Schneider v. California Dept. of Corrections

• Decision Date: 24 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. C-96-1739 SI.,C-96-1739 SI.
• Citation: 957 F.Supp. 1145
• Parties: Paul John SCHNEIDER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

957 F.Supp. 1145

Paul John SCHNEIDER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants.

No. C-96-1739 SI.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

March 24, 1997.

Herman A. D. Franck, V, Stephen T. Gargaro, Franck & Associates, San Francisco, CA, for Plaintiffs.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen. of the State of California, Peter J. Siggins, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Bruce M. Slavin, Allen R. Crown, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, CA, for Defendants California Dept. of Corrections and Director Gomez.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS

ILLSTON, District Judge.

On March 14, 1997, the Court heard argument on defendants' motion to dismiss. Having considered the arguments of counsel and the papers submitted, the Court hereby grants defendants' motion to dismiss without leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are current and former state inmates of Pelican Bay State Prison, California Correctional Institution, and the Central California Women's Facility. The inmates allege that defendants California Department of Corrections ("CDC") and James Gomez, Director of the CDC, have violated the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause by failing to pay interest on funds deposited by prisoners in Inmate Trust Accounts ("ITAs").

For security reasons, prisoners are not permitted to possess money while they are in prison. 15 C.C.R. § 3006(b). For funds to which prisoners wish to have access while incarcerated,¹ inmates can choose to place their money in either an ITA, which does not pay interest to the prisoner, or in a Passbook Savings Account which does pay interest.² In order to have a Passbook Savings Account, inmates are required to maintain a balance of $25.00 in an ITA.³ Only those funds placed in an ITA are available to inmates for use in the Canteen⁴ to purchase items such as soap and toothpaste.

The California Penal Code provides that any interest earned on funds placed in an ITA⁵ is allocated to the Inmate Welfare Fund, whose funds are used to improve prison conditions in the State of California. Cal.Penal Code § 5008.

Plaintiffs argue that inmates are unconstitutionally forced to choose between earning interest via the Passbook Savings Account, which funds may not be used at the Canteen, and having access to the Canteen via their ITAs, which do not earn interest.⁶ They assert that access to the Canteen is a necessity of prison life. Plaintiffs allege that the CDC's failure to pay interest on funds deposited by prisoners in an ITA constitutes a taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment on the part of the CDC and prison officials. Plaintiffs further allege that defendant James Gomez, the Director of the CDC, is personally liable for implementing the policy on prisoner bank accounts. Plaintiffs seek monetary and injunctive relief against each of these defendants.

Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice for failure to state a claim.

LEGAL STANDARD

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a district court must dismiss a complaint if it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The question presented by a motion to dismiss is not whether a plaintiff will prevail in the action, but whether the plaintiff is entitled to offer evidence in support of the claim. Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1686, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974).

In answering this question, the Court must assume that the plaintiff's allegations are true and must draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor. Usher v. City of Los Angeles, 828 F.2d 556, 561 (9th Cir.1987). Even if the face of the pleadings suggests that the chance of recovery is remote, the Court must allow the plaintiff to develop the case at this stage of the proceedings. United States v. City of Redwood City, 640 F.2d 963, 966 (9th Cir.1981).

DISCUSSION

The Fifth Amendment provides that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S. Const. amend. V. The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause has been held to apply to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155, 160, 101 S.Ct. 446, 450, 66 L.Ed.2d 358 (1980). The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment property and due process guarantees apply only to situations in which an individual is deprived of property in which there exists a constitutionally protected property interest. Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2705, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). Protected property interests are created by "existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source, such as state law — rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits." Id. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709.

In order for plaintiffs to establish that they have a protected property interest in the interest income created by funds deposited in an ITA, they must show that they have a legitimate claim of entitlement through either California law or some other independent source to the interest income earned on funds in these accounts. Id.

California law provides no such entitlement to interest earned on funds placed in a prison's ITA. California Penal Code § 5008 provides that the Director of Corrections shall deposit the interest or increment accruing on inmate trust funds in the Inmate Welfare Fund. There is no provision in the California Penal Code allowing or requiring the Director of Corrections to pay interest earned from funds in an ITA to an inmate. Thus California law specifically does not create a protected property interest that can be vindicated by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Plaintiffs cite Tellis v. Godinez, 5 F.3d 1314 (9th Cir.1993), for the proposition that prisoners have a constitutionally protected property right in interest income from an ITA. In Tellis, the Ninth Circuit held that a Nevada statute requiring that interest earned on prisoners' personal funds be credited to prisoners' accounts created a protected property interest in the interest income. Id. at 1317.

The facts of Tellis are wholly distinguishable from the facts of the instant case, because the state law in Nevada is quite different from the law in California. The decision in Tellis was based entirely on the language of Nevada Revised Statute § 209.241, which provides that "[t]he interest and income earned on the money in the fund, after deducting any applicable charges, must be credited to the fund." The Ninth Circuit held that this language required the prison to credit the interest earned on this fund back to the fund and proscribed the prison from spending the interest or withdrawing the interest for other purposes. The Court found that the Nevada statute "create[d] a protected property interest in the interest and income" earned in the account. Id. at 1317.

Unlike the Nevada statute, Cal.Penal Code § 5008 does not mandate that interest earned on prisoner trust accounts be credited back to the individual prisoners account. To the contrary, Cal.Penal Code § 5008 specifically provides that such interest shall be deposited in the Inmate Welfare Fund. The California regulations at issue in this matter are thus very different from the Nevada regulations in Tellis.⁷ Tellis does not hold broadly that inmates always have a constitutionally protected right to interest earned in prisoner bank accounts; rather it holds that they have such a right if state law provides it to them. In California, it does not.

Several district courts have also ruled on this issue and have rejected the argument that prisoners have a constitutionally proctected property interest in interest income. See, e.g., Coleman v. McGinnis, 843 F.Supp. 320, 325 (E.D.Mich.1994) (no state statute provided prisoners with a protected property interest in interest earned on accounts; therefore failure to pay interest was not a taking); Gray v. Lee, 486 F.Supp. 41 (D.Md. 1980) (failure to pay interest on inmates' funds held in spending accounts not unconstitutional because inmates had an option of transferring funds to commercial interest-bearing accounts); Smith v. Robinson, 456 F.Supp. 449 (E.D.Pa.1978) (courts have yet to recognize a right to earn interest on funds received while incarcerated).⁸

Plaintiffs also contend that their entitlement to the interest generated by funds in an ITA springs from an independent source. Plaintiffs cite two cases, Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155, 101 S.Ct. 446, 66 L.Ed.2d 358 (1980), and United States of America v. $277,000 U.S. Currency, 69 F.3d 1491 (9th Cir.1995), in support of this proposition. However, the Court finds that these cases are distinguishable from the instant case and do not support the plaintiffs' assertion that they have a constitutionally protected property interest in the interest income earned from inmate trust accounts.

In Beckwith, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Florida statute that allowed a Florida county to keep $100,000 in interest earned on an interpleader fund deposited in the county court. In its decision, the Supreme Court emphasized that there was a Florida statute that provided for a separate fee to be paid to the county for holding the funds and thus there was insufficient justification for the county to take the interest on the interpleaded funds. The Court emphasized the narrowness of its holding:

We hold that under the narrow circumstances of this case — where there is a separate and distinct state statute...