Thomas v. Haslam

• Decision Date: 02 July 2018
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:17–cv–00005
• Citation: 329 F.Supp.3d 475
• Parties: James THOMAS and David Hixson, Plaintiffs, v. Bill HASLAM, Governor of Tennessee, in his official capacity; David W. Purkey, Commissioner for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, in his official capacity; and Herbert Slatery, III, Attorney General and Reporter, in his official capacity, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee

329 F.Supp.3d 475

James THOMAS and David Hixson, Plaintiffs,

v.Bill HASLAM, Governor of Tennessee, in his official capacity; David W. Purkey, Commissioner for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, in his official capacity; and Herbert Slatery, III, Attorney General and Reporter, in his official capacity, Defendants.

Case No. 3:17–cv–00005

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division.

Signed July 2, 2018

Jonathan Jacob Cole, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, Nashville, TN, Matthew G. White, Lori H. Patterson, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, Josh Spickler, Just City, Memphis, TN, Charles Gerstein, Edward P. Krugman, Jonas Wang, Premal Dharia, Civil Rights Corps, Washington, DC, Claudia Wilner, Francisca Fajana, Petra T. Tasheff, Theresa Lau, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Alexander Stuart Rieger, Andrew B. Campbell, Michael Alan Meyer, Sara Ohlman, Scott C. Sutherland, Tennessee Attorney General's Office, Katherine Dix, Federal Public Defender's Office, Nashville, TN, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM

ALETA A. TRAUGER, United States District Judge

Before the court are a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61) filed by the sole remaining defendant in this case, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security ("TDSHS"), David W. Purkey, as well as a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 37) filed by the plaintiffs, James Thomas and David Hixson. For the reasons set forth herein and in the court's preliminary Memorandum of March 26, 2018 (Docket No. 93) ("First Memorandum"¹ ), the plaintiffs' Motion will be granted and Purkey's Motion will be denied.

I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A person convicted of a crime in Tennessee is typically made liable, to the government, for various sums of money related to his prosecution. Some of the defendant's debt may reflect fines imposed as part of his sentence, but Tennessee also holds a convicted defendant liable for additional, often substantial, amounts in the form of costs assessed against him and taxes imposed on litigants by the Tennessee General Assembly. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40–35–104(c)(1) ; Tenn. Code Ann. § 40–25–123(a) ; Tenn. Code Ann. § 67–4–602(a). If the defendant does not pay these fines, costs, and litigation taxes—also known as "court debt"—then local authorities can attempt to collect on the debt using the ordinary tools available to judgment creditors, such as garnishment of wages or execution on property. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40–24–105(a) ; Tenn. R. Civ. P. 69.05 – .07 ; see Tenn. Op. Att'y Gen. No. 06–135 (Aug. 21, 2006). Sometimes those tools may be effective; sometimes they may not. In particular, when a defendant has little or no income or assets, garnishment and execution will be of little use, because no tool is sufficient to collect from resources that do not exist. The fact that it is difficult to collect debts from very poor debtors is a reality faced by people and entities, both public and private, in a wide array of circumstances; indeed, it is a problem as old, presumably, as debt itself.²

Failure to pay court debt, however, has consequences that failing to pay other debt does not. In particular, TDSHS, by statute, revokes the driver's license of any person who, like Thomas and Hixson, has failed to pay court debt for a year or more, unless that person is granted a form of discretionary relief by a court. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 40–24–105(b). The details of the plaintiffs' individual cases, as well as Tennessee's system for administering court debt, can be found in the First Memorandum. In short, Thomas and Hixson both live in severe poverty and both owe court debt related to past criminal convictions. Thomas is totally and permanently disabled. Hixson has spent time in recent years living in a homeless shelter after a period of incarceration. Each man struggles to afford the basic necessities of life and is unable to pay the court debt assessed against him. Because they failed to pay their court debt for over a year, Thomas and Hixson have both had their driver's licenses revoked by TDSHS.

In contrast, a Tennessee driver with a criminal record identical to Thomas's or Hixson's—but with the material resources to pay his court debt—could have avoided revocation simply by making the payments that the plaintiffs cannot. The plaintiffs have challenged this scheme—not because they believe that they should be released from the debt that they owe or because they dispute the government's right to impose aggressive sanctions on those who owe court debt that they can but refuse to pay—but because Tennessee's system has the actual effect of imposing a harsher punishment on indigent defendants than on non-indigent defendants based solely on their economic circumstances. A non-indigent defendant has a choice: pay or lose his license. Drivers like Thomas and Hixson, they argue, have no such choice. The plaintiffs challenge this differential treatment as unconstitutional pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Thomas and Hixson filed their class action Complaint on January 4, 2017. (Docket No. 1.) Shortly thereafter, they filed a motion asking the court to certify a class defined as follows:

All persons whose Tennessee driver's licenses have been or will be revoked pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 40–24–105(b), and who, at the time of the revocation, cannot or could not pay Court Debt due to their financial circumstances.

(Docket No. 6 at 2.) The court granted that motion on March 26, 2018, and Thomas and Hixson now represent a statewide class of similarly situated plaintiffs. (Docket No. 94.) That class challenges the constitutionality of Tennessee's court debt-based revocation scheme on three grounds: first, for violation of criminal defendants' due process and equal protection rights by the "mandatory revocation of people's driver's licenses because they are too poor to pay Court Debt without any inquiry into their ability to pay" (Docket No. 1 ¶ 100); second, for violation of their due process right to notice and a hearing on whether they can pay their court debt (Id. ¶ 101); and, third, for violation of equal protection based on Tennessee's policy of revoking the licenses of court debtors and not other similarly situated debtors (Id. ¶ 102). Purkey filed a Motion to Dismiss (Docket No. 23) and a Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 61), arguing that (1) the court was barred from considering the plaintiffs' claims under the Rooker – Feldman doctrine and (2) Purkey was entitled to summary judgment on the merits. The plaintiffs also filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. (Docket No. 37.) In the First Memorandum and the accompanying Order, the court denied the Motion to Dismiss, resolved most of the issues underlying the Motions for Summary Judgment, and ordered supplemental briefing on a few outstanding evidentiary matters. (Docket Nos. 93 & 94.) That briefing having been completed, the court is prepared to rule on whether either party is entitled to summary judgment.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Rule 56 requires the court to grant a motion for summary judgment if "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). To win summary judgment as to the claim of an adverse party, a moving defendant must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to at least one essential element of the plaintiff's claim. Once the moving defendant makes his initial showing, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to provide evidence beyond the pleadings, "set[ting] forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Moldowan v. City of Warren , 578 F.3d 351, 374 (6th Cir. 2009) ; see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett , 477 U.S. 317, 322–23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Conversely, to win summary judgment as to its own claims, a moving plaintiff must demonstrate that no genuine issue of material fact exists as to all essential elements of her claims. "In evaluating the evidence, the court must draw all inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party." Moldowan , 578 F.3d at 374 (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. , 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) ).

At this stage, "the judge's function is not ... to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter, but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." Id. (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986) ). But "[t]he mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the [non-moving party's] position will be insufficient," and the party's proof must be more than "merely colorable." Anderson , 477 U.S. at 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505. An issue of fact is "genuine" only if a reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party. Moldowan , 578 F.3d at 374 (citing Anderson , 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505 ).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Issues Resolved in the First Memorandum

In the First Memorandum and the accompanying Order, the court denied Purkey's Motion to Dismiss but concluded that some outstanding factual and evidentiary issues stood in the way of resolving the Motions for Summary Judgment. The court, however, did rule on a number of underlying legal issues key to the case. Specifically, the court held as follows³ :

1. The plaintiffs' claims are not barred by the Rooker–Feldman doctrine, because the plaintiffs challenge only TDSHS's imposition of one particular post-judgment collection mechanism, not any aspect of the plaintiffs' convictions or the validity of their court debt. SeeTodd v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A. , 434 F.3d 432, 437 (6th Cir. 2006). (First Memorandum at 18–24.)

2. Under a long and well-established line of Supreme Court precedents, a statute that penalizes or withholds relief from a defendant in a criminal case, based solely on his

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