Juncker v. Tinney

549 F. Supp. 574

Bernard JUNCKER v. James P. TINNEY, III, et al.

Civ. No. Y-80-2963.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

September 3, 1982.

Bernard Juncker, pro se.

Carmina Szunyog, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOSEPH H. YOUNG, District Judge.

Plaintiff, an inmate at the Maryland Correctional Institution, brings the following claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983:

In all cells within the institution, there are radiators that get extremely hot. There are no covers on said radiators to protect inmates from sustaining severe burns. On October 22, 1980, I was severely burnt on my radiator.

He seeks $110,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction directing the defendants to place protective coverings on all radiators in the institution.

The defendants moved to dismiss, on the ground that allegations of negligence fail to state a claim under § 1983. This position is no longer tenable in light of Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981) (hereinafter Parratt), decided after defendants' motion. However, Parratt raises the question of whether plaintiff fails to state a claim for a different, but related, reason.

In Parratt, an inmate alleged that certain hobby materials that he had ordered by mail were lost because the normal prison procedures for handling mail packages were not followed. The inmate sued certain prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to recover the value of the hobby materials, claiming that the officials had negligently deprived him of a property interest without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that, despite the fact that the plaintiff alleged only negligence on the part of the prison officials, plaintiff's claim met the three prerequisites of a due process claim, namely, that the prison officials acted under color of state law, that the hobby materials fell within the definition of property and that the officials' acts deprived the inmate of that property. Id. at 536-37, 101 S.Ct. at 1913-14. Nevertheless, the Court held that the inmate failed to state a claim under § 1983, because the deprivation was not without due process of law.

The Court observed that this case involves

a tortious loss of a prisoner's property as a result of a random and unauthorized act by a state employee. In such a case, the loss is not a result of some established state procedure and the State cannot predict precisely when the loss will occur. It is difficult to conceive of how the State could provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation takes place. The loss of property, although attributable to the State as action under "color of law," is in almost all cases beyond the control of the State. Indeed, in most cases it is not only impracticable, but impossible to provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation.

Id. at 541, 101 S.Ct. at 1915. Relying upon the principal that due process does not always require a pre-deprivation hearing when the State takes a person's property, the Court held that the inmate's post-deprivation remedy in the form of a lawsuit brought under the state tort claims act satisfied the requirements of due process. Therefore, the Court held, the alleged deprivation, while wrongful, was not "without due process of law," and the inmate's claim failed to state a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

As in Parratt, the instant case involves alleged negligence on the part of defendants in permitting hazardous conditions to exist in the prison. Unlike Parratt, this case involves not a property interest but a liberty interest, namely, plaintiff's right not to be subjected to physical injury without due process of law. The question thus before the Court is whether the analysis in Parratt applies to a case involving negligent deprivation of a liberty interest.

The lower courts have divided on this issue. Two courts have applied Parratt to negligent deprivations of liberty interests. Eberle v. Baumfalk, 524 F.Supp. 515 (N.D. Ill. 1981); Peery v. Davis, 524 F.Supp. 107 (E.D.Va. 1981). One court has refused this application. Haygood v. Younger, 527 F.Supp. 808 (E.D.Cal. 1981). Two other courts discussed Parratt and held that plaintiff stated a 1983 claim for negligent deprivation of a liberty interest, without specifically considering whether plaintiff had state remedies that satisfied due process. Riley v. Johnson, 528 F.Supp. 333 (E.D. Mich. 1981); Watson v. McGee, 527 F.Supp. 234 (S.D.Oh. 1981).

Two courts have applied Parratt to intentional deprivations of liberty interests. Ellis v. Hamilton, 669 F.2d 510 (7th Cir.1982); Rutledge v. Arizona Board of Regents, 660 F.2d 1345 (9th Cir.1981). Two courts have refused to follow this reasoning. Wakinekona v. Olim, 664 F.2d 708 (9th Cir. 1981); Bryant v. Commissioner of Social Services of City of New York, 530 F.Supp. 1175 (S.D.N.Y. 1982).

One Court has applied Parratt to a negligent deprivation of a life interest. Meshkov v. Abington Township, 517 F.Supp. 1280 (E.D.Pa. 1981).

This Court holds that Parratt applies to the negligent deprivation of a liberty interest.

The logic of Parratt permits no principled distinction between deprivations of property and liberty interests. If a deprivation results from a "random and unauthorized act" by a state official, the State is no more able to predict the deprivation, and a pre-deprivation hearing is no more possible, when the deprivation involves a liberty interest than when it involves a property interest. Therefore, if plaintiff has an adequate post-deprivation remedy in state court, that should satisfy the requirements of due process and plaintiff should not be permitted to bring a § 1983 claim in federal court.

Certain language in Parratt concerning the relationship between that case and an earlier case, Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S.Ct. 1401, 51 L.Ed.2d 711 (1977) (hereinafter Ingraham), strongly suggests that the majority in Parratt believed that their reasoning would apply to a case involving a liberty interest. In Ingraham, students at a Florida junior high school claimed that corporal punishment violated their constitutional rights. The Court held that, while the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause does not apply to corporal punishment in public schools, the students' Fourteenth Amendment rights were implicated because there was a liberty interest at stake. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that plaintiffs failed to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981-88. The Court held that plaintiffs' remedy in state court, in the form of a tort action for excessive corporal punishment, constituted due process, and that plaintiffs therefore had not been deprived of a liberty interest without due process of law. By way of explanation, the Court quoted the following passage from a law review article:

"Prior hearings might well be dispensed with in many circumstances in which the state's conduct, if not adequately justified, would constitute a common-law tort. This would leave the injured plaintiff in precisely the same posture as a common-law plaintiff, and this procedural consequence would be quite harmonious with the substantive view that the fourteenth amendment encompasses the same liberties as those protected by the common law." Monaghan, Of "Liberty" and "Property," 62 Cornell L.Rev. 405, 413 (1977) (footnote omitted).

430 U.S. at 679, n. 47, 97 S.Ct. at 1416 n. 47.

Parratt, at 542-43, 101 S.Ct. at 1916-17, relied upon the Ingraham analysis and stated that the reasoning of Parratt was consistent with the earlier case. This clearly suggests that the Supreme Court considers it appropriate to apply the Parratt analysis to cases involving deprivations of liberty interests.¹,² This conclusion is further supported by the concluding paragraph of Parratt, suggesting that certain personal injury cases should not be brought under § 1983:

Our decision today is fully consistent with our prior cases. To accept respondent's argument that the conduct of the state officials in this case constituted a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment would almost necessarily result in turning every alleged injury which may have been inflicted by a state official acting under "color of law" into a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment cognizable under § 1983. It is hard to perceive any logical stopping place to such a line of reasoning. Presumably, under this rationale any party who is involved in nothing more than an automobile accident with a state official could allege a constitutional violation under § 1983. Such reasoning "would make of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States." Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 701, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 1160, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976). We do not think that the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the Amendment to play such a role in our society.

451 U.S. at 544, 101 S.Ct. at 1917.

Several other Supreme Court cases hold that a tort claim involving a liberty interest does not state a claim under § 1983 merely because the alleged tortfeasor was a state official. In Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976), plaintiff alleged that police officials injured his reputation by circulating a flyer that incorrectly identified him as a shoplifter. The Court held that this stated a classic claim for defamation under state tort law and that plaintiff therefore failed to state a claim under § 1983.³ In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), the Court held that medical malpractice does not become a constitutional violation merely because the victim is an inmate in a state prison. In Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), the Court held that a claim of false imprisonment against a sheriff failed to state a claim under § 1983, because, while the detention may have been tortious, it was not a...