Toms v. Taft, 01-4035.

• Decision Date: 31 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-4035.,01-4035.
• Citation: 338 F.3d 519
• Parties: Laura TOMS and Ira Chaiffetz, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Bob TAFT; Reginald J. Wilkinson; Anthony J. Brigano; Lawrence Belskis; Mark Clark, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 519

338 F.3d 519

Laura TOMS and Ira Chaiffetz, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Bob TAFT; Reginald J. Wilkinson; Anthony J. Brigano; Lawrence Belskis; Mark Clark, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-4035.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: February 5, 2003.

Decided and Filed: July 31, 2003. Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

Arnold S. White (argued and briefed), White & Fish, Columbus, OH, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Todd R. Marti (argued and briefed), J. Eric Holloway, Asst. Atty. Gen., Office of Attorney General, Corrections Litigation Section, Columbus, OH, Linda L. Woeber (briefed), Ralph E. Burnham (briefed) Montgomery, Rennie & Jonson, Cincinnati, OH, Jeffrey Lynn Glasgow (briefed), Tracie M. Boyd (briefed), Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, Columbus, OH, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before GILMAN and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges; POLSTER, District Judge.^*

GIBBONS, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which POLSTER, D.J., joined. GILMAN, J. (pp. 530-534), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellants Laura Toms and Ira Chaiffetz, a prisoner, sought to marry, but were unable to obtain a marriage license because Chaiffetz's incarceration made it impossible for him to comply with an Ohio statute requiring both applicants for a marriage license to appear personally before the probate court. Toms and Chaiffetz sued various state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a violation of their constitutional right to marry and seeking injunctive relief, monetary damages, and attorney's fees. With the district court's supervision, the parties reached a settlement with respect to the claims for injunctive relief, and Toms and Chaiffetz married. After the settlement was obtained, the district court entered an order stating that plaintiffs' request for an injunction was moot. The district court also granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the ground that they were protected by qualified immunity and refused to award attorney's fees because plaintiffs were not prevailing parties within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Plaintiffs appeal on four grounds, arguing that the district court erred by (1) granting summary judgment before discovery had commenced; (2) finding that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity; (3) refusing to award monetary damages without considering evidence on the issue; and (4) refusing to award attorney's fees. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the judgment of the district court on all four issues.

I.

Ira Chaiffetz and Laura Toms (now Laura Chaiffetz) became engaged while Chaiffetz was incarcerated at the Warren Correctional Institution (WCI) in Warren County, Ohio. Like most states, Ohio requires prospective spouses to obtain marriage licenses. In order to do so, "[e]ach of the persons seeking a marriage license shall personally appear in the probate court within the county where either resides" to apply for a license. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3101.05(A). The statute provides for a waiver of the personal appearance requirement in cases involving "illness or other physical disability," but there is no provision for a waiver due to incarceration.

Plaintiffs asked the probate courts of both Warren County and Franklin County, where Toms resides and where Chaiffetz resided before his incarceration, to waive the personal appearance requirement, but both courts declined.¹ Judge Lawrence Belskis of the Franklin County Probate Court, however, indicated that he was willing to assist plaintiffs by appointing either an employee of WCI designated by the warden, or an employee of the Warren County Probate Court, to serve as a deputy clerk of the Franklin County Probate Court for the purpose of issuing the marriage license. Belskis later memorialized these possibilities in an order issued December 30, 1999.

Toms wrote to Anthony Brigano, warden of WCI, on July 12, 1999, asking him to provide assistance in appointing someone to act as a deputy clerk and suggesting that Chaiffetz's attorney could serve in that capacity if Brigano preferred not to designate a WCI employee. Brigano declined this request in a letter, stating, "I do not see myself or the institution being involved in this process," other than allowing a brief marriage ceremony during normal visiting hours if the couple obtained a marriage license.

Toms and Chaiffetz obtained counsel, who wrote to Brigano on September 20, 1999, again requesting that he designate an employee of WCI to serve as a deputy clerk to issue the marriage license. Brigano denied this request, citing a policy of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) that specifies that "all preparatory obligations, such as securing a marriage license, are the sole responsibility of the couple to wed." Plaintiffs received a similar response from Reginald Wilkinson, the director of the ODRC, who wrote, "It is not the responsibility of ODRC to obtain marriage licenses for the inmates in its custody.... The issuance of a marriage license is a function assigned by statute to the probate courts in Ohio." Wilkinson also quoted and attached the policy stating that securing a marriage license is the couple's responsibility.

Plaintiffs also sought to avail themselves of Judge Belskis' second option, a deputy clerk from the Warren County Probate Court who would travel to the correctional institution. They wrote to Judge Mark Clark of that court.² Clark declined to designate a clerk for that purpose, stating that "due to the numerous requests this Court receives and the hardship it places on our clerks, it is our policy that we do not send employees to the correctional facilities located in our County." Finally, plaintiffs sought assistance from Ohio Governor Bob Taft, in a letter dated October 29, 1999. Governor Taft forwarded the request to the ODRC, and administrative assistant Stacha Doty responded that "Warden Brigano is correct in not deputizing an employee to serve the marriage license on the inmate. That is not a part of the mission [of the ODRC]." Doty also wrote that:

No one is denying you the right to get married. You are responsible to obtain a marriage license. I am aware that Franklin County will not issue a marriage license without both parties present. It is the policy of the [ODRC] not to transport inmates for the purpose of gaining a marriage license.

On February 18, 2000, Toms and Chaiffetz filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Taft, Brigano, Wilkinson, Belskis, and Clark, claiming violations of their right to marry and right to access to the courts and seeking injunctive and monetary relief.

The district court scheduled a settlement conference for March 31, 2000. At the conference, defendants agreed that the Franklin County Probate Court would deputize an employee of the "central office" of the ODRC (specifically, an Assistant Attorney General) as a clerk to issue the marriage license to Chaiffetz at WCI.

The district court then recited this arrangement into the record to make sure the parties had reached "a meeting of the minds." Plaintiffs accepted the outcome and asked that their request for injunctive relief be withdrawn as moot. The same day, March 31, 2000, the district court responded to this request by entering an order stating that "[t]he parties to this matter have resolved their differences. The pending Motion for Preliminary and Permanent Injunction is therefore moot." Approximately two weeks later, plaintiffs were married.

The issues of damages and attorney's fees were not resolved at the conference. After the conference, all defendants moved for summary judgment. Plaintiffs opposed summary judgment and sought discovery. In an order dated January 4, 2001, the district court denied plaintiffs' motion for discovery because the defendants' arguments "were based on matters of law, namely whether the individual defendants are entitled to immunity." In the same order, the court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment, finding that they were entitled to qualified immunity because, even if the plaintiffs' rights to marry and to access to the courts were violated, neither right was "so clearly established that a reasonable official would understand that his actions violate[d] that right."

The district court's January 4, 2001, order did not address the issue of attorney's fees. The parties therefore briefed the issue. The district court denied plaintiffs' request for attorney's fees, finding that plaintiffs were not prevailing parties under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (as explained by the Supreme Court in Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001)). Plaintiffs timely appealed, contending that the district court erred by (1) granting summary judgment before discovery had begun, (2) finding that defendants were protected by qualified immunity, (3) denying monetary damages without considering evidence on the issue, and (4) denying plaintiffs' request for attorney's fees.

II.

A. Grant of summary judgment before discovery

First, the Chaiffetzes contend that the district court erred by granting summary judgment before they had conducted discovery. We review for abuse of discretion. See Emmons v. McLaughlin, 874 F.2d 351, 356 (6th Cir.1989).

In this case, the district court did not abuse its discretion by granting summary judgment before discovery had commenced. The basis for the district court's decision was its finding that defendants were protected by qualified immunity, a purely legal question. Bell v. Johnson, 308 F.3d 594, 601 (6th Cir.2002) ("qualified immunity is a question of law"). To resolve that issue, the only question was whether plaintiffs' rights were "clearly established," thus putting defendants on notice that they may have been violating those rights. Although the...