Strachan v. Ashe

• Decision Date: 13 October 1982
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 79-2001-F.
• Citation: 548 F. Supp. 1193
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
• Parties: Thomas STRACHAN, Plaintiff, v. Michael J. ASHE, Nick Fiorentino, William De Maio, James Moores, and John Doe, Individually and in their official capacities, Defendants.

548 F. Supp. 1193

Thomas STRACHAN, Plaintiff, v. Michael J. ASHE, Nick Fiorentino, William De Maio, James Moores, and John Doe, Individually and in their official capacities, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 79-2001-F.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

October 13, 1982.

John M. Thompson, Prisoners Legal Assistance Clinic, Western New England College School of Law, Springfield, Mass., for plaintiff.

Savino J. Basile, Santaniello, Posnik & Basile, J. David Keaney, Edward J. McDonough, Jr., Springfield, Mass., for defendants Fiorentino and Ashe.

MEMORANDUM

FREEDMAN, District Judge.

This action is before me following a hearing on the plaintiff's motion for class certification, F.R.Civ.P. 23, and for partial summary judgment, F.R.Civ.P. 56. Herein I set forth my reasons for denying plaintiff's class certification motion and for allowing his motion for partial summary judgment.

I.

Plaintiff Thomas Strachan was an inmate at the Hampden County (Massachusetts) House of Correction ("HCHC") and confined in a so-called "hospital isolation cell" when this action was filed on October 2, 1979. In his initial complaint, plaintiff alleged that he was confined in hospital isolation pursuant to constitutionally defective procedures and that the conditions of his confinement violated his rights under the federal constitution and applicable state regulations. Plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief as well as damages against five defendants named individually and in their official capacities.¹ Following an ex parte hearing on plaintiff's application, I entered a temporary restraining order on October 3, 1979 ordering plaintiff's release from the hospital isolation cell and from disciplinary isolation status.

On October 22, 1979, counsel filed an answer on behalf of two of the five defendants named by plaintiff — Michael J. Ashe, Sheriff of Hampden County, and Nick Fiorentino, Deputy Master of the Hampden County House of Correction.² Discovery ensued, and in March 1980 plaintiff sought and was granted leave to file an amended complaint which in essence reiterated the allegations of the initial complaint, but through the addition of three paragraphs expanded the claims of plaintiff for declaratory and injunctive relief to claims on behalf of a class of "persons who were on September 18, 1979, are now or will be imprisoned in the Hampden County House of Correction." Amended Complaint, ¶ 10. Defendants Ashe and Fiorentino did not answer these amended allegations.

In August 1980 plaintiff moved for class certification and the matter was referred to a magistrate. The magistrate recommended denial of the motion, but upon plaintiff's seasonable objections I rejected the magistrate's recommendation and ordered that a hearing be scheduled. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b). Thereafter, the plaintiff moved for partial summary judgment on his individual claim for damages, and the case came forward for a hearing on both motions on June 4, 1982.³ At the close of the hearing, I indicated that I would leave the record open for one week in order to permit the parties to file additional evidentiary materials, and would then take the case under advisement.

Plaintiff's allegations in both his initial and amended complaints set forth two distinct causes of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as well as a pendent claim premised upon state law. On the one hand, plaintiff's individual claims appear directed towards not only the conditions under which he was confined from September 18 to October 3, 1979, but also towards the allegedly defective procedures which attended his removal from the general prison population and confinement in an isolation cell in the medical unit of HCHC. Complaint ¶¶ 13-15; Amended Complaint ¶¶ 14-16. On behalf of the class, however, the allegations of the amended complaint focus upon the "policy and practice" of the defendants of "routinely" confining prisoners under conditions similar to those experienced by plaintiff "either for disciplinary or other administrative purposes." Amended Complaint, at p. 1, and ¶ 22. However, at this juncture, plaintiff appears to have focused his individual damages claim for purposes of his motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability upon a claim pursuant to § 1983 for unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and I treat his claim in this way. See Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment at 5-12.

II.

Plaintiff moved on August 29, 1980 "for an order that this case be maintained as a class action on behalf of a class comprised of plaintiff and all other persons similarly situated, namely, all persons who are presently or will in the future be incarcerated in HCHC." Motion for Class Certification at 1. In a memorandum in support of this motion, plaintiff asserted that the "essential point in controversy is whether the conditions in the `hospital isolation cells' and other isolation cells at HCHC are such that the defendants' policy and practice of confining prisoners in them for any purpose other than response to a short-term medical emergency violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment." Memorandum in Support of Motion for Class Certification, at 1.

Defendants' opposition to class certification is premised upon two undisputed facts: first, plaintiff Strachan was transferred out of HCHC on August 8, 1980 and has not been incarcerated there since that time; and second, the hospital isolation in which plaintiff was confined was demolished for the purpose of reconstruction along with the other isolation cells in the medical unit at HCHC on September 2, 1980. Thus, defendants contend, plaintiff's claims for declaratory and injunctive relief became moot upon his transfer out of HCHC even before plaintiff moved for class certification, and in any event, the cells specifically complained of are no longer available for use irrespective of any "policy or practice" alleged. Plaintiff counters this latter argument by noting that the amended complaint was not directed at any particular block of cells, but rather towards the defendants' policy of confining inmates in isolation under the conditions set forth in the complaint, whether in the particular cell or area plaintiff occupied or in any other cell. To the former argument, plaintiff asserts that this case is a suitable exception to the general rule that "a litigant must be a member of the class which he seeks to represent at the time the class action is certified," Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 403, 95 S.Ct. 553, 559, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975), such that certification may be said to "relate back" to the filing of the amended complaint. See, id. at 402, n.11, 95 S.Ct. at 559 n.11; see also Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 110, n.11, 95 S.Ct. 854, 861, n.11, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975). Plaintiff cites my recent ruling in Green v. Johnson, 513 F.Supp. 965, 975 (D.Mass.1981) as supporting the application of the relation back exception to the facts of the case at bar.

In Green, a named plaintiff and two proposed intervenors sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of themselves and a class of special needs, school age inmates in two Massachusetts county houses of correction who were not receiving special educational benefits. Before the plaintiff's motion for class certification could be ruled upon, the claims of not only the named plaintiff but also the proposed intervenors became moot because of release from custody, attainment of age twenty-two, or receipt of a high school diploma or its equivalent. I reviewed the authority of Sosna and Gerstein, and noted that plaintiff had demonstrated the reality of the claim that the specific issue presented, namely, the provision of special educational services to school age, special needs inmates, was capable of repetition yet evading review. Green v. Johnson, supra, 513 F.Supp. at 974-75. Since plaintiff had demonstrated this claim, and because the circumstances of the case closely paralleled those of Gerstein, I conditionally certified a class notwithstanding the mootness of the claims of the named plaintiff and the proposed intervenors. 513 F.Supp. at 975-76.

The instant case is distinguishable from Green in at least two important respects. First, while this case shares a common factual thread with Green in that a county house of correction is involved and individual inmates may be released from custody for any one of several reasons, the additional elements of mootness because of attainment of age twenty-two or receipt of a high school diploma or its equivalent present in Green are absent here. Thus, I am not persuaded that plaintiff has clearly demonstrated that the claim of unconstitutional conditions of confinement in isolation cells is particularly evasive of judicial review. Second, in Green, the contested policy or practice of the defendants in failing to provide special educational benefits was clear. In the case at bar, while it is true that plaintiff's allegation of a "regular policy and practice of defendants ... to confine members of plaintiff's class in `hospital isolation' cells or similar cells under conditions the same or substantially similar to those alleged by plaintiff" was not answered by defendants,⁴ still the undisputed fact remains that the hospital isolation cells have been demolished. To the extent that plaintiff has offered evidence of an ongoing policy or practice with respect to other cells, see, e.g., Affidavit of Charles King, this proof relates to events occurring in March 1981 and presents circumstances rather different from those alleged by plaintiff. See, id., at p. 2. Admittedly, unconstitutional conditions of confinement can take many forms and the existence of a specific group of cells is not a sine qua non of plaintiff's class claims, yet the change of circumstance occasioned by the demolition of the specific cell area in which plaintiff was confined militates against finding an established policy or...