Vance v. Barrett

• Citation: 345 F.3d 1083
• Decision Date: 30 September 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-15870.,No. 01-15819.,01-15819.,01-15870.
• Parties: Daniel VANCE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jay BARRETT; E.K. McDaniel; Becky Messick; Robert Miller; Michael Scheel, Defendants-Appellees. Timothy H. Johnson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ron Angelone; Jay Barrett; E.K. McDaniel; Becky Messick; Robert Miller; Michael Scheel, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

345 F.3d 1083

Daniel VANCE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jay BARRETT; E.K. McDaniel; Becky Messick; Robert Miller; Michael Scheel, Defendants-Appellees.

Timothy H. Johnson, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Ron Angelone; Jay Barrett; E.K. McDaniel; Becky Messick; Robert Miller; Michael Scheel, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-15819.

No. 01-15870.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted November 7, 2002 — San Francisco, California.

Submission Deferred November 14, 2002.

Resubmitted September 30, 2003.

Filed September 30, 2003.

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Robert A. Brundage, Bingham McCutchen, LLP, San Francisco, California, argued the cause for the plaintiffs-appellants and filed briefs; Leslie G. Landau, was on the briefs.

T. Laura Lui, Deputy Attorney General, Carson City, Nevada, argued the cause for the defendants-appellees and filed briefs; Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General, Carson City, Nevada, was on the briefs.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada; David W. Hagen, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. Nos. CV-94-00229-DWH, CV-94-00362-DWH.

Before: Walter K. Stapleton,^* Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, and Ferdinand F. Fernandez, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge.

We are asked to decide constitutional challenges to the administration of inmate trust accounts by state prison authorities.

I

To avoid the attendant problems that one might imagine would arise from inmates keeping currency in their cells, Nevada Department of Prisons ("NDOP") inmates are required, by statute, to keep their money in a personal property trust fund run by the State of Nevada. Nev. Rev.Stat. 16 § 209.241(1) (1993).¹ Any money earned by an inmate during incarceration is credited to such fund, and any money sent to the inmate by outside sources such as friends and relatives is to be deposited in such fund.

Each inmate has a personal property account and a savings account. An inmate's personal property account is used for his personal needs. Twenty percent of an inmate's earnings from prison work are deposited into such account. The remaining eighty percent of an inmate's wages is automatically deposited in his savings account for use following incarceration. Once an inmate's savings account reaches a balance of $200 any amount in excess may be transferred to his personal account.

By statute, "interest and income earned on the money in the [overall] fund, after deducting any applicable charges, must be credited to the fund." Nev.Rev.Stat. 16 § 209.241(2)(c). Upon release, an inmate is entitled to his portion of the overall fund.

In 1994, NDOP promulgated a new fiscal agreement form and required all inmates to sign it to be eligible for prison employment. The fiscal agreement authorized prison officials to deduct, from the inmates' savings account, funeral expenses, any costs incurred by NDOP connected with an inmate's release, and "the cost of any expense incurred by NDOP on [the inmate's] behalf, whether [the inmate] incurred the expense voluntarily or involuntarily." None of these deductions were authorized by law. Id. § 209.246. It also required the inmates to certify that funds on deposit in their savings accounts will not accrue interest for their sole benefit.² If an inmate refused to sign the agreement, he or she was terminated from prison employment.

Daniel Vance and Timothy Johnson, NDOP inmates, (collectively "Vance") refused to sign the agreement and were subsequently fired from their prison jobs. Shortly thereafter, Vance brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that prison officials, Ron Angelone, Robert Miller, Becky Messick, E.K. McDaniel, Michael Scheel, and Jay Barrett (collectively "prison administrators" or "prison officials"), violated his constitutional rights by conditioning his employment on the waiver of his constitutionally protected property rights and by retaliating against him for refusing to waive such constitutional rights.³ He prayed for injunctive relief, lost wages of $20 a month, good time credits of 10 days per month, and punitive damages.

The district court granted the prison administrators' motion to dismiss, holding that because inmates have no constitutional right to prison employment Vance failed to state a valid claim. In Vignolo v. Miller, 120 F.3d 1075, 1078 (9th Cir.1997), we reversed. Our holding, however, was narrow, stating only that dismissal for failure to state a claim "on the bare ground that there is no constitutional right to prison employment" was reversible error. Id. We did not indicate how the claim should be analyzed.

Upon remand, the district court sua sponte consolidated the claims of Vance and Johnson because they are based on the same facts and law. Initially, the court granted the prison administrators' motion for summary judgment, holding that the fiscal agreement served a legitimate penological goal, but, upon Vance's motion for reconsideration, reversed itself, holding a genuine issue of material fact existed as to such issue.

The prison administrators thereafter moved for summary judgment again, this time predicating its request on qualified immunity, which was granted on the ground that Vance failed to prove that the law regarding unconstitutional conditions and retaliatory actions was clearly established. As evidence of the lack of clarity in the law, the district court cited its own mistake for dismissing the action for failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted: "The fact that there were different understandings about the nature of this right between this Court and the Ninth Circuit three years after the violation occurred leads this Court to find that this right was not `clearly established' at the time the `Fiscal Agreement' form was adopted." Canada v. Miller, No. CV-N-94-362-DWH, at 6 (D.Nev. Mar. 7, 2001) (order granting summary judgment). Vance and Johnson timely appeal.

II

The Supreme Court in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), reminded us that before we proceed to the question of qualified immunity, we first must ask: "Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right?" Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. If our answer is no, the case must be dismissed; there can be no valid cause of action. Id. It is only if "a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties' submissions," id. (emphasis added), that we must go on to determine whether the constitutional right was clearly established, and, if so, whether a reasonable prison official would have believed his conduct was clearly unlawful. Id. at 202-03, 121 S.Ct. 2151.

Accordingly, we first turn to the merits of Vance's claim.

A

Vance alleges that the prison administrators twice violated his constitutional rights: once, by placing an unconstitutional condition on his property rights in his inmate trust accounts (requiring him to sign a waiver to forgo accrued interest and consent to unauthorized deductions), and then again, by unconstitutionally retaliating against him when he sought to exercise such rights (firing him when he refused to sign the waiver). As a prerequisite to discerning a constitutional violation for an unconstitutional condition or unconstitutional retaliation, however, we must first examine the validity of the underlying alleged constitutional rights. Rizzo v. Dawson, 778 F.2d 527, 531 (9th Cir.1985) (retaliatory firing); Parks v. Watson, 716 F.2d 646, 651 (9th Cir.1983) (per curiam) (unconstitutional condition). If no constitutional rights would have been in jeopardy—in other words if NDOP could legally have simply confiscated Vance's net accrued interest—no claim for retaliation or unconstitutional conditions could be made out.

Vance raises two constitutional rights that NDOP jeopardizes in the fiscal agreement: (1) his Fifth Amendment right⁴ to just compensation for the "taking" of his interest, and (2) his Fourteenth Amendment due process right, which prohibits prison officials from confiscating accrued net interest without statutory authorization and process.⁵ Although these rights are similar,⁶ and in this case, arise from the same underlying government action, the protections afforded by each are distinct. The Takings Clause limits the government's ability to confiscate property without paying for it. It is "designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole." Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49, 80 S.Ct. 1563, 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960). The Due Process Clause, on the other hand, requires that the government provide appropriate procedural protections when taking such property-with or without compensation. See Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 541, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985) (holding that the Constitution requires constitutionally adequate procedures by which to deprive individuals of property interests). Both of these rights must be considered.

The Fifth Amendment provides that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S. Const. Amend. V. Although we have previously determined that NDOP inmates have a constitutionally protected property right to receive accrued interest, see Tellis, 5 F.3d at 1317, we have not delineated the extent of such rights. Because Vance's argument that state officials exceeded their authority goes to the core of his due process claim, a takings analysis is more logically confined to those deductions in fact authorized by statute. Without a statutory mandate, prison officials had no authority to confiscate inmates' property, and we analyze prison officials' ultra vires actions under the Due Process Clause below. But our first question is whether the state may allow state officials constitutionally to deduct "applicable...