Friedman v. Salt Lake Cnty.

2013 UT App 137

CHARLES D. FRIEDMAN, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.SALT LAKE COUNTY, Defendant and Appellee.

No. 20110870-CA

UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

Filed May 31, 2013

Memorandum Decision

Third District, Salt Lake Department

The Honorable Anthony B. Quinn

No. 090916703

Charles D. Friedman, Appellant Pro Se

Zachary L. Lancaster, Attorney for Appellee

JUDGE MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN authored this Memorandum

Decision, in which JUDGES WILLIAM A. THORNE JR. and

STEPHEN L. ROTH concurred.

CHRISTIANSEN, Judge:

¶1 Charles D. Friedman appeals from the trial court's dismissal of his constitutional claims against Salt Lake County (the County). We affirm.

¶2 Friedman alleges that the County violated his rights under the Utah Constitution to due process, freedom from involuntary servitude, and the free exercise of his religion. See Utah Const. art. I, § 7 ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."); id. art. I, § 21 ("Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within thisState."); id. art. I, § 4 (guaranteeing "free exercise" of religion). In his complaint, Friedman seeks equitable relief and monetary damages.¹

¶3 In May 2009, Friedman was a federal prisoner being held at the Salt Lake County Adult Detention Center (the Detention Center).² On Saturday, May 9, 2009, during Friedman's recreation hour, a jail officer instructed Friedman to clean writing from his cell wall and Friedman refused. Friedman is Jewish and, accordingly, observes Saturday as his Sabbath. Jewish tenets require that he perform no work on Saturdays. While declining to clean his wall may have been consistent with his religious beliefs, Friedman's refusal to follow the officer's order constituted a violation of the Detention Center's rules. As a result, the officerfiled a Prisoner Violation Report and terminated the remainder of Friedman's recreation hour. Friedman filed two Prisoner Grievance Forms, requesting a written apology and claiming that the officer violated his constitutional right to the free exercise of his religion and his right to refuse forced labor. Friedman's requests for relief were denied. In response to Friedman's Prisoner Grievance Forms, the prison officials explained that it was a jail rule that he clean his cell every day. On May 11, 2009, a Prisoner Disciplinary Hearing Disposition held that Friedman was in violation of prisoner rules and regulations. Friedman's Prisoner Grievance Appeal was also denied. Thereafter, on October 6, 2009, Friedman filed a complaint with the trial court.

¶4 The trial court reviewed Friedman's complaint as a petition for extraordinary relief pursuant to rule 65B(b) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. See Utah R. Civ. P. 65B(a) ("Where no other plain, speedy and adequate remedy is available, a person may petition the court for extraordinary relief on any of the grounds set forth in paragraph (b) . . . ."); id. R. 65B(b) (governing "petitions claiming that a person has been wrongfully restrained of personal liberty"). On January 14, 2010, the trial court dismissed Friedman's due process and involuntary servitude claims as frivolous pursuant to rule 65B(b)(5). See id. R. 65B(b)(5) (explaining the procedure by which a court may dismiss a petition that is frivolous on its face). With respect to Friedman's free exercise claim, however, the trial court determined that it was not frivolous on its face and ordered the County to respond to Friedman's claim. The County subsequently filed a rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss Friedman's free exercise claim, which motion the trial court granted on July 29, 2011. See id. R. 12(b)(6) (providing a defense for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted").

¶5 Friedman did not petition for extraordinary relief under rule 65B. Rather, he filed a civil complaint seeking equitable and monetary relief. Additionally, Friedman challenges only the legal conclusions underlying the trial court's dismissal of his claims, and not their procedural posture. We therefore analyze all ofFriedman's claims pursuant to rule 12(b)(6) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure,³ and "we will affirm the trial court's dismissal only if it is apparent that as a matter of law, the plaintiff[] could not recover under the facts alleged." Bennett v. Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough, 2003 UT 9, ¶ 30, 70 P.3d 17 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

¶6 "Because a rule 12(b)(6) dismissal is a question of law, we give the trial court's ruling no deference and review it under a correctness standard." Tomlinson v. NCR Corp., 2013 UT App 26, ¶ 5, 296 P.3d 760 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). "Additionally, because interpreting the Utah Constitution presents a question of law, we review the trial court's determination for correctness and give no deference to its legal conclusions." Snyder v. Murray City Corp., 2003 UT 13, ¶ 17, 73 P.3d 325 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

¶7 In his due process claim, Friedman argues that the County's policies and practices violated his procedural due process rights by punishing him for practicing his religion without "a hearing orother process." In analyzing due process, the Utah Supreme Court has stated, "At a minimum, [t]imely and adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard in a meaningful way are at the very heart of procedural fairness." In re Worthen, 926 P.2d 853, 876 (Utah 1996) (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

¶8 Friedman has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. He has simply not "alleged enough in the complaint to state a cause of action" for a due process violation in this instance. See Alvarez v. Galetka, 933 P.2d 987, 989 (Utah 1997). The instruction to clean the writing off his cell wall and the filing of the Prisoner Violation Report were both conducted in accordance with the Detention Center's rules and regulations. Although Friedman's recreation hour was terminated before the full process was complete, Friedman has not met his burden of demonstrating that the County denied him due process during the initial disciplinary action or in the administrative review process that followed. In fact, Friedman was given a disciplinary hearing just two days after the alleged grievance arose. Friedman was also allowed to make a prisoner grievance appeal. Thus, we determine that Friedman's due process claim was properly dismissed.⁴

¶9 Friedman also argues that the trial court erred in dismissing his claim that the officer's order to clean his cell on his day of Sabbath constituted involuntary servitude. Friedman analogizes his situation to that of a guest at a hotel who is required to clean his own room.

¶10 The Utah Constitution, article I, section 21 states, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within this State." Utah Const. art. I, § 21. In his complaint, Friedman states that he was a "duly detained federal prisoner being held at the Salt Lake County Jail pursuant to a housing agreement between the United States Marshal Service and Salt Lake County." In his brief on appeal, he states that he "was an unsentenced federal detainee."

¶11 Even accepting the facts in Friedman's complaint as true, and therefore, assuming as true that Friedman had not yet been "duly convicted," see id., Friedman has failed to allege facts that would support a claim of involuntary servitude. By his own admission, at the time of the officer's order, Friedman was detained at the Detention Center. Every inmate of that facility is subject to its rules and regulations. The jail officer instructed Friedman to clean off "some nondescript writing" from his cell wall. In so doing, the officer was seeking to enforce the jail rule requiring inmates to clean their cells on a daily basis. After Friedman refused, explaining that it was his Sabbath, the officer penalized Friedmanby discontinuing his recreation hour pursuant to Detention Center rules and regulations.

¶12 Friedman's allegations do not give rise to involuntary servitude because Friedman essentially chose to disobey the officer's order to clean the wall and thereby have his recreation hour discontinued. He fails to allege any other repercussion as a result of the officer's Prisoner Violation Report. See Immediato v. Rye Neck Sch. Dist., 73 F.3d 454, 459 (2d Cir. 1996) ("In application, courts have consistently found the involuntary servitude standard is not so rigorous as to prohibit all forms of labor that one person is compelled to perform for the benefit of another. The Thirteenth Amendment [to the United States Constitution⁵ ] does not bar labor that an individual may, at least in some sense, choose not to perform, even where the consequences of that choice are 'exceedingly bad.'" (citation omitted)). In addition, the facts alleged by Friedman do not support a claim of "servitude" performed "foranother," as opposed to undertaking mere housekeeping chores in his own cell. See McGarry v. Pallito, 687 F.3d 505, 514 (2d Cir. 2012) ("Where a detainee is required to perform personally-related chores, this work is not for another. . . . [T]he Thirteenth Amendment may be violated if a[n] . . . institution requires inmates to perform chores which . . . are not personally related, but are required to be performed solely in order to assist in the defraying of institutional costs." (alterations in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)); Hause v. Vaught, 993 F.2d 1079, 1085 (4th Cir. 1993) (determining that "[d]aily general housekeeping responsibilities" did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition of involuntary servitude).

¶13 We conclude that Friedman has failed to state a claim that the County violated his right to be free from involuntary servitude. As a result, the trial court correctly...