Young v. Wall

• Decision Date: 05 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-220S.,03-220S.
• Parties: Edward Eugene YOUNG, Plaintiff, v. A.T. WALL, in his capacity as the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

359 F.Supp.2d 84

Edward Eugene YOUNG, Plaintiff, v. A.T. WALL, in his capacity as the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, Defendant.

No. 03-220S.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

March 5, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edward Eugene Young, Sr., Cranston, RI, pro se.

Andrew B. Prescott, Nixon Peabody LLP, Providence, RI, for Plaintiff.

Rebecca Tedford Partington, Attorney General's Office, Providence, RI, Patricia Anne Coyne-Fague, Department of Corrections, Cranston, RI, for Defendant.

DECISION AND ORDER

SMITH, District Judge.

Citizens have a protected property interest in the wages that are earned from their labor and the interest that accumulates from those wages. However, prisoners maintain diminished property rights, and therefore diminished ownership rights in earnings from labor performed while confined. In this case, Plaintiff Edward Eugene Young ("Plaintiff" or "Young"), a prisoner at the Adult Correctional Institutions ("ACI"), seeks to hold A.T. Wall ("Defendant" or "Wall"), as the director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections ("RIDOC"), liable for an unconstitutional "taking" under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.¹ Young alleges, among other things, that RIDOC, and/or the General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island, appropriate interest that accrues on amounts held in his prison accounts earned for labor he has performed while in prison. In response to Young's Complaint, the Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss. The matter was referred to Magistrate Judge Jacob Hagopian, who issued a thorough Report and Recommendation ("R & R") recommending dismissal of all claims except Young's claim alleging the Defendant's improper appropriation of interest. This Court agrees with Magistrate Judge Hagopian's recommendation dismissing Counts I-VI. This Court also agrees with the Magistrate Judge's recommendation denying the Motion to Dismiss Young's claim regarding appropriation of interest on prison accounts (Count VII). However, this Court reaches this result for a different reason than the Magistrate Judge, and thus writes separately. After reviewing the applicable case law and noting a split among the circuits, this Court finds that a prisoner does not maintain a constitutionally-protected property right in the interest accrued from wages for paid labor. Therefore, the appropriation of Young's interest earned on wages from paid labor cannot be a taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. However, prisoners have a limited property right in such interest which cannot be withdrawn without affording prisoners procedural due process. Accordingly, all of Young's claims are dismissed, except Count VII. In addition, Young's claim for declaratory relief, filed subsequent to the filing of the Complaint and issuance of the R & R, is dismissed without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.

I. Background

Young is currently a prisoner at the ACI. He was convicted for having sexual intercourse with a twelve-year-old girl, and was sentenced to a term of forty-five years in prison. While confined, Young has worked at the prison providing laundry services and has earned a small amount of wages.

On August 18, 2003, Young filed a sweeping Amended Complaint that asserted a laundry list of seven apparent claims for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He claims that: (1) he was wrongly confined in segregation for twenty-two days; (2) he was removed from his prison job; (3) he was not permitted to change his cell to a different tier; (4) he was attacked by fifteen inmates sometime between February 9, 1997, and February 19, 1997; (5) he was punched by an unnamed correctional officer on February 24, 2003; (6) he has been asked to participate in sexual activity with other inmates; and (7) RIDOC improperly takes the interest earned on his inmate accounts. With respect to this takings claim, Young alleges that he is required to place twenty-five percent of his earnings into a "frozen" account. He also maintains funds in a second so-called "open" account.² Young alleges that interest accrues on the money in those accounts and that the interest is improperly retained and invested by RIDOC and/or the General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island and not returned to the prisoners' accounts, as required by RIDOC policy. He claims that the appropriation of the interest by RIDOC amounts to an unconstitutional taking of his private property in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The Defendant filed a Motion to Dismiss all seven claims. The Motion to Dismiss was referred to Magistrate Judge Hagopian pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) for a report and recommendation. The R & R recommends that all of Young's claims be dismissed, except the claim alleging that the Defendant improperly "takes" the interest earned on Young's prison accounts in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

Although no objection to the R & R was filed in the present case, this Court maintains the authority to adopt or reject the recommendations of the Magistrate Judge, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b), which provide that a district judge "may accept, reject, or modify," in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate judge.

Following the issuance of Magistrate Judge Hagopian's R & R preserving the takings claim, Young, together with six other ACI prisoners and former prisoners, filed a Motion for Determination as Class, requesting that this Court certify their suit as a class action.³ Young also filed a Motion requesting declaratory relief for the Defendant's alleged failure to provide certain articles of clothing free of charge in violation of state law, which the Defendant has recently moved to dismiss.

II. Standard of Review

Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) provides that a party is entitled to the dismissal of actions that fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. In considering a motion to dismiss brought pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the court must accept the well-pleaded averments of the plaintiff's complaint as true, and view these facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Chongris v. Bd. of Appeals, 811 F.2d 36, 37 (1st Cir.1987). A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) will only be granted when it "appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts ... which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

III. Analysis

A. Takings Claim

Young brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

In order to maintain an action under § 1983, the conduct of which Young complains must be committed by a person acting under the color of state law and the conduct must have deprived him of a federal or state constitutional right. See Evans v. Avery, 100 F.3d 1033, 1036 (1st Cir.1996).

Young alleges that the Defendant violated his rights by "skim[ming] the interest payments" accruing to him from the principal held in his accounts, in violation of RIDOC Policy and Procedure 2.17-2 (the "Inmate Accounts Policy"). (Pl.'s Mot. Determ'n Class, Doc. No. 24, at 3.) The Inmate Accounts Policy states, in relevant part:

Return of investment earned on monies in the Inmate Account Fund accrues to the depositing inmates in an equitable fashion.... All inmate funds under the control of the RIDOC are kept in a custodial account with the Rhode Island General Treasurer. The Rhode Island General Treasurer prudently invests these funds. On a quarterly basis, the General Treasurer issues a return of investment on the custodial funds. The return of investment is distributed equitably to all inmate accounts that were active in the system on the day the return of investment was posted via a computer program.

As RIDOC's Director, Wall is statutorily responsible for the management of the Rhode Island prison system, see R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-56-10(5) (stating that Director of RIDOC shall "[m]anage, direct and supervise the operations of the department"), and is therefore clearly a state actor for purposes of § 1983.

The "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment provides that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." U.S. Const. amend. V.⁴ "[T]o state a Takings claim ... a plaintiff must first demonstrate that he possesses a `property interest' that is constitutionally protected. Only if the plaintiff actually possesses such an interest will a reviewing court then determine whether the deprivation or reduction of that interest constitutes a `taking.'" Givens v. Ala. Dep't of Corr., 381 F.3d 1064, 1066 (11th Cir.2004) (citations omitted); see Wash. Legal Found. v. Mass. Bar Found., 993 F.2d 962, 973 (1st Cir.1993).

The Fifth Amendment protects property interests; it does not create them. See Phillips v. Wash. Legal Found., 524 U.S. 156, 164, 118 S.Ct. 1925, 141 L.Ed.2d 174 (1998) (citing Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972)). Therefore, in order to ascertain the nature and extent of the protected property interest at issue, this Court must look outside the Takings Clause to "rules or understandings that stem from an independent source," such as common law and state law. Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701. While a state may create and define property rights, the Takings Clause limits a state's ability to redefine core property rights thereby sidestepping the Takings Clause. See Webb's Fabulous Pharm., Inc. v. Beckwith...