated legal theory based not on any single act but on the totality of conditions at the facility, a claim arguably made even more forceful by pleading the suit as a class action. In doing so, however, the plaintiffs have raised a host of difficult factual and legal issues.

Applicable Law

Conditions of confinement can constitute cruel and unusual punishment exactly because the conditions that offenders are subjected to are part of the penalty that they pay for their crimes. Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 106 S.Ct. 1078, 1084, 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986). In considering whether these conditions are constitutionally infirm, the court must recognize that "alone or in combination" prison conditions can "deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities." Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981). As Justice Brennan has said, a court is required to examine "the totality of the circumstances," which is to say, "Even if no single condition of confinement would be unconstitutional in itself, `exposure to the cumulative effect of prison conditions may subject inmates to cruel and unusual punishment.'" Id. at...