Case Title: Anctil v. Department of Corrections

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2018 ME 53

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2018-04-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2018 ME 53 
Docket: 
Ken-17-417 
Submitted 
On Briefs: April 10, 2018 
Decided: 
April 19, 2018 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
STEVE R. ANCTIL 
 
v. 
 
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS 
 
 
PER CURIAM 
 
[¶1]  On August 18, 2017, Steve R. Anctil, an inmate at the Maine State 
Prison, filed a petition in the Superior Court (Kennebec County) pursuant to 
M.R. Civ. P. 80C, seeking review of a disciplinary decision of the Department of 
Corrections.  In his petition, Anctil identified the matter as “Disciplinary Case 
Number MSP-2017-1051”; asserted that several procedural and constitutional 
errors were committed in the report of, hearing on, and decision in that matter; 
and requested that the Superior Court vacate the disciplinary decision and 
award damages.  With the petition, Anctil filed an application to proceed 
without payment of fees, an indigency affidavit, and a certificate with attached 
documentation establishing the balance in his prisoner trust account.  Anctil 
appeals from the court’s (Marden, J.) dismissal of his petition, which the court 
 
2 
entered sua sponte in a one-sentence decision: “After review of the pleadings 
the Court ORDERS: case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.”1  The record is 
otherwise devoid of any indication of the basis on which the court concluded 
that it lacked jurisdiction.   
[¶2]  Seven months before the Superior Court dismissed this petition, we 
addressed the court’s similar action in another matter.  In Mutty v. Department 
of Corrections, as here, an inmate filed a petition pursuant to Rule 80C, seeking 
review of a disciplinary decision of the Department of Corrections.  2017 ME 7, 
¶ 3, 153 A.3d 775.  The Superior Court, sua sponte, dismissed the matter for 
failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted, stating, “The court 
cannot determine its jurisdiction in the absence of its determination of the date 
of the final agency action.”  Id. ¶ 4 (quotation marks omitted).  We determined 
that although the court may dismiss a matter when a jurisdictional defect is 
“clear from the petition, or when a party in the case raises the jurisdictional 
defect, and the court then determines that the petition was untimely,” nothing 
in the Maine Administrative Procedure Act, 5 M.R.S. §§ 8001-11008 (2017), 
required that the petitioner allege the specific date of the final agency action.  
                                         
1  The Department did not appear in the matter before the trial court and is not a party to the 
appeal. 
 
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Mutty, 2017 ME 7, ¶¶ 10, 12, 153 A.3d 775.  We held, “A petition that states a 
claim for relief and facially meets statutory requirements is, at least 
preliminarily, sufficient to establish jurisdiction.”  Id. ¶ 11.  We therefore 
vacated the dismissal in the absence of any “affirmative basis in the record” to 
support it.  Id. ¶¶ 12-13; see Fleming v. Comm’r, Dep’t of Corr., 2002 ME 74, 
¶¶ 8-12, 795 A.2d 692 (vacating the dismissal of an inmate’s Rule 80C petition 
and holding that the petitioner’s failures to call his pleading a “petition,” strictly 
comply with notice requirements, and ensure that the Department filed the 
agency record did not deprive the court of jurisdiction even when the pleading 
included a request for damages and injunctive relief); cf. Tomer v. Me. Human 
Rights Comm’n, 2008 ME 190, ¶¶ 14-16, 962 A.2d 335 (affirming the dismissal 
of a Rule 80C action after concluding that, on its face, the petition did not seek 
review of any final agency action). 
[¶3]  Just as was true in Mutty, no jurisdictional defect is apparent from 
the record here.  We therefore vacate the judgment dismissing Anctil’s 
complaint and remand the matter to the Superior Court for the court to act on 
Anctil’s application to proceed without payment of fees.  See M.R. Civ. P. 91; 
Mutty, 2017 ME 7, ¶ 13, 153 A.3d 775.   
 
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The entry is: 
 
Judgment vacated.  Remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve R. Anctil, appellant pro se 
 
 
Kennebec County Superior Court docket number AP-2017-45 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY