Appeal
from the Superior Court No. 1JU-15-00657 CI of the State of
Alaska, First Judicial District, Juneau, Philip M.
Pallenberg, Judge.
Billy
Dean Smith, pro se, Seward, and Jacob Lee Anagick, pro se,
Kenai, Appellants.
Matthias Cicotte, Assistant Attorney General, Anchorage, and
Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellees.
Before: Bolger, Chief Justice, Stowers, Maassen, and Carney,
Justices.
Winfree, Justice, not participating.
OPINION
CARNEY, Justice.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Two
prisoners in Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) custody
were placed in administrative segregation pending an
investigation and disciplinary proceedings related to an
alleged escape attempt. The disciplinary decisions were later
overturned on appeal to the superior court based on
procedural defects. However, the prisoners had lost their
Prison Industries jobs because of the administrative
segregation placements. They filed a civil suit against two
DOC officers in superior court, alleging due process
violations and seeking damages for lost wages and property.
The case was removed to federal court; the federal judge
ruled that the inmates lacked a constitutionally protected
interest in their jobs and that the DOC officers were
entitled to qualified immunity.
Meanwhile,
the prisoners filed another complaint in the superior court,
this time naming the officers in both their official and
individual capacities and raising due process claims under
both the United States and Alaska Constitutions. After both
parties cross-moved for summary judgment, the superior court
granted summary judgment for the DOC officers. The court
found that, although the federal judgment did not bar the
prisoners' complaint under the doctrine of res judicata,
their constitutional claims lacked merit and the DOC officers
were entitled to qualified immunity.
The
prisoners appeal, arguing that they have a constitutionally
protected interest in their jobs; that this interest was
clearly established and therefore precludes a qualified
immunity defense; that the superior court made various
procedural errors; and that it did not adequately instruct
the unrepresented prisoners on how to pursue their claims.
Because we find that the administrative segregation hearings
conducted by DOC satisfied any due process requirements to
which the prisoners may have been entitled, and because the
superior court did not abuse its discretion in any of its
procedural rulings, we affirm the superior court's grant
of summary judgment.
II.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
A.
Facts
Billy
Dean Smith and Jacob Lee Anagick are prisoners in DOC
custody. In 2011 they were housed at Lemon Creek Correctional
Center and worked in a Prison Industries program providing
laundry services to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
On
September 12, 2011, Lemon Creek officers conducted a
"shakedown," or unannounced search, of the prison
employment building based on information they had received
"concerning a plan of an escape." According to the
incident reports on the "shakedown," DOC officers
found potential escape implements - lengths of rope, a tarp,
clothing that had not been issued by Lemon Creek, and a trash
bag holding pieces of dry wood and empty condiment bottles -
at Smith's and Anagick's work stations. The reports
do not specify the source of the tip, although Smith and
Anagick apparently believed the informant to be an officer.
Smith and Anagick claimed that the informant did not
specifically name any of the prisoners allegedly planning to
escape. Smith and Anagick have consistently denied any intent
or plan to escape.
The
next day Lemon Creek officers placed Smith and Anagick in
administrative segregation pursuant to 22 Alaska
Administrative Code (AAC) 05.485.[1]An administrative segregation
hearing was held six days later.[2] The classification committee
recommended that the prisoners remain in segregation
"[p]ending the outcome of an ongoing
investigation," finding that they posed "a
substantial risk to the security of the facility" and
"a substantial and immediate threat to the
public."[3] Lemon Creek's superintendent approved
the committee's recommendation a day later.[4] As a result of
the administrative segregation placement, Smith and Anagick
were terminated from their Prison Industries laundry jobs.
Smith and Anagick were transferred from Lemon Creek to Spring
Creek Correctional Center in January 2012. Officials at
Spring Creek reviewed their administrative segregation
placements following the transfer and maintained the
placements until May 2012.
In
related disciplinary proceedings Smith and Anagick were found
to have possessed escape implements. They successfully
appealed to the superior court, which overturned the
disciplinary decisions because of procedural
defects.[5] In his appeal to the superior court Smith
also attempted to raise claims for lost wages, but the court
concluded that such claims "would have to be brought in
a separate civil action."
In
September 2013, with their disciplinary appeals pending,
Smith and Anagick filed a civil rights action in superior
court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Lemon Creek
superintendent and a correctional officer in their individual
capacities.[6]They alleged various procedural defects in
the administrative segregation classification process. The
defendants removed the case to federal court in December
2013.
B.
Proceedings
1.
Complaint
Smith
and Anagick filed another complaint in state superior court
in April 2015 while the federal case was still pending. They
named as defendants the DOC commissioner and
"unknown" DOC employees - whom they believed might
include the Lemon Creek correctional officer and
superintendent previously sued - in their individual and
official capacities.[7] They alleged that they had a liberty
interest in continued participation in their laundry jobs
under the Alaska Constitution. They also alleged that by
failing to hold specific job termination hearings separate
from the administrative segregation classification hearings,
DOC had violated Smith's and Anagick's due process
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, [8] their right to
petition the court for a redress of their grievances under
the First Amendment, [9] and their confrontation rights under the
Sixth Amendment.[10] Smith and Anagick sought back wages and
punitive damages.[11]
2.
Relevant motions
Two of
the issues raised in the motions before the superior court
are relevant to Smith and Anagick's appeal. First, in
February 2016 Smith and Anagick moved to sanction DOC and its
employees for spoliation of video evidence. They asserted
that DOC improperly failed to preserve videos of the
September 2011 search of the Lemon Creek prison employment
program building, as well as tapes from the subsequent
administrative segregation hearings. They claimed the videos
of the search would have shown that the escape implements
were "not found where an 'unknown' officer
allegedly 'found'" them, which was at
Smith's and Anagick's workstations.[12]Smith and
Anagick argued that DOC officers had allowed the videos to be
destroyed knowing that the prisoners planned to challenge
their administrative segregation placements and would need
the videos as evidence. They requested that "spoliation
jury instructions" be given at trial. In September 2016
the superior court granted the motion in part: interpreting
"spoliation jury instructions" as "an
instruction directing the jury to presume that lost evidence
would have been favorable to the plaintiffs," the court
stated that it would give such an instruction if the case
proceeded to trial.[13]
Second,
in March 2016 Smith and Anagick notified the superior court
that they had filed another civil suit against DOC officers,
Smith v. Busby.[14] In July they moved to consolidate
that case with this one. The court denied their motion,
finding that consolidation would be premature because the
filing fee in Busby had not been paid and because
not all the Busby defendants had been served with
pleadings from this case. Smith responded with an affidavit
stating that the filing fee was "paid in full"
prior to the denial of the motion to consolidate. However, it
does not appear that he and Anagick renewed their motion or
sought reconsideration.
3.
Summary judgment
In late
March 2016 the federal district court granted summary
judgment in favor of the DOC officers being sued in their
individual capacities.[15] The federal court concluded that:
Smith and Anagick did not have a protected liberty interest
in avoiding administrative segregation under the United
States Constitution;[16] they did not have a state-created
liberty interest that would entitle them to due process
protection;[17] and the DOC officers were entitled to
qualified immunity because any relevant liberty interest the
prisoners might have claimed was not clearly
established.[18]
About
three weeks after the federal district court's decision,
Smith and Anagick moved for summary judgment in their state
superior court case. They asserted that their laundry jobs
were rehabilitative and that under Ferguson v. State,
Department of Corrections they were entitled to due
process before they could be terminated.[19] They argued
that due process violations at their administrative
segregation hearings had deprived them not only of their jobs
but of property and wages. They also seemed to assert,
apparently for the first time, that DOC failed to properly
train officers, although the factual basis for this claim is
unclear.[20] Finally, they raised a new spoliation of
evidence claim, asserting that DOC employees had destroyed
employment contracts Smith and Anagick had signed in 2010 and
2011 for their laundry jobs.
In June
2016 DOC and the officer defendants cross-moved for summary
judgment. They argued that: any claims related to job
termination and property loss were barred by res judicata
because of the federal court decision;[21] the laundry
jobs were not rehabilitative and thus not subject to federal
or state due process protections; the First and Sixth
Amendments did not apply to Smith and Anagick's claims;
the inmates had failed to properly plead a "negligent
training" claim; and the DOC officers were entitled to
qualified immunity.
Smith
and Anagick opposed DOC's cross-motion, raising for the
first time a claim that DOC had breached the employment
contracts it had executed with them by terminating them from
their jobs without notice and a hearing. DOC filed a reply;
Smith and Anagick then filed a responsive pleading, which the
court treated as a sur-reply. In response to DOC's
argument in its reply that they lacked a viable contract
claim, they argued that to the extent their complaint was
"procedurally defective," the court should treat
their sur-reply as a motion for leave to amend. They
contended that res judicata did not bar their contract claims
because those claims "were not ripe for litigation"
until their disciplinary appeals were resolved, which did not
occur until after the federal case was filed. They also
asserted that DOC had violated its own policy, which requires
notice and a hearing, if requested, prior to termination from
rehabilitative programs.[22] They argued that the
"administrative segregation exception" to this
policy should not apply because the segregation hearings had
not provided "all the [d]ue [p]rocess requisites"
that a job termination hearing under DOC policy should
provide.
Following
oral argument on the summary judgment cross-motions, the
superior court granted summary judgment to DOC and its
officers in April 2017. The court determined that res
judicata did not bar Smith and Anagick's claims, but
concluded that they did not have a protected liberty interest
in their jobs because they had not established that the jobs
were "rehabilitative" under
Ferguson.[23], As a result, the court concluded that
the administrative segregation placements and job
terminations had not violated due process. The court also
determined that Smith and Anagick's First and Sixth
Amendment claims lacked merit and that the prisoners had
failed to state a cognizable claim for loss of property.
Finally, the court found that the DOC officers were entitled
to qualified immunity for both the federal and state law
claims.
Smith
and Anagick appeal, arguing that they do have a clearly
established liberty interest in their jobs under
Ferguson and that the superior court made various
procedural errors.
III.
STANDARDS OF REVIEW
"We
review a grant of summary judgment de novo[, ] . . .
reviewing] the facts in the light most favorable to the
non-moving party and draw[ing] all factual inferences in the
non-moving party's favor."[24] We will uphold a grant of
summary judgment "if there are 'no genuine issues of
material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law.' "[25] While "[t]he evidentiary
threshold necessary to preclude the entry of summary judgment
is low, "[26] the evidence cannot be "based
entirely on 'unsupported assumptions and speculation'
and must not be 'too incredible to be believed by
reasonable minds.' "[27]
"We
review issues concerning constitutional rights of inmates de
novo."[28]"Whether an inmate has received
procedural due process is an issue of constitutional law that
we review de novo."[29] We also review de novo "[t]he
applicability of both state and federal
immunity."[30]
We
"review the denial of a motion to amend a pleading for
abuse of discretion."[31] An abuse of discretion occurs
"when the decision on review is manifestly
unreasonable," but the trial court has discretion to
"deny such a motion where amendment would be futile
because it advances a claim or defense that is legally
insufficient on its face."[32] "We use our
independent judgment to determine whether such an amendment
would be legally insufficient."[33]
"We
review the denial of amotion to consolidate for abuse of
discretion."[34]The abuse of discretion standard also
applies to the superior court's "decisions about
guidance to a pro se litigant."[35] "An abuse of
discretion exists when a party has been deprived of a
substantial right or seriously prejudiced" as a result
of the court's ruling.[36]
IV.
DISCUSSION
A.
Smith And Anagick Were Not Denied Due Process.
Smith
and Anagick rely on Ferguson v. State, Department of
Corrections to argue that their laundry jobs were
rehabilitative and that, as a result, they had a state
constitutional interest in retaining those
jobs.[37] They contend that they were entitled to
notice and separate job termination hearings prior to their
removal from the Alaska Marine Highway System laundry program
and that DOC denied them due process by not holding such
hearings. In Ferguson we held that prisoners'
right to rehabilitation, guaranteed by the Alaska
Constitution, includes the right not to be terminated from
rehabilitative programs without due process.[38] We recognize
that Smith's and Anagick's laundry jobs appear to
share some of the characteristics we have previously found
relevant in determining a program to be
rehabilitative.[39] But we do not reach the question whether
Smith and Anagick had a protected property or liberty
interest in their jobs because, even assuming they did, we
conclude they received due process.
We have
previously considered prisoners' due process claims under
the Mathews v. Eldridge[40] balancing
test.[41] This test requires us to consider three
factors:
First, the private interest that will be affected by the
official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation
of such interest through the procedures used, and the
probable value, if any, of additional or substitute
procedural safeguards; and [third], the [State]'s
interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and
administrative burdens that the additional or substitute
procedural requirement would entail.[42]
Smith
and Anagick assert a private interest in their continued
participation in jobs that they characterize as
rehabilitative. But even assuming that their jobs were
rehabilitative and thus subject to constitutional due process
protections, the proceedings for their placement in
administrative segregation satisfied any due process
requirements that might have attached to their interest in
retaining their jobs. The applicable regulation provides that
a prisoner placed in administrative segregation must be given
a classification hearing "no later than three working
days after placement" unless the prisoner requests a
continuance or DOC establishes good cause to postpone the
hearing by up to 24 hours.[43] Smith and Anagick were given
such a hearing; within days of their placement in
administrative segregation, a classification committee
determined ...