LaChance v. Comm'r of Corr.

475 Mass. 757

60 N.E.3d 1157

Edmund LaCHANCE

v.COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION & others.¹

SJC–12016.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Argued March 10, 2016.

Decided Oct. 21, 2016.

William D. Saltzman, Boston, for the defendants.

James R. Pingeon for the plaintiff.

Present: GANTS, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, DUFFLY, LENK, & HINES, JJ.²

GANTS, C.J.

This appeal concerns an award of attorney's fees under the Federal Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), in a civil rights action brought by a Massachusetts prison inmate, Edmund LaChance. LaChance claimed that the defendants violated his constitutional due process rights by holding him in essentially solitary confinement in a special management unit (SMU) for ten months, without a hearing, while waiting to transfer or reclassify him. That litigation eventually resulted in our decision in LaChance v. Commissioner of Correction, 463 Mass. 767, 978 N.E.2d 1199 (2012) (LaChance I ), where we announced “for the first time that segregated confinement on awaiting action status for longer than ninety days gives rise to a liberty interest entitling an inmate to notice and a hearing,” and a written posthearing decision. Id. at 778, 978 N.E.2d 1199. See id. at 776–777, 978 N.E.2d 1199. On remand, a Superior Court judge entered declaratory judgment in favor of LaChance and awarded him $28,578.69 in attorney's fees and costs under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). The defendants are challenging that award in this appeal.

The principal issue before us is whether LaChance qualified for an award of fees as a “prevailing party” under § 1988(b), even though he had already been discharged in 2006 from the SMU detention that was the subject of his suit, long before he won any relief in his favor. The defendants argue that, in these circumstances, LaChance was not a prevailing party because the declaratory judgment he ultimately won was moot, and did not directly benefit him or materially alter his relationship with the defendants, at the time it was entered. We conclude, however, that LaChance does qualify as a prevailing party in the circumstances of this case, where the record demonstrates that (1) the declaratory judgment he obtained was not moot when entered, because it concerned a deprivation of civil rights of short duration that was capable of repetition against LaChance; and (2) LaChance directly benefited from that judgment at the time it was entered. We also reject the defendants' contention that the judge's award of fees to LaChance was unreasonable. Accordingly, we affirm the judge's award of attorney's fees and costs to LaChance.

Background. We briefly summarize the facts that gave rise to this litigation, which are detailed in LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 769–773, 978 N.E.2d 1199. LaChance has been in the custody of the Department of Correction (DOC) from the inception of this litigation through at least the submission of his brief on appeal. During most of this time, he was an inmate at Souza–Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC), a maximum security prison in Shirley. In December, 2005, he was assigned to SBCC's SMU for fourteen days as a sanction for throwing a cup of pudding at another inmate and later threatening to harm him. After completing this disciplinary detention, however, he continued to be held in the SMU for another ten months, from January to November, 2006, on “awaiting action” status pending his reclassification or transfer to another facility.³ LaChance did not leave the SMU and return to his previous placement until the other inmate involved in the altercation had been moved out of it. During his ten- month detention in the SMU, LaChance was in solitary confinement for all but a few hours per week. He was shackled whenever he left his cell; allowed only one hour of recreation per day, five days per week, in an unsheltered, outdoor cage; barred from educational, religious, vocational, and rehabilitative programming available to other inmates; and permitted only very limited visitation and library privileges. Although a prison official informally reviewed LaChance's status on a weekly basis and gave him written reports of the reviews, he was not given a hearing.

In an amended complaint filed in Superior Court in May, 2008, LaChance asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and G.L. c. 12, § 11I, alleging that the conditions of his SMU detention were at least as harsh as those in a departmental segregation unit (DSU), but he was denied the right to a hearing guaranteed in DOC regulations governing DSU confinement. See 103 Code Mass. Regs. §§ 421.00 (1994). He requested compensatory and punitive damages, a declaration that the defendants' actions were unlawful, and an award of costs including reasonable attorney's fees.

On April 6, 2010, a judge granted LaChance's motion for partial summary judgment on his claims for declaratory relief. Citing our decision in Haverty v. Commissioner of Correction, 437 Mass. 737, 776 N.E.2d 973 (2002), the judge concluded that LaChance's confinement in the SMU was substantially similar to confinement in a DSU, and that the defendants violated his constitutional due process rights by failing to provide him with the same procedural protections afforded by the DSU regulations.

In the same order, the judge allowed in part and denied in part the defendants' cross motion for summary judgment. The judge granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants on LaChance's claim under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, G.L. c. 12, §§ 11H and 11I, on the ground that LaChance had offered no evidence that the defendants had employed threats, intimidation, or coercion, a necessary element of that claim. See Layne v. Superintendent, Mass. Correctional Inst., Cedar Junction, 406 Mass. 156, 158, 546 N.E.2d 166 (1989). The judge also granted summary judgment in favor of two defendants on LaChance's claims for money damages against them in their official capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, because money damages against State officials are available only if they are sued in their individual capacities. See Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989) ; O'Malley v. Sheriff of Worcester County, 415 Mass. 132, 140–141, 612 N.E.2d 641 (1993). The judge denied the defendants' summary judgment motion, however, insofar as they argued that they could not be sued in their individual capacities because they enjoyed qualified immunity as government officials. He reasoned that after this court's decision in Haverty, supra, it should have been clear to the defendants that the conditions of LaChance's SMU confinement were substantially similar to those in a DSU and that LaChance was therefore entitled to the same procedural protections. The judge concluded that the defense of qualified immunity would therefore be unavailable to the defendants if they directly participated in this violation of LaChance's clearly established rights. See O'Malley, 415 Mass. at 142, 612 N.E.2d 641 (plaintiffs can overcome government officials' qualified immunity defense by showing that defendants directly participated in violating plaintiffs' clearly established rights).

The defendants sought interlocutory appeal under the doctrine of present execution from the judge's ruling on qualified immunity, ⁴ and we transferred the case on our own motion. we held that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and directed the Superior Court to enter summary judgment in their favor as to the damages claims against the individual defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We noted, “[g]overnment officials performing discretionary functions ... generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 777, 978 N.E.2d 1199, quoting Rodriques v. Furtado, 410 Mass. 878, 882, 575 N.E.2d 1124 (1991). We concluded that it would not have been clear to reasonable officers that their behavior violated LaChance's due process rights, because “neither State nor Federal law ha[d] clearly articulated the outer limit of what constitutes ‘reasonable’ segregated confinement on awaiting action status without the safeguards of procedural due process.” LaChance I, supra at 778, 978 N.E.2d 1199.

We then clearly articulated the outer limit of what Federal due process requires for reasonable segregated confinement on awaiting action status.⁵ We declared that, given the restrictions imposed on LaChance in the SMU, his ten-month detention on awaiting action status was not reasonable and gave rise to a liberty interest that was entitled to the protection of due process. LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 775–776, 978 N.E.2d 1199. We further held that the procedures followed by the DOC were insufficient to safeguard that interest. We concluded that “an inmate confined to administrative segregation on awaiting action status, whether such confinement occurs in an area designated as an SMU, a DSU, or otherwise, is entitled, as a matter of due process, to notice of the basis on which he is so detained; a hearing at which he may contest the asserted rationale for his confinement; and a posthearing written notice explaining the reviewing authority's classification decision.” Id. at 776–777, 978 N.E.2d 1199. We left it to the DOC to promulgate appropriate regulations, balancing the inmate's interest in challenging potentially arbitrary detention with prison officials' interest in securing reclassification or transfer of inmates. But we concluded that “in no circumstances may an inmate be held in segregated confinement on awaiting action status for longer than ninety days without a hearing.” Id. at 777, 978 N.E.2d 1199.

Upon remand, a different judge⁶ issued an order for entry of a final judgment in favor of LaChance, declaring that the defendants had violated LaChance's constitutional due process rights by...