Jones v. Jeffreys

2021 IL App (4th) 200202-U

GREGORY D. JONES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROB JEFFREYS, TERI KENNEDY,KENDRA WOLF, JACOB DALTON, NANCY JOHNSON,STEPHEN MALCOME, and SHARON SIMPSON, Defendants-Appellees.

NO. 4-20-0202

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FOURTH DISTRICT

February 17, 2021

NOTICE

This Order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Livingston County

No. 19MR22

Honorable Jennifer H. Bauknecht, Judge Presiding.

JUSTICE HARRIS delivered the judgment of the court.

Justices DeArmond and Steigmann concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶ 1 Held: The trial court properly dismissed plaintiff's petition for common-law writ of certiorari for failure to state a claim pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018)).

¶ 2 In March 2019, plaintiff, Gregory D. Jones, an inmate in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC), while incarcerated at the Pontiac Correctional Center, filed a petition for a common law writ of certiorari alleging defendants, various DOC officials, employees, and agents, deprived him of his due process rights during prison disciplinary proceedings and retaliated against him for exercising his first amendment rights. The trial court dismissed plaintiff's petition in April 2020 pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018)). Plaintiff appeals, pro se, arguing the court erred in granting defendants' motions to dismiss his petition because he sufficiently stated a claim for relief based on defendants' alleged violations of his due process rights and because he stated a cause of action for retaliation. We affirm.

¶ 3 I. BACKGROUND

¶ 4 On March 15, 2019, plaintiff filed a complaint for a common law writ of certiorari in the trial court seeking judicial review of DOC disciplinary proceedings which were conducted in September 2018. In his complaint, plaintiff named the following DOC officials, employees, and agents as defendants: John Baldwin (Director of DOC), Jacob Dalton (adjustment committee member), Nancy Johnson (licensed practical nurse employed by a private firm contracted to provide services to DOC inmates), Terri Kennedy (warden of Pontiac Correctional Center), Stephen Malcome (correctional officer), Sharon Simpson (grievance officer), and Kendra Wolf (adjustment committee member). (We note Johnson filed a brief separate from the other defendants. However, considering the similarities between the defendants' arguments, with only one exception, we will not attempt to attribute an argument to an individual defendant. Also, according to the government defendants' brief, Rob Jeffreys has succeeded John Baldwin as Director of DOC and should be substituted as a party in the appeal caption pursuant to section 2-1008(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-1008(d) (West 2018)).

¶ 5 In plaintiff's petition, he alleged multiple violations of his due process rights relating to the disciplinary proceedings. Plaintiff claimed his due process rights had been violated in that: (1) Baldwin, Dalton, Johnson, Kennedy, Malcome, and Wolf knowingly submitted or approved false information against him; (2) Baldwin, Dalton, and Wolf failed to comply with DOC regulations; and (3) Simpson failed to respond to grievances plaintiff submitted related to the disciplinary proceedings. Plaintiff also alleged he was being retaliated against for speaking withthe Illinois State Police investigators about an alleged murder of an inmate at the Pontiac Correctional Center by two correctional officers at the facility. Specifically, plaintiff alleged Johnson and Malcome filed a "spurious disciplinary report" the day before he was to be transferred to a different, "safer" correctional facility. Plaintiff further alleged other staff at the Pontiac Correctional Center had sexually assaulted him, injured him, threatened him, denied him medical care, kept his "legal filings" and mail from him, and "celled" him with "a known enemy for harm by proxy." Although plaintiff references several exhibits in the body of his petition, none are contained in the record.

¶ 6 Defendants filed motions to dismiss plaintiff's petition pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018)), alleging plaintiff failed to state facts sufficient to plead a cause of action. Attached to one of the motions filed by defendants was an unsigned, two-page DOC adjustment committee final summary report, which is the only document in the record from the September 2018 prison disciplinary proceedings. The following information is gleaned from the final summary report.

¶ 7 On September 11, 2018, Johnson and Officer Lorrie Puttkammer filed "tickets" against plaintiff. In her ticket, Johnson claimed she was passing out medication in the gallery in which plaintiff was housed when he "became insolent and argumentative about his meds being crushed." Plaintiff began shouting at Johnson and threw the cup containing his medication at her. The cup struck Johnson's forearm. Later that day, Officer Puttkammer filed a ticket in which she claimed she discovered five "white colored pills" while performing a shakedown of plaintiff's cell. Based on these tickets, plaintiff was charged with assault, insolence, and possession of contraband. On September 18, 2018, the adjustment committee, which consisted of Dalton and Wolf,conducted a hearing to consider the charges. During the hearing, plaintiff denied that he threw anything at Johnson or argued with her. He further claimed the pills Puttkammer found were his glucosamine medication, which he had saved to take the following morning when he was to be transferred to a different facility. One witness was called at plaintiff's request. That witness informed the adjustment committee he "d[id not] recall" the incident. The adjustment committee determined plaintiff committed the charged offenses and recommended the imposition of one month of "C Grade," one month of segregation, one month of audio/visual restriction, and six months of contact visit restriction. Kennedy approved the adjustment committee's decision and recommendations. Plaintiff was served with the final summary report on October 9, 2018.

¶ 8 Plaintiff later filed responses to defendants' motions to dismiss.

¶ 9 On April 8, 2020, the trial court entered an order granting defendants' motions to dismiss. In its order, the court found, following the adjustment committee hearing, plaintiff "did not lose any good time" and the "discipline imposed only affected plaintiff's confinement and not the duration of his sentence." Therefore, the court concluded, "due process [was] not implicated." The court additionally found plaintiff's claims of retaliation were "conclusory and not supported by any factual allegations."

¶ 10 This appeal followed.

¶ 11 II. ANALYSIS

¶ 12 On appeal, plaintiff argues the trial court erred in granting defendants' section 2-615 motions to dismiss his petition for a writ of certiorari because his claims for relief based on alleged violations of his due process rights and retaliation were legally sufficient. We review plaintiff's claims de novo. See Roberts v. Board of Trustees of Community College District No.508, 2019 IL 123594, ¶ 21, 135 N.E.3d 891.

¶ 13 As an initial matter, we address Johnson's argument that plaintiff's brief does not comply with Illinois Supreme Court Rule 341(h)(6) (eff. May 25, 2018) and should be stricken. Rule 341(h)(6) requires an appellant to include in his brief a statement of facts section containing "the facts necessary to an understanding of the case *** with appropriate reference to the pages of the record on appeal." Ill. S. Ct. R. 341(h)(6) (eff. May 25, 2018). Johnson correctly notes that plaintiff's brief does not conform to the rule. Adherence to Rule 341 is "not an inconsequential matter. *** Where an appellant's brief fails to comply with the rule[ ], this court has inherent authority to dismiss the appeal for noncompliance with its rule[ ]." LaGrange Memorial Hospital v. St. Paul Insurance Company, 317 Ill. App. 3d 863, 876, 740 N.E.2d 21, 32 (2000). Plaintiff's pro se status does not excuse his noncompliance with Rule 341. See Evans v. Godinez, 2014 IL App (4th) 130686, ¶ 40, 21 N.E.3d 1280. However, dismissal of an appeal for noncompliance is not required "so long as we understand the issue plaintiff intends to raise and especially where the court has the benefit of a cogent brief of the other party." Twardowski v. Holiday Hospitality Franchising, Inc., 321 Ill. App. 3d 509, 511, 748 N.E.2d 222, 226 (2001). Here, we sufficiently understand plaintiff's contentions and thus decline to dismiss his appeal.

¶ 14 "A section 2-615 motion to dismiss challenges the legal sufficiency of a complaint based on defects apparent on its face." Beacham v. Walker 231 Ill. 2d 51, 57, 896 N.E.2d 327, 331 (2008). "A complaint is insufficient if it states mere conclusions of fact or law, and it must, at a minimum, allege facts sufficient to set forth the essential elements of a cause of action." Razor Capital v. Antaal, 2012 IL App (2d) 110904, ¶ 27, 972 N.E.2d 1238. When reviewing a claim that the trial court erred in dismissing a pleading pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of CivilProcedure, this court must determine "whether the allegations of the [pleading], when taken as true and viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, are sufficient to state a cause of action upon which relief can be granted." Cowper v. Nyberg, 2015 IL 117811, ¶ 12, 28 N.E.3d 768.

¶ 15 A. Plaintiff's Due Process Claim

¶ 16 "Procedural due process protections are triggered only when a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest is at stake, to which a person has a legitimate claim of entitlement." Hill v. Walker, 241 Ill. 2d 479, 485, 948 N.E.2d 601, 604 (2011). This court recently set forth the following two-step analytical framework...