Jackson v. Russo

495 F.Supp.2d 225

Sam A. JACKSON, Jr. v. Lois RUSSO, et al.

Civil Action No. 06-12044-RGS.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

July 11, 2007.

Sam A. Jackson, Jr., Shirley, MA, Pro se.

Daryl F. Glazer, Department of Correction, Boston, MA, for Lois Russo and Ryan M. Carney.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS AND PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

STEARNS, District Judge.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Sam A. Jackson, Jr., is an inmate at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) in Shirley, Massachusetts. Defendant Lois Russo is the Superintendent of SBCC. Defendant Ryan M. Carney is SBCC's Institutional Grievance Officer (IGO). Jackson's lawsuit involves prison regulations that govern the ways in which Massachusetts inmates receive vocational training, are assigned to prison jobs, and in some instances, compensated with a modest wage and an award of "good time" credits.¹ Jackson alleges that disparities in the benefits received by inmates enrolled in different prison vocational training programs violate the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection. Because the court is being asked by defendants to dismiss the lawsuit pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the court will take all facts alleged in the Complaint as true, supplemented by those facts asserted in Jackson's cross-motion for summary judgment that are not in dispute.

At various times while incarcerated at SBCC, Jackson enrolled in the prison Barber School, a vocational training program established under the auspices of Mass. Gen. Laws c. 127, § 48. The statute authorizes the Commissioner of Correction to provide education and vocational programs for the benefit of inmates.² Barber School students cut the hair of other inmates as part of their training. They are not paid for their services.³ Inmates enrolled in the culinary arts program, on the other hand, receive the equivalent of $1.00 per day for a 5-day work week. Culinary arts students also receive five days of "good time" credit for each month of good behavior. Barber School students, on the other hand, are able to earn only two and onehalf days of good time credit each month. Based on these differences, Jackson filed a grievance with IGO Carney. On August 17, 2006, IGO Carney rejected the grievance on grounds that the Barber School had been classified by the Commissioner as a vocational training program and not as a work assignment, and that compensation was therefore not authorized under prison regulations. He also held that Jackson had received all of the good time credits to which he was entitled for his attendance at the Barber School. Jackson appealed the decision to Superintendent Russo, who concurred with IGO Carney's rulings.

On November 6, 2006, Jackson filed this Complaint in the federal district court seeking a declaration that his constitutional rights had been violated. He also seeks the compensation and good time credits to which he had laid claim in the grievance. On March 12, 2007, Superintendent Russo and IGO Carney filed this motion to dismiss. On April 24, 2007, Jackson filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The court will first turn to the motion to dismiss as it is dispositive of the case.

DISCUSSION

A "complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim 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). The court should "accept as true the well-pleaded factual allegations of the complaint, draw all reasonable inferences therefrom in the plaintiffs favor, and determine whether the complaint, so read, limns facts sufficient to justify recovery on any cognizable theory." LaChapelle v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 142 F.3d 507, 508 (1st Cir.1998). However, in making this assessment, a court "will not accept a complainant's unsupported conclusions or interpretations of law." Washington Legal Found. v. Massachusetts Bar Found., 993 F.2d 962, 971 (1st Cir.1993). The elements of a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Federal Civil Rights Act, are "(i) that the conduct complained of has been committed under color of state law, and (ii) that this Conduct worked a denial of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States." Chongirs v. Bd. of Appeals, 811 F.2d 36, 40 (1st Cir.1987). See also Chiplin Enters., Inc. v. City of Lebanon, 712 F.2d 1524, 1526-1527 (1st Cir.1983). The first element of § 1983, that Superintendent Russo and IGO Carney are state officials and that the denial of Jackson's grievance was an exercise of official authority, is not open to dispute. See West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 50, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988). With respect to the second element, § 1983 "is not itself a source of substantive rights, but a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred by those parts of the United States Constitution and federal statutes that it describes." Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 144 n. 3, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979). The Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment are the sources of the federal rights that Jackson claims entitle him to redress.

Property Interests

Section 1983 creates a species of tort liability in favor of persons who suffer "deprivation of interests encompassed by the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of liberty and property." Bd. of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972). "The procedural protections of due process apply, however, only if there is an existing liberty or property interest at stake." O'Malley v. Sheriff of Worcester County, 415 Mass. 132, 135, 612 N.E.2d 641 (1993). "Property interests ... are not created by the Constitution. Rather they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law — rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits." Roth, 408 U.S. at 577, 92 S.Ct. 2701. Although the underlying property interest may be a creation of state law, whether that interest is tangible enough to merit the status of an entitlement protected by the Due Process Clause is a question of federal constitutional law. Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 9, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978). The interest to which an entitlement is claimed must be specific, something more than a need or desire, or a unilateral expectancy. Id. A benefit or interest is also not protected "if government officials may grant or deny it in their discretion." Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 756, 125 S.Ct. 2796, 162 L.Ed.2d 658 (2005).

Jackson's claim that as a prison barber he has a due process right to compensation might be argued in two ways, either as a personal right to engage in forprofit business activity while incarcerated, or as an entitlement to payment by prison authorities for the tonsorial services he provides to fellow inmates. Neither "right" however, is established by the federal Constitution. "[A] prisoner has no recognized right to conduct a business while incarcerated.... [T]he fourteenth amendment affords no protection to inmate business activities." French v. Butterworth, 614 F.2d 23, 24 (let Cir.1980). See also Garza v. Miller, 688 F.2d 480, 485-486 (7th Cir.1982) (a prison inmate has no constitutionally-based property or liberty interest in prison employment or educational courses); Garland v. Polley, 594 F.2d 1220, 1221 (8th Cir.1979) (a prisoner has no constitutionally-created liberty or property right to operate a business within the institution); Valentine v. Gray, 410 F.Supp. 1394, 1396 (S.D.Ohio 1975) (same, operating an outside business from within the institution). The Supreme Judicial Court has expressly held in an equal protection context that Massachusetts inmates "do not have an unqualified right to work and to receive the attendant benefits." Jackson v. Hogan, 388 Mass. 376, 379, 446 N.E.2d 692 (1983). See also Murphy v. Cruz, 52 Mass.App.Ct. 314, 319, 753 N.E.2d 150 (2001).

If there is a property right to a prison job or to compensation for a prison work assignment, the right would have to be one grounded in positive State law. It has long been the rule that a State may vest a prisoner with a protected property interest by operation of its statutes and regulations. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-557, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974) (good time credits statute). The Massachusetts statute on which Jackson relies, Mass. Gen. Laws c. 127, § 32, however, confers no such right. It simply exhorts superintendents of correctional institutions to treat inmates "with the kindness which their obedience, industry and good conduct merit." A more relevant statute, Mass. Gen. Laws c. 127, § 48A, expressly authorizes the Commissioner to establish a system of inmate compensation.

Subject to appropriation from the General Fund, the commissioner shall establish a system of compensation for inmates of the correctional institutions of the commonwealth who perform good and satisfactory work either within the industrial program or in the servicing and maintenance of the correctional institutions or in the prison camps. Upon the recommendation of any superintendent, the commissioner may establish a graduated scale of compensation to be paid inmates in accordance with their skill and industry, and the commissioner shall establish, and may at any time amend or annul, rules and regulations for carrying out the purposes of this section. No money shall be paid directly to any inmate during the term of his imprisonment.

The statute, as is apparent on its face, is premised on several contingencies including the appropriation of funds by the Legislature and the power of the Commissioner to amend or annul the implementing rules "at any...