Case ID: f-appx_497/html/0114-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Richard MILLS and Elmer F. Mills, Jr., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Kodey Mills, Plaintiff, v. Brian FISCHER, John B. Lempke, and Corrections Officer Fedora, Defendants-Appellees, Corrections Officer Jane Doe, Defendant.
    
    No. 11-276.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Sept. 21, 2012.
    See also, 645 F.3d 176.
    
      Richard Mills, Romulus, NY, pro se.
    Elmer F. Mills, Jr., Byron, NY, pro se.
    Kate H. Nepveu, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Andrea Oser, Deputy Solicitor General, on the brief), for Eric T. Schneid-erman, Attorney General of the State of New York, Albany, NY, for Appellees.
    PRESENT: ROBERTA. KATZMANN, GERARD E. LYNCH and DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The Clerk of the Court is directed to amend the caption of this case as noted.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiffs-Appellants Richard Mills (“Richard”), pro se, and Elmer F. Mills, Jr. (“Elmer”), pro se, appeal from a January 12, 2011 judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Arcara, J.) granting Defendants-Appellees’ motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ amended complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The amended complaint principally alleges that defendants violated plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights of association and their federal due process rights by denying Richard — an inmate in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”) — a single visit with his sixteen-year-old son Kodey Mills (“Kodey”), and by shortening Richard’s visit with Elmer. Specifically, the amended complaint alleges that (1) Elmer and Kodey attempted to visit Richard on October 12, 2009 at the Five Points Correctional Facility, (2) defendants allegedly found Kodey’s identification deficient and refused to allow him to visit Richard, and (3) because defendants did not want Kodey, a minor, to remain on facility grounds unsupervised, defendants allegedly shortened Elmer’s •visit with Richard to about twenty minutes. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the remaining facts and the procedural history of the case.

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). See Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 152 (2d Cir.2002). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009).

Having reviewed the case de novo, we first conclude that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims. Even assuming that inmates and their families have a right to visitation protected by the First Amendment, see Overton v. Bazzetta, 589 U.S. 126, 131-32, 123 S.Ct. 2162, 156 L.Ed.2d 162 (2003), the amended complaint does not state a plausible violation of that right. Plaintiffs appear to contend that prison officials at Five Points Correctional Facility failed to adhere to a statewide regulation when they denied Kodey a visit with his father even though Kodey presented his birth certificate and Elmer vouched for Kodey’s identity. See N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 7, § 200.1(b)(2)(ii) (“[B]irth or baptismal certificates shall not be considered adequate identification for an adult visitor; however, they may be used as identification for a minor child. In the case of a minor with no other creditable identification documentation, an adult approved to visit may vouch for the identification of a minor... .”). However, a violation of a state law or regulation in itself does not state a federal claim for relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Doe v. Conn. Dep’t of Child & Youth Servs., 911 F.2d 868, 869 (2d Cir.1990). Moreover, the essence of plaintiffs’ amended complaint is that prison officials allegedly misapplied the applicable state regulation on a single occasion when they refused to permit Kodey to visit Richard, which in turn resulted in a shortening of Richard’s visit with Elmer. Assuming that prisoners have a right under the First Amendment to have family visits, that right could not require that visits by family members be permitted on demand, but rather must be subject to reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of visits. See Overton, 539 U.S. at 132, 123 S.Ct. 2162 (holding that, even assuming a “right of association ... survives incarceration,” a regulation which “bear[s] a rational relation to legitimate penological interests” would not violate that right). A rule requiring the production of some form of identification beyond a birth certificate by family members seeking visitation would not be unreasonable. See id. at 133, 123 S.Ct. 2162 (noting that “regulations promoting] internal security” advance “perhaps the most legitimate of penological goals”).

On the other hand, the intentional or malicious deprivation of visitation to a prisoner, even on one occasion, could rise to the level of a constitutional violation. Cf. Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 36-37, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“There are no de minimis violations of the Constitution — no constitutional harms so slight that the courts are obliged to ignore them.”); Shakur v. Selsky, 391 F.3d 106, 110-20 (2d Cir.2004) (holding that prisoner stated First Amendment claim where he alleged that corrections officer maliciously and intentionally prevented him from attending important religious feast, and rejecting argument that missing one religious feast was de minim-is). Here, however, where plaintiffs alleged only rudeness and not malice, we conclude that the amended complaint, even liberally construed, failed to state a plausible claim under the First Amendment. Particularly in light of the fact that New York’s actual rule is plainly reasonable, we cannot say that the denial of access on a single occasion by a prison guard who mistakenly applied a more stringent identification rule that was not in itself unreasonable gives rise to a constitutional claim. Thus, plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims were properly dismissed.

Plaintiffs’ due process claims were also properly dismissed. A protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause is “generally limited to freedom from restraint which ... imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-84, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). Denying an inmate a single visit with his son does not constitute an atypical and significant hardship. See, e.g., Colon v. Howard, 215 F.3d 227, 230-32 (2d Cir.2000).

We have considered plaintiffs’ remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED. 
      
      . We note that plaintiffs claimed that Kodey offered a birth certificate for the first time only in opposition to the motion to dismiss. App. 51.
     
      
      . We note that this regulation was formerly codified at N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. Tit. 7, § 200.3(a)(l)(iii). Because the substance of the regulation is unchanged, we cite to the current version for the sake of convenience.