Case Title: Cantell v. Commissioner of Correction

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-12015

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2016-10-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-12015 
 
ROBERT CANTELL & others1  vs.  COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION 
& others.2 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     March 10, 2016. - October 21, 2016. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & 
Hines, JJ.3 
 
 
Commissioner of Correction.  Administrative Law, Regulations.  
Imprisonment, Segregated confinement.  Due Process of Law, 
Prison classification proceedings, Prison regulation.  Moot 
Question.  Practice, Civil, Moot case, Dismissal of appeal, 
Class action. 
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on 
January 20, 2012. 
 
                     
 
1 Derrick Maldonado, John T. Fernandes, and Albert Jackson. 
 
 
2 Superintendent, Massachusetts Treatment Center; 
Superintendent, Old Colony Correctional Center; Superintendent, 
Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI), Cedar Junction; 
Superintendent, MCI, Shirley; Superintendent, MCI, Norfolk; 
Superintendent, MCI, Concord; Acting Superintendent, North 
Central Correctional Institution, Gardner; Superintendent, MCI, 
Framingham; and Superintendent, Souza-Baranowski Correctional 
Center. 
 
 
3 Justices Spina, Cordy, and Duffly participated in the 
deliberation on this case prior to their retirements. 
2 
 
 
Motions to dismiss and for class certification were heard 
by Elizabeth M. Fahey, J. 
 
 
After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial 
Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review. 
 
 
 
Bonita Tenneriello for the plaintiffs. 
 
Sheryl F. Grant for the defendants. 
 
The following submitted briefs for amici curiae: 
 
Amy Fettig & Jamelia N. Morgan, of the District of 
Columbia, Phillip Kassell, Matthew R. Segal, & Jessie J. Rossman 
for American Civil Liberties Union & others. 
 
Ruth A. Bourquin, Deborah Harris, Margaret E. Monsell, & 
Jamie A. Sabino for Massachusetts Law Reform Institute & others. 
 
Adam Sanders, pro se. 
 
 
 
BOTSFORD, J.  The named plaintiffs in this putative class 
action are inmates serving criminal sentences in various 
Massachusetts prison facilities.  For varying lengths of time, 
each of them has been placed in a "special management unit" 
(SMU) in nondisciplinary administrative segregation.  In 
January, 2012, the plaintiffs commenced this action against the 
Commissioner of Correction (commissioner) and the 
superintendents of the correctional institutions in which the 
plaintiffs were housed (collectively, defendants).  The 
plaintiffs allege that their placements in the SMUs, essentially 
in conditions of solitary confinement, violate their State and 
Federal constitutional rights to due process as well as 
regulations of the Department of Correction (department), and 
they seek to represent a class of similarly situated prisoners 
confined in SMUs.  In early 2013, following the release of this 
3 
 
court's decision in LaChance v. Commissioner of Correction, 463 
Mass. 767 (2012) (LaChance I), a judge in the Superior Court 
denied the plaintiffs' motion for class certification and 
allowed the defendants' motion to dismiss the plaintiffs' 
amended complaint. 
The plaintiffs appealed to the Appeals Court.4  A divided 
panel of that court dismissed the appeal as moot because by then 
it was undisputed that no named plaintiffs remained in SMUs.  
Cantell v. Commissioner of Correction, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 629 
(2015).  The dissenting justice concluded that in light of the 
class action allegations in the plaintiffs' amended complaint, 
even if the named plaintiffs were no longer confined in SMUs, 
the case was not moot, and the court had a duty to decide the 
plaintiffs' appeal on its merits.  Id. at 635-639 (Rubin, J., 
dissenting).  We allowed the plaintiffs' application for further 
appellate review.  We agree with the dissenting justice of the 
Appeals Court that the appeal is not moot, and we also agree 
that LaChance I does not resolve the merits of all the 
plaintiffs' claims.  We reverse the Superior Court's judgment of 
                     
 
4 Two of the plaintiffs named in the amended complaint are 
not parties to the appeal. 
 
4 
 
dismissal and remand the case to that court for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion.5 
 
Background.  The plaintiffs' amended complaint alleges, in 
summary, the following.  The plaintiffs are representatives of 
"a class composed of all prisoners held in non-disciplinary 
segregation in an SMU," and the class is so numerous that 
joinder of all is impracticable.  See Mass. R. Civ. P. 23 (a), 
365 Mass. 767 (1974).6  Each of the named plaintiffs has been 
held in nondisciplinary administrative segregation in an SMU 
operated under the department's SMU regulations, 103 Code Mass. 
Regs. §§ 423.00 (1995).7  While confined in an SMU, prisoners are 
                     
 
5 We acknowledge the amicus briefs submitted by the 
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Center for Public 
Representation, National Consumer Law Center, and Justice Center 
of Southeastern Massachusetts; the American Civil Liberties 
Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and the 
Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee; and Adam Sanders. 
 
 
6 The amended complaint further alleges that the plaintiffs' 
claims include common questions of fact and law applicable to 
all members of the class and these questions predominate; the 
defendants have acted and refused to act on grounds generally 
applicable to the class so that the final declaratory and 
injunctive relief would be appropriate to the entire class; the 
plaintiffs have a strong personal liberty interest in the 
outcome of the case, are represented by competent counsel, and 
will adequately and fairly protect the interests of the class; 
and a class action is superior to any other method to resolving 
the controversy.  See Mass. R. Civ. P. 23 (a), (b), 365 Mass. 
767 (1974). 
 
7 "Administrative [s]egregation" is defined in 103 Code 
Mass. Regs. § 423.06 (1995) as follows: 
 
5 
 
locked in their individual cells for twenty-three hours per day, 
with permitted recreation in a small, outdoor cage for one hour 
per day on weekdays and no permitted recreation on weekends; 
each prisoner must eat all meals alone in his or her cell; the 
prisoners are permitted to shower and shave no more than three 
times per week; all visits are noncontact visits, and these are 
generally limited to two visits per week of no more than one 
hour's duration; prisoners are not allowed to visit the general 
prison library, have no access to employment or to 
rehabilitative, therapeutic, or educational programs and 
therefore no access to programs from which they might earn "good 
time" sentence credits or reductions; they may not attend 
communal religious services; and they are substantially 
restricted, compared to the general prison population, in terms 
of what they may purchase and how much money they may spend at 
the prison canteen.  These conditions are far more restrictive 
than the conditions and level of segregation applicable to 
general population prisoners in maximum security facilities.  
The conditions are also at least as restrictive as those applied 
                                                                  
 
"A temporary form of separation from general 
population used when the continued presence of the inmate 
in the general population would pose a serious threat to 
life, property, self, staff or other inmates, or to the 
security or orderly running of the institution, e.g., 
inmates pending investigation for a disciplinary or 
criminal offense or pending transfer may be placed in 
administrative segregation." 
6 
 
to units designated as "departmental segregation units" (DSUs) 
and governed by the DSU regulations appearing as 103 Code Mass. 
Regs. §§ 421.00 (1994).  However, none of the plaintiffs has 
been provided the procedural protections required by the DSU 
regulations, or the visitation, canteen, and other privileges 
included within the DSU regulations.8 
 
The amended complaint's legal claims are that by 
maintaining the plaintiffs in nondisciplinary administrative 
segregation conditions without holding hearings to determine 
whether each posed a serious or substantial threat to themselves 
or others, and by denying other rights included in the DSU 
regulations, the defendants have violated the plaintiffs' rights 
under the DSU regulations, the plaintiffs' constitutional rights 
to due process protected by the United States Constitution and 
the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights (claims the plaintiffs 
                     
 
8 The plaintiffs point to the following procedural 
protections contained in the DSU regulations:  before being 
placed in nondisciplinary segregation, each prisoner must be 
afforded a timely hearing to determine whether the prisoner 
poses a threat sufficient to justify the segregation, see 103 
Code Mass. Regs. § 421.08(3); no prisoner may be held in 
segregated, restrictive, nondisciplinary confinement without 
receiving a hearing after fifteen days, or thirty days if 
awaiting action on a disciplinary charge, and those time limits 
may not be extended absent "extraordinary circumstances," see 
id.; such prisoners are entitled to receive a conditional 
release date and a specified set of conditions that, if met, 
could earn them release from restrictive confinement, see 103 
Code Mass. Regs. § 421.15(2); prisoners are also entitled to the 
visitation rights, canteen purchases, and other privileges and 
programs set out in 103 Code Mass. Regs. §§ 421.20 and 421.21. 
7 
 
pursue under 42 U.S.C. § 1983), and the plaintiffs' statutory 
right to equal "kindness" provided by G. L. c. 127, § 32.  The 
plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to declare and 
enforce these rights. 
 
On January 20, 2012, the plaintiffs filed a motion for 
class certification.9  Before the motion was heard or ruled on, 
LaChance I was decided.  The plaintiff in LaChance I was, or had 
been, confined to the SMU in the Souza-Baranowski Correctional 
Center, and his substantive claims relating to his entitlement 
to the procedural and other protections incorporated in the DSU 
regulations are substantially mirrored in the plaintiffs' 
amended complaint in the present case.  The motion judge in this 
case concluded that the LaChance I decision effectively resolved 
the plaintiffs' claims by defining the entire scope of 
procedural protections to which the plaintiffs were entitled as 
prisoners confined in SMUs.  For this reason, and because the 
                     
 
9 The defendants take issue with the fact that the motion to 
certify the class was filed by the original two named 
plaintiffs, Robert Cantell and Derrick Maldonado, before the 
plaintiffs filed their amended complaint, and by the time the 
amended complaint was filed in April, 2012, neither Cantell nor 
Maldonado was still confined to a special management unit (SMU).  
In light of the amended complaint, which repeated the original 
complaint's class action allegations, and in light of the fact 
that at the time the amended complaint was filed, one or more of 
the named plaintiffs was housed in an SMU, we consider the 
motion to certify the class as applicable to the amended 
complaint.  This was the position implicitly taken by the 
Superior Court judge who considered and denied the motion to 
certify. 
8 
 
department had agreed to provide the plaintiffs with the 
procedural protections described in LaChance I, the judge ruled 
that class certification was unnecessary and that dismissal of 
the plaintiffs' amended complaint was appropriate.  The judge 
ordered the defendants to "extend the benefits" of our opinion 
in LaChance I to "all prisoners held in administrative 
segregation on awaiting action status." 
At the time of the motion judge's decision, one of the 
named plaintiffs, Albert Jackson, remained in an SMU.  However, 
as the Appeals Court's decision noted, when the plaintiffs' 
appeal was before that court, it was uncontested that none of 
the named plaintiffs was still confined in an SMU.  Cantell, 87 
Mass. App. Ct. at 630.  There is nothing in the record to 
suggest that any named plaintiff's status has changed since the 
date of the Appeals Court decision, but there also is nothing 
before us to suggest that any of the named plaintiffs has 
completed his sentence and has been released from prison. 
 
Discussion.  1.  Legal background.  This case concerns the 
department's policies and practices relating to the conditions 
of confinement for prisoners held in nondisciplinary 
administrative segregation and apart from the general 
population.  The specific focus here is on SMUs, one type of 
9 
 
administrative segregation unit.10  However, the department 
historically has had and continues to have a number of different 
types of and names for such units, including, but not limited 
to, DSUs.  In Hoffer vs. Fair, No. SJ-85-0071 (Mar. 3, 1988), a 
single justice of this court ordered that the then existing DSU 
regulations be amended to provide greater procedural protections 
and some greater privileges to prisoners placed in 
nondisciplinary administrative segregation -- basically, 
solitary confinement -- in DSUs.  The department promulgated in 
substance the DSU regulations currently codified at 103 Code 
                     
 
10 The SMU regulations provide that "[p]lacement in 
administrative segregation/protective custody [in an SMU] may 
occur in instances such as, but not limited to, when an inmate: 
 
"(a) Is awaiting a hearing for a violation of institution 
rules or regulations; 
 
"(b) Is awaiting an investigation of a serious violation of 
institution rules or regulations; 
 
"(c) Is pending investigation for disciplinary offenses or 
criminal acts that may have occurred while incarcerated; 
 
"(d) Requests admission to administrative segregation for 
his/her own protection or staff recommends that placement 
in or continuation of such status is necessary for the 
inmate's own protection and that no reasonable alternatives 
are available; 
 
"(e) Is pending transfer; 
 
"(f) Is pending classification; [and]  
 
"(g) Is placed in administrative segregation following a 
disciplinary hearing." 
 
103 Code Mass. Regs. § 423.08(1). 
10 
 
Mass. Regs. §§ 421.00 in response; these regulations remain in 
effect.11  See Haverty v. Commissioner of Correction, 437 Mass. 
737, 740, 744-746, 760 (2002), S.C., 440 Mass. 1 (2003).  We 
made clear in Haverty that under the department's DSU 
regulations and as a matter of due process, "the procedural 
protections contained in 103 Code Mass. Regs. §§ 421.00 must be 
afforded to all prisoners before they are housed in DSU-like 
conditions," with an exception for those whose stay in such a 
DSU-like unit is expected to be brief -- i.e., days, not weeks.  
Id. at 760, 763-764 & n.36.  See Longval v. Commissioner of 
Correction, 448 Mass. 412, 413-416 (2007), and cases cited at 
416; Hoffer v. Commissioner of Correction, 412 Mass. 450, 455 
(1992). 
 
LaChance I was a case brought by a prisoner at the Souza-
Baranowski Correctional Center who was held for more than ten 
months in administrative segregation, on awaiting action status, 
in that facility's SMU.  LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 768-771.  He 
claimed that the conditions of confinement in the SMU were 
substantively identical to the conditions of a DSU, that he was 
therefore entitled to the protections set out in the DSU 
                     
 
11 In 1995, the department filed in the county court a 
motion to vacate or amend the single justice's 1988 order in 
Hoffer vs. Fair, No. SJ-85-0071 (Mar. 3, 1988).  A single 
justice of this court denied the motion, and no appeal was 
taken.  See Haverty v. Commissioner of Correction, 437 Mass. 
737, 738-739, 758 & n.27 (2002), S.C., 440 Mass. 1 (2003). 
11 
 
regulations, and that the refusal of the prison authorities to 
apply those regulations to him violated his rights under the 
department's regulations as well as his due process rights under 
the Federal and Massachusetts Constitutions.  Id. at 772.  A 
judge of the Superior Court determined that LaChance was 
entitled to the procedural protections in the DSU regulations, 
and granted partial summary judgment to LaChance on his claims 
of constitutional violations.  See id. at 772-773.  The judge 
also granted summary judgment to the defendant correction 
officials on LaChance's claim for damages under the 
Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, G. L. c. 12, §§ 11H & 11I, and 
his claims against two of the defendants in their official 
capacities.  LaChance I, supra at 773.  However, the judge 
denied the defendants' motion for partial summary judgment on 
LaChance's claims for damages against the defendants in their 
individual capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (§ 1983), rejecting 
the defendants' argument that they were entitled to qualified 
immunity as a matter of law.  LaChance I, supra.  Exercising 
their right to invoke the doctrine of present execution with 
respect to this denial,12 the defendants in LaChance I filed an 
interlocutory appeal in the Appeals Court, and we transferred 
the appeal to this court on our own motion.  Id. at 768. 
                     
 
12 See, e.g., Maxwell v. AIG Domestic Claims, Inc., 460 
Mass. 91, 97-98 (2011); Littles v. Commissioner of Correction, 
444 Mass. 871, 875-876 (2005). 
12 
 
 
The issue directly before us in LaChance I was the 
propriety of the judge's denial of partial summary judgment on 
the defendants' claim of qualified immunity from liability for 
damages under § 1983.  We concluded that an inmate placed in 
administrative segregation on awaiting action status in an SMU 
or other designated unit is entitled as a matter of due process 
to certain procedural safeguards, including notice of the basis 
on which he or she is so detained, a hearing at which the inmate 
may challenge that basis, and a written posthearing notice 
explaining the classification decision; and "that in no 
circumstances may an inmate be held in segregated confinement on 
awaiting action status for longer than ninety days without 
[such] a hearing."  Id. at 776-777.  However, we also concluded 
that the plaintiff's claims for damages against the individual 
defendants under § 1983 were barred by the doctrine of qualified 
immunity.  See id. at 777.  We did so because as a matter of 
constitutional requirement, "the outer limit of what constitutes 
'reasonable' segregated confinement on awaiting action status 
without the safeguards of procedural due process" had not been 
clearly established as of 2006, the relevant date in LaChance I.  
See id. at 778.  Indeed, as we stated in the opinion, our 
determination 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" was one 
13 
 
that we reached "for the first time" in that case.  See id.13  We 
therefore remanded the case to the Superior Court for entry of 
an order allowing the defendants' motion for summary judgment on 
LaChance's claims under § 1983 against them in their individual 
capacities.14  See id. 
 
As discussed, the motion judge in this case based her 
dismissal of the plaintiffs' amended complaint on LaChance I. 
 
2.  Mootness.  The defendants argue that this appeal is 
moot because none of the named plaintiffs remains in an SMU, and 
therefore none is a member of the class the plaintiffs seek to 
have certified.  The Appeals Court reached this same conclusion 
that the appeal is moot because the named plaintiffs are no 
longer in SMUs, and further concluded that, in the circumstances 
presented, it would be "improvident" to consider and resolve the 
                     
 
13 As discussed infra, see notes 19 & 20 and accompanying 
text, it was necessary in LaChance I to consider the 
requirements of due process under the United States Constitution 
in particular, because to be entitled to damages against the 
individual defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, LaChance was 
required to prove that, as of 2006, it was "clearly established" 
as a matter of Federal constitutional law that keeping a 
sentenced prisoner in segregated confinement on awaiting action 
status for longer than a particular period of time without a 
hearing incorporating certain procedural protections violated 
the prisoner's due process rights. 
 
14 We also affirmed the Superior Court's order allowing (1) 
LaChance's motion for partial summary judgment on his 
constitutional claims, and (2) the defendants' motions for 
summary judgment on the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act claim and 
claims against certain defendants in their official capacities.  
LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 778. 
14 
 
plaintiffs' substantive claims on their merits.  See Cantell, 87 
Mass. App. Ct. at 630-631, 635.15  However, we agree with the 
dissenting justice that the appeal is not moot.  See id. at 636-
637 (Rubin, J., dissenting).  It is not moot because the 
plaintiffs brought this case as a putative class action, and the 
class action allegations contained in the amended complaint 
remain operative until a judge has considered and rejected them 
on their merits.  See Wolf v. Commissioner of Pub. Welfare, 367 
Mass. 293, 297-298 (1975) (adopting rule followed by number of 
Federal courts "that a class action is not mooted by the 
                     
 
15 The Appeals Court stated that it reached its 
determination of mootness as a matter of discretion, because it 
interpreted LaChance I to require the department to promulgate 
new regulations, see Cantell, 87 Mass. App. Ct. at 632, 635, and 
there was value in waiting for those new regulations to be 
issued before assessing the merits of the plaintiffs' due 
process claims.  Id. at 635. 
 
 
To date, the department has not promulgated any such 
regulations; the department's response to the LaChance I 
decision has been limited to a memorandum from the commissioner, 
dated February 5, 2013, amending the "standard operating 
procedures" for SMUs "to reflect the additional review 
requirements for inmates on awaiting action or protective 
custody status for (90) days or more."  The amended procedures 
provide that (1) within ninety days of an inmate's placement in 
an SMU and every ninety days thereafter, a correctional program 
officer is to review the placement and conduct a hearing, of 
which the inmate is entitled to forty-eight hours' notice and 
the right to attend and offer a verbal or written statement (but 
not to call witnesses or to have counsel); (2) the program 
officer is to make a recommendation within two days of the 
hearing as to whether the inmate should continue being confined 
in the SMU; (3) the inmate may appeal from that recommendation 
to the superintendent of the facility; and (4) the 
superintendent's decision is final. 
15 
 
settlement or termination of the named plaintiff's individual 
claim").  This is particularly true where, as the plaintiffs 
argue is the case here, it is within the defendants' power 
voluntarily to cease the allegedly wrongful conduct with respect 
to any named plaintiff by unilaterally deciding to release him 
from an SMU.  "If the underlying controversy continues, a court 
will not allow a defendant's voluntary cessation of his 
allegedly wrongful conduct with respect to named plaintiffs to 
moot the case for the entire plaintiff class."  Id. at 299.16  
The statement applies to the present case:  the alleged wrongs 
set out in the amended complaint continue to affect the putative 
                     
 
16 The Appeals Court suggested that our decision in Wolf has 
been essentially superseded or at least limited by later 
decisions of this court, such that Wolf is presently best 
understood as an illustration of the principle that courts may 
hear moot cases if there is an important issue capable of 
repetition yet evading review, and "not as establishing a 
distinct procedural rule applicable to class actions."  Cantell, 
87 Mass. App. Ct. at 630 n.8.  We do not agree that we have 
limited Wolf in this manner.  The statement in Wolf that, 
ordinarily, a judge should not dismiss a putative class action 
as moot even though actions taken by the defendant may have 
rendered moot the named plaintiff's particular claims is a 
principle that remains good law, as does the observation that 
"[i]n fact, to establish mootness in such circumstances, a 
defendant bears a heavy burden of showing that there is no 
reasonable expectation that the wrong will be repeated; and a 
defendant's mere assurances on this point may well not be 
sufficient."  Wolf, 367 Mass. at 299.  Our decision in Gonzalez 
v. Commissioner of Correction, 407 Mass. 448 (1990), cited by 
the Appeals Court, see Cantell, supra, is not to the contrary.  
We specifically noted there, citing Wolf, that in a case where 
"a defendant's voluntary cessation of allegedly wrongful conduct 
toward the named plaintiff, thereby mooting his or her claim," 
has occurred, it may be appropriate to certify the putative 
class despite this mootness issue.  Gonzalez, supra at 452. 
16 
 
class of individuals who remain confined to SMUs.17  In these 
circumstances, the plaintiffs' appeal is not subject to 
dismissal on mootness grounds. 
 
3.  Dismissal of the amended complaint on the merits.  The 
motion judge ruled that certification of a plaintiff class was 
unnecessary, and indeed the named plaintiffs' amended complaint 
should be dismissed, based on her conclusion that LaChance I in 
effect fully defined the parameters of the plaintiffs' due 
process rights, and that the defendants had agreed that they 
would implement those rights in relation to every prisoner 
confined to an SMU on awaiting action status.18  Although her 
memorandum of decision does not so state, it appears that the 
judge interpreted LaChance I to overrule, in effect, Haverty and 
other decisions in which we concluded that the procedural 
protections contained in the DSU regulations must be provided to 
all prisoners in nondisciplinary administrative segregation who 
                     
17 It is also true case that because the named plaintiffs in 
this case remain incarcerated, they remain subject to being 
returned to confinement in an SMU.  They continue, therefore, to 
have a real stake in the outcome. 
 
 
18 As discussed, the rights described in LaChance I were the 
right "to notice of the basis on which [the inmate] is . . . 
detained [in administrative segregation]; a hearing at which 
[the inmate] may contest the asserted rationale for his 
confinement; and a posthearing written notice explaining the 
reviewing authority's classification decision. . . .  [I]n no 
circumstances may an inmate be held in segregated confinement on 
awaiting action status for longer than ninety days without a 
hearing."  LaChance I, 463 Mass. at 776-777. 
17 
 
are subject to conditions similar to those in the DSUs.  See 
Haverty, 437 Mass. at 740, 760, 763-764.  In fairness, the scope 
of this court's decision in LaChance I was not fully explained.  
The motion judge, however, erred in her interpretation of our 
decision and in her dismissal of the amended complaint based on 
that interpretation. 
 
As mentioned, LaChance I was an interlocutory appeal of a 
decision denying the defendants' claim of qualified immunity 
from liability for damages under § 1983.  In considering the 
defendants' appeal, it was necessary to focus on LaChance's 
Federal due process claims because LaChance would be entitled to 
damages under his § 1983 claims only if the defendants knowingly 
violated LaChance's rights under the United States 
Constitution.19  See Cantell, 87 Mass. App. Ct. at 638 (Rubin, 
J., dissenting) ("the State law issue decided in Haverty was 
different from the issue the court was addressing in LaChance 
[I], that of Federal due process in the context of 42 U.S.C. 
                     
 
19 See, e.g., Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535 (1981), 
overruled in part on other ground, Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 
327, 328 (1986) (two essential elements of action under 42 
U.S.C. § 1983 are [1] that challenged conduct be committed by 
person acting under color of State law, and [2] "whether this 
conduct deprived a person of rights, privileges, or immunities 
secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States" 
[emphasis added]); Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 
150 (1970) (same). 
18 
 
§ 1983" [emphasis in original]).20  At no point in LaChance I did 
we suggest that we intended to overrule Haverty and related 
cases; in fact, the opposite is true.  See LaChance I, 463 Mass. 
at 774-775, discussing Haverty with approval, and specifically 
noting the holding of Haverty that "under [the department's] 
regulations, indefinite confinement in any unit where conditions 
are substantially similar to those of a DSU entitles an inmate 
to the protections afforded by the DSU regulations."  Id. at 
774. 
 
Haverty and related decisions of this court and the Appeals 
Court confirm the continuing viability of the department's DSU 
regulations and their application to "all placements of 
prisoners in segregated confinement for nondisciplinary reasons 
                     
 
20 In LaChance I, we discussed LaChance's "due process 
rights" without drawing any distinction between the due process 
protections provided by the United States Constitution and the 
Massachusetts Constitution.  As stated in the text, however, for 
purposes of deciding the individual defendants' claim of 
qualified immunity from suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, it was 
essential to focus on LaChance's due process rights protected 
under the Federal Constitution.  We had no reason to, and did 
not, consider in LaChance I whether the extent of due process 
protections to which a prisoner in the position of LaChance is 
entitled under art. 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of 
Rights is different in scope from the protections provided by 
the due process clause in the United States Constitution.  (To 
the extent that Haverty, 437 Mass. at 762-763, concluded that 
the rights of the plaintiffs in that case to have the DSU 
regulations applied to them was constitutionally required as a 
matter of due process, the conclusion appears to have had its 
roots in the decision of the single justice in Hoffer vs. Fair, 
No. SJ-85-0071.  See Haverty, supra at 738-739, 744-745.  Hoffer 
vs. Fair itself was based on the requirements of due process 
under the Constitution of the Commonwealth.) 
19 
 
for an indefinite period of time; in other words, those 
prisoners whom prison authorities determine will interfere with 
the management of the prison unless they are segregated from the 
general prison population."  Haverty, 437 Mass. at 760.  See id. 
at 740.  See also Longval, 448 Mass. at 416, and cases cited.  
Because LaChance I did not overrule Haverty, the plaintiffs are 
entitled to pursue in the Superior Court their motion to certify 
a class, and, on the merits, their claims that as prisoners 
confined to SMUs, they are entitled to have the DSU regulations 
applied to them and entitled to all the procedural protections 
and other rights included within those regulations.21 
 
Conclusion.  The judgment of the Superior Court is 
reversed, and the case remanded to that court for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
 
                     
 
21 LaChance I was not a class action, and the plaintiffs 
here, although raising similar regulatory and constitutional 
challenges as LaChance, were not parties to the LaChance I case.  
Moreover, LaChance was confined to an SMU on awaiting action 
status; the class the plaintiffs seek to represent is broader.  
Contrary to a suggestion of the plaintiffs in their brief, it is 
also the case that the motion judge in the present case has not 
made any findings of fact, but ruled on nonevidentiary motions.  
Accordingly, neither LaChance I nor prior proceedings in this 
case have resolved the merits of the plaintiffs' claims.