Griffin v. Thomas

95 P.3d 1044

136 N.M. 129

Matthew James GRIFFIN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John THOMAS, M. Priscilla Gallegos, Effrin Montoya, Tim Lemaster, Lawrence Tafoya, Gerald Ortiz, and Norrice Aguilar, Individually and in their official capacities as employees of the New Mexico Corrections Department, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 23,212.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

May 20, 2004.

Matthew James Griffin, Stillwater, MN, Pro se Appellant.

Christopher M. Harrington, Office of General Counsel, Kathleen M.V. Oakey, Deputy General Counsel, New Mexico Corrections Department, Santa Fe, for Appellees.

OPINION

PICKARD, Judge.

{1} This case requires us to examine the elements that constitute a claim that prison officials have taken retaliatory disciplinary actions in violation of a prisoner's First Amendment rights. On remand after our 1997 case of Griffin v. Thomas, 1997-NMCA-009, 122 N.M. 826, 932 P.2d 516 (hereinafter Griffin I), the parties in this case resumed litigation on Plaintiff's claims of due process and First Amendment violations. The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants on both claims and dismissed Plaintiff's complaint with prejudice. Plaintiff claims that the district court erred (1) in granting summary judgment on the First Amendment claim, (2) in granting summary judgment on the due process claim, (3) in denying his motion for a continuance, (4) in issuing a protective order limiting his discovery, (5) in issuing a 1994 order dismissing his claims against some Defendants in a manner not calculated to alert the parties that the order was final, (6) in denying his motion for law library access, and (7) in dismissing his complaint with prejudice. We reverse the grant of summary judgment on the First Amendment claim and affirm the grant of summary judgment on the due process claim. We affirm all other issues.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

{2} Plaintiff was an inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. In 1992, he was charged with willful destruction of state property for damaging an intercom device. He was found guilty of misconduct and received various administrative sanctions, including monetary restitution of $98. He unsuccessfully attempted to appeal this decision through the prison's administrative process.

{3} On November 2, 1993, Plaintiff filed a grievance alleging staff misconduct in transferring him to a housing unit where it might appear to other inmates that he was an informant. On November 19, 1993, Plaintiff was assigned a two-person escort. On December 9, 1993, Plaintiff filed another grievance alleging the withholding of discovery materials in a civil case, and on December 17th, Plaintiff was assigned a three-person escort. These security restrictions allegedly precluded Plaintiff from participating in the institutional work program. In January and February 1994, Plaintiff was charged with and found guilty of several other instances of misconduct, which he unsuccessfully appealed through the prison's administrative process.

{4} In July 1994, Plaintiff filed a complaint in district court alleging that the process leading to the $98 sanction violated his due process rights. Plaintiff's complaint also argued that the two- and three-person escorts were initiated to retaliate against him for filing appeals and grievances. The complaint named Defendants John Thomas, Effrin Montoya, M. Priscilla Gallegos, Gerald Ortiz, Norrice Aguilar, Thomas Craig, Tim LeMaster, and Lawrence Tafoya, all as individuals and in their official capacities as employees of the Corrections Department.

{5} In August 1994, Defendants Thomas, Montoya, Gallegos, and LeMaster moved to dismiss, citing lack of subject matter jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, and failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, among other arguments. After briefing from both sides, the district court issued an order of dismissal as to Defendants Thomas, Montoya, Gallegos, and LeMaster in October 1994. In November 1994, Plaintiff moved for reconsideration of this order, while Defendant Craig moved for dismissal of Plaintiff's amended complaint. In May 1995, the district court dismissed Plaintiff's claims against Defendant Craig on the same grounds that supported dismissal of Plaintiff's claims against the other Defendants. Plaintiff again objected to the dismissal.

{6} At this point, all Defendants moved to dismiss the entire amended complaint, arguing that res judicata barred any claims against Defendants who had been previously dismissed and articulating the same arguments as in prior motions to support dismissal of the original complaint against the remaining Defendants. After a hearing in October 1995, the district court dismissed Plaintiff's amended complaint in its entirety, finding that he had failed to state a claim for any constitutional violation for either due process or First Amendment violations, and dismissing the balance of his claims for other reasons that are not pertinent to this appeal. Plaintiff appealed this order, resulting in Griffin I.

{7} We upheld the dismissal of Defendants Thomas, Montoya, Gallegos, LeMaster, and Craig, holding that Plaintiff had failed to timely appeal the dismissal of his claims against them. Id. ¶ 7. We reversed the dismissal of Plaintiff's due process claims against the remaining Defendants (Ortiz, Aguilar, and Tafoya), holding that Plaintiff had stated a claim sufficiently. Id. ¶ 10. Finally, we held that the remaining Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on the First Amendment claims because Plaintiff's speech was protected. Id. ¶ 12. We remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. Id. ¶ 15.

{8} Plaintiff attempted to commence discovery in June 1997. Defendants did not respond to Plaintiff's discovery requests in any manner, and Plaintiff filed a motion for sanctions in September 1997. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, a motion for summary judgment, in October 1997. At the same time, Defendants moved for a protective order to postpone discovery until resolution of the motion to dismiss. After a hearing, the district court granted a limited protective order that protected Defendants from having to answer Plaintiff's initial interrogatories and required that any additional discovery requests from Plaintiff be withheld until after Defendants' reply brief on the motion to dismiss. Additionally, the protective order required Plaintiff to file all future discovery requests through the court. The record indicates that Plaintiff did not make any subsequent discovery requests.

{9} As briefing on the motion to dismiss continued, Plaintiff made a motion for law library access in December 2000, asserting that the penitentiary was implementing the Corrections Department policy on library access and prisoner legal assistance in a manner that effectively denied him access to the courts. Defendants responded to the motion, and Plaintiff then withdrew his original motion and substituted a new one, requesting access to the law library and court-appointed counsel. Although Defendants responded again, the record does not indicate that the district court ever issued an order on the motion. In January 2002, Plaintiff filed a motion for an order to show cause, essentially reasserting his legal access arguments, but this time in a request to hold Deputy General Counsel Ida Lujan (Lujan) of the Corrections Department in contempt. Lujan responded, noting the lapse in time since Plaintiff's original law library access motion and the fact that Plaintiff had been incarcerated in a Virginia facility, but was at the time again incarcerated in New Mexico. She requested a ruling on the motion without a hearing, but no formal order was ever issued.

{10} Finally, after a hearing on February 19, 2002, the district court dismissed Plaintiff's amended complaint in its entirety, with prejudice. Plaintiff appeals from this order.

DISCUSSION

ISSUE ONE: The district court erred in granting summary judgment on Plaintiff's First Amendment claim.

{11} Plaintiff argues that summary judgment on his First Amendment claim was improper because there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Defendants' acts were retaliatory. When reviewing a motion for summary judgment, the burden rests on the moving party to show that there is no genuine issue of material fact. Archuleta v. Goldman, 107 N.M. 547, 550, 761 P.2d 425, 428 (Ct.App.1987). However, "[o]nce the movant has made a prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the non-moving party to show reasonable doubt as to a genuine factual issue or that the movant is not entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id.

{12} First, we address the contours of a case where there is alleged a violation of a prisoner's First Amendment rights through retaliatory disciplinary action. This is an issue of first impression in New Mexico. We begin our search for an appropriate standard for New Mexico law with a brief discussion of a related claim from the area of employment law: retaliatory discharge. We then apply those contours in the context of a summary judgment proceeding.

a. Retaliatory employment action cases

{13} A public employer is not permitted to discharge an employee "for reasons that infringe his or her free-speech interests." Martinez v. City of Grants, 1996-NMSC-061, ¶ 15, 122 N.M. 507, 927 P.2d 1045. When a public employee alleges that a retaliatory employment action has taken place based on protected speech, he or she can state a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2000). Jacobs v. Stratton, 94 N.M. 665, 667, 615 P.2d 982, 984 (1980). Our courts have derived their approach in these cases from federal cases tackling the same issue.

{14} Our starting point is the United States Supreme Court case of Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968). The employee in Pickering was a high school teacher who had been dismissed after...