Dunn v. Dunn, CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:14cv601–MHT (WO)

148 F.Supp.3d 1329

Joshua Dunn, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Jefferson S. Dunn, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, et al., Defendants.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:14cv601–MHT (WO)

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division.

Signed October 6, 2015

Alison Hardy, Corene Kendrick, Donald Specter, Rebekah B. Evenson, Sara Linda Norman, Prison Law Office, Berkeley, CA, Andrew Philip Walsh, Patricia Clotfelter, William Glassell Somerville, III, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, Birmingham, AL, Brent L. Rosen, Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, Ebony Glenn Howard, Jack Richard Cohen, Latasha Lanette McCrary, Maria V. Morris, Rhonda C. Brownstein, Valentina Restrepo, Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, AL, James Patrick Hackney, William Van Der Pol, Jr., Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Tuscaloosa, AL, Miriam Fahsl Haskell, Southern Poverty Law Center, Miami, FL, for Plaintiffs Alex Ball, Edward Braggs, Tedrick Brooks, Gary Lee Broyles, Richard Businelle, Bobby Copeland, Howard Carter, Chandler Clements, Robert Dillard, Christopher Gilbert, Dwight Hagood, Daletrick Hardy, Sylvester Hartley, Christopher Jackson, Brandon Johnson, Kenneth Moncrief, Tommie Moore, Matthew Mork, Zerrick Naylor, Bradley Pearson, Leviticus Pruitt, Turner Rogers, Jonathan Sanford, Timothy Sears, Brian Sellers, Augustus Smith, Richard Terrell, Hubert Tollar, Daniel Tooley, Joseph Torres, Donald Ray Turner, William Villar, Jamie Wallace, Robert Myniasha Williams, Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Roger Moseley, Quang Bui, Cherry Baker, Charlie Henderson, Paul Folsom, Sheila Allen, William Sullivan.

Bryan Arthur Coleman, Evan Patrick Moltz, Janine McKinnon McAdory, Mitchell David Greggs, Mitesh Bansilal Shah, Maynard, Cooper & Gale, PC, Birmingham, AL, John Garland Smith, Balch & Bingham LLP, Montgomery, AL, William Richard Lunsford, Melissa K. Marler, Stephen C. Rogers, Maynard Cooper and Gale PC, Huntsville, AL, for Defendants Kim Thomas, Ruth Naglich, Alabama Department of Corrections, Billy Sharp.

OPINION AND ORDER

Myron H. Thompson, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

The plaintiffs in this class-action lawsuit are more than 40 state prisoners and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program. The prisoners intend to represent a putative class of all prisoners in the state system.

If a class is certified, the litigation could affect over 25,000 prisoners in approximately 29 facilities. The defendants are the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), its Commissioner, and its Associate Commissioner of Health Services.

The plaintiffs assert the following claims: inadequate medical and mental-health treatment in Alabama prison facilities; denial of due process for involuntary mental-health treatment; failure to accommodate prisoners with disabilities; and retaliation against the plaintiffs for communicating with counsel in order to challenge these conditions of their confinement. They rely on the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments (as enforced through 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ); the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq. ); and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794 ). They seek declaratory and injunctive relief. Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question) and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (civil rights).

This litigation is before the court on the defendants' partial motion to dismiss. The defendants seek the dismissal of the claims of two named plaintiffs, Zerrick Naylor and Bradley Pearson, who have been released from prison since the case was filed. The defendants argue that these two plaintiffs lack standing and, alternatively, that their claims are moot. For the reasons set forth below, the defendants' motion will be denied with respect to standing. With respect to mootness, the motion will be reserved, and a hearing will be set to take additional evidence and hear further argument.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Naylor and Pearson are both disabled: Naylor is blind, and Pearson is hearing-impaired and communicates by sign language. They claim that they have been denied reasonable accommodations for their disabilities. Both also claim that, because of their disabilities, they have been denied access to certain programs, benefits, and services available to other prisoners. Other blind and deaf prisoners are also plaintiffs in this suit, but, Naylor and Pearson contend, no other plaintiffs were denied reasonable accommodations or programming in the same ways as they were.

This lawsuit was filed in June 2014. At that time, Naylor and Pearson were both in prison based on ‘split’ sentences. Under Alabama law, with certain crimes excepted, a court may ‘split’ a sentence of 20 years or less by requiring the defendant to serve a period of time in prison, suspending the remainder of the sentence, and requiring the defendant to serve a term of probation. See 1975 Ala. Code § 15–18–8(a)(1). Upon finding a violation of probation, the court may revoke the probation and require the defendant to serve the remainder of his original sentence in prison, less any time already served, or, depending upon the circumstances, impose a lesser prison sentence, modify the conditions of probation, or continue the defendant on probation. See generally 1975 Ala. Code § 15–18–8 ; Dixon v. Alabama, 912 So.2d 292 (Ala.Crim.App.2005).

In February 2015, more than seven months after this lawsuit was filed, Naylor and Pearson were released from ADOC custody and began to serve probation on split sentences. Naylor had served three years in prison, and Pearson, two years. Naylor will remain on probation and subject to conditions of release for three years; Pearson will remain on supervised probation for, at least, five years.¹ If they do not meet their conditions of probation, they could face a return to prison.

Since filing the original complaint, the plaintiffs have amended their pleadings several times. Naylor and Pearson were released from prison after the first amended complaint was filed; the second amended complaint, which added a new named plaintiff and some more-detailed factual allegations,² reflected these changes in their status.

II. DISCUSSION

After the second amended complaint was filed, the defendants moved to have Naylor and Pearson dismissed. The defendants argue that, because these two plaintiffs had been released from custody, their claims are now moot and based on the second amended complaint, they no longer have standing to proceed.

Standing and mootness are related but separate issues. “[T]he emphasis in standing problems is on whether the party invoking federal court jurisdiction has a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy and whether the dispute touches upon the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests.” U.S. Parole Comm'n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 397, 100 S.Ct. 1202, 63 L.Ed.2d 479 (1980) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Once a party has established standing to invoke the jurisdiction of the court, the claim he asserts must remain “live” throughout the pendency of the lawsuit—that is, it cannot become moot. See Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969).

Although the Supreme Court famously described mootness as “standing set in a time frame,” it has emphasized that “there are circumstances in which the prospect that a defendant will engage in (or resume) harmful conduct may be too speculative to support standing, but not too speculative to overcome mootness.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 190, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000). Therefore, the fact that a plaintiff would not now have standing to initiate a challenge to a given practice does not necessarily mean that a previously filed challenge has become moot.

Here, there is no dispute that Naylor and Pearson both had standing to bring suit when they filed their original complaint in June 2014.; that, since then, they have both been released; and that, when the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, they updated it to reflect that change. Whether Naylor and Pearson retain their personal stake in the lawsuit thus comes down to two questions: Did amending their complaint to reflect their release defeat their standing? And did their release moot their claims? Because standing is typically a preliminary determination, the court will begin with it.

A. Standing

As explained above, Naylor's and Pearson's claims concern the alleged denial of reasonable accommodations for their disabilities while in prison and the alleged denial of access to certain programs, benefits, and services on account of their disabilities. There is no dispute that they had standing when the first complaint was filed. Instead, the defendants argue that, because they had been released by the time the first amended complaint was filed, they no longer have standing. The court disagrees.

The standing inquiry asks whether such a dispute exists at the beginning of the litigation, as compared to the mootness inquiry, which asks whether such a dispute remains throughout the litigation. See Focus on the Family v. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Auth., 344 F.3d 1263, 1275 (11th Cir.2003) (standing is assessed “at the outset of the litigation” (citation omitted)); see also Cleveland Branch, NAACP v. City of Parma, 263 F.3d 513, 524 (6th Cir.2001) ( “[S]tanding does not have to be maintained.... Instead, it is to be determined as of the time the complaint is filed.”); Carr v. Alta Verde Indus., Inc., 931 F.2d 1055, 1061 (5th Cir.1991) (“As with all questions of subject matter jurisdiction except mootness, standing is determined as of the date of the filing of the complaint, and subsequent events do not deprive the court of jurisdiction.”).

Normally, a case begins, for standing purposes, when the initial complaint is filed. However, in a case which the defendants rely on, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has...