Thomas v. Eby

• Decision Date: 30 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-1203.,05-1203.
• Parties: Jerald THOMAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Unknown EBY, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

481 F.3d 434

Jerald THOMAS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Unknown EBY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 05-1203.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 8, 2006.

Decided and Filed: March 30, 2007.

ARGUED:

David A. Carney, Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Linda M. Olivieri, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

David A. Carney, Thomas D. Warren, Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Linda M. Olivieri, Office of the Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee. Jerald Thomas, Baraga, Michigan, pro se.

Before SILER, MOORE, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

Inmate Jerald Thomas filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that a prison guard retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. The district court concluded that if Thomas won his case, the victory would shorten his period of custodial detention. Accordingly, the district court concluded that the habeas exception to § 1983 barred Thomas's complaint, which the district court dismissed sua sponte. Because a victory for Thomas would have at most the potential to decrease his period of detention and because Thomas has alleged adequately the elements of a First Amendment retaliation claim, we REVERSE the district court's judgment and REMAND this case for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

Thomas is imprisoned at Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility in Baraga, Michigan. On October 23, 2003, an exchange occurred between Thomas and Corrections Officer Eby, whose first name is not presently known. Their accounts of the incident vary wildly.

According to Thomas, he was asleep in his cell at 1:30 a.m. on October 23, when Eby kicked the door to his cell. After awakening Thomas, Eby told him that she was going to "teach [him] a lesson" for writing a grievance against another corrections officer named Grieke. Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 6 (Compl. at 4). Additionally, Eby told him, "you people are as dumb as you look," id., which Thomas interpreted as a slur against African-Americans.

Eby, by contrast, claims that when she came to Thomas's cell, he was already awake and "was standing in the [o]bservation window with his penis exposed masturbating." J.A. at 10 (Major Misconduct Rpt.). Additionally, she claims that Thomas had heard her speaking to another inmate before she arrived at Thomas's cell, so Thomas must have known that she was on that wing of the facility. She took this act as an attempt to "degrade" her. Id.

Eby memorialized her version of the exchange in a Major Misconduct Report, a copy of which was delivered to Thomas at 11:45 p.m. on October 23, 2003. The following day, Thomas filled out a grievance form with his version of the events.

B. Administrative Proceedings

On November 7, 2003, a hearing officer held a hearing regarding the Major Misconduct Report, and found Thomas and his version of the exchange not credible. The hearing officer concluded that Thomas had "intentional[ly] expos[ed] his sexual organ to officer Eby," and that Eby had no reason to fabricate the misconduct. J.A. at 14 (Major Misconduct Hr'g Rpt.). Accordingly, the hearing officer upheld the charge. Thomas requested a rehearing on November 10, 2003, but the prison's hearings administrator denied this request on February 19, 2004.

On November 11, 2003, prison officials performed the first level of review (Step 1) of Thomas's grievance against Eby, which was handled separately from Thomas's challenge to the Major Misconduct Report. After an interview with Thomas, the officials rejected the grievance. Thomas refused to "sign off" at that level of review. J.A. at 12 (Grievance Form). Thomas's further appeals also proved fruitless, and on January 20, 2004, the responsible prison official issued a final denial of Thomas's grievance appeal.

C. Legal Proceedings

In April 2004, Thomas filed a petition for judicial review of his misconduct conviction in the Ingham County Court. In an order dated May 11, 2004, the state court informed Thomas that he was required to pay $12.21 from his institutional account as an initial partial filing fee, and that if he failed to do so within twenty-one days, the court would dismiss his suit. Thomas failed to pay the filing fee, and the state court dismissed his action.

On October 25, 2004, Thomas filed a pro se complaint against Eby in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which granted his motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. Thomas's complaint alleges that Eby filed the misconduct report against him in retaliation for his earlier grievance against another corrections officer. According to Thomas, Eby's retaliation violated his First Amendment rights, and accordingly is actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Thomas's complaint requests $75,000 in compensatory damages, another $75,000 in punitive damages, and "that the Sexual Misconduct ticket be removed from his prison file." J.A. at 8 (Compl. at 6).

On December 16, 2004, before Eby had been served with a copy of the complaint, the district court dismissed Thomas's complaint sua sponte, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A(b), and 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c). The district court concluded that Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997), bars Thomas's § 1983 claim because his misconduct conviction led to the forfeiture of "good-time credits," which his suit seeks to restore. J.A. at 29-30 (Dist. Ct. Op. at 3-4). Thomas now appeals the district court's judgment.

Thomas filed a pro se appellate brief on July 11, 2005. On November 22, 2005, we appointed counsel for Tomas and requested both Thomas and nonparty Michigan Department of Corrections ("MDOC")¹ to brief two issues: (1) whether a retaliation claim is subject to the rule of Edwards v. Balisok, and (2) whether the provision in Michigan law imposing a loss of good-time credits for Thomas's misconduct is sufficient to trigger the application of Balisok.

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

The district court had federal-question jurisdiction over Thomas's § 1983 claim. 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction over Thomas's appeal from the district court's final judgment. 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a complaint under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A(b). Brown v. Bargery, 207 F.3d 863, 866 (6th Cir.2000). "Dismissal of a complaint for the failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted is appropriate only if it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle him to relief." Id. at 867. We must "construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff [and] accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true." Trzebuckowski v. City of Cleveland, 319 F.3d 853, 855 (6th Cir.2003) (reviewing dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)). Further, we hold pleadings filed by a pro se litigant "to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers," Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 (1972), and may not uphold the dismissal of such a pleading "simply because [we] find[ ] the plaintiff's allegations unlikely." Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33, 112 S.Ct. 1728, 118 L.Ed.2d 340 (1992).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

MDOC argues that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars Thomas's claim. Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal courts lack jurisdiction over "cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments." Coles v. Granville, 448 F.3d 853, 857 (6th Cir.2006) (quoting Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Ind. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005)). Courts "appl[y] the doctrine only when a plaintiff complains of injury from the state court judgment itself." Id. at 858.

We conclude that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply. Thomas complains of injury resulting from alleged retaliation, not from the state court's judgment. Also, the only state-court judgment at issue here is the Ingham County Court's dismissal, for failure to pay the filing fee, of Thomas's action seeking review of his misconduct conviction. The state court never had occasion to determine any issues relevant to this case, as it never reached the merits. Moreover, Thomas can win his retaliation claim without invalidating any aspect of the state court's judgment. See DLX, Inc. v. Kentucky, 381 F.3d 511, 517 (6th Cir.2004) (rejecting Rooker-Feldman bar when the federal court could find for plaintiff without concluding that the state court decided any issue wrongly), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 961, 125 S.Ct. 1733, 161 L.Ed.2d 603 (2005). For all these reasons, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar Thomas's claim.²

B. Applicability of the Habeas Exception to § 1983

Thomas's § 1983 claim alleges that Eby issued the misconduct ticket in retaliation for a previously filed grievance, and asks that the finding of misconduct be set aside (in addition to including a request for damages). The district court concluded, and MDOC now argues, that such a claim is not cognizable under § 1983 and must instead be brought through a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Federal courts have long recognized the potential for prisoners to evade the habeas exhaustion requirements by challenging the duration of their confinement under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, rather than by filing habeas petitions. Consequently, the Supreme Court recognized a "habeas exception" to § 1983 in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), when it held that suits challenging the fact or duration of confinement fall within the traditional scope of habeas corpus and accordingly are not cognizable under § 1983. The...