Title: Aaron Israel v. Indiana Department of Correction

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

APPELLANT PRO SE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE 
Aaron Israel   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Steve Carter 
Carlisle, Indiana  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Attorney General of Indiana 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Frances Barrow  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Deputy Attorney General 
 
 
 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
 
 
______________________________________________________________________________ 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court 
_________________________________ 
 
No. 46S03-0706-CV-253 
 
AARON ISRAEL, 
 
    Appellant (Plaintiff below), 
 
v. 
 
INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION, 
 
    Appellee (Defendant below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the LaPorte Superior Court, No. 46D03-0410-SC-1351   
The Honorable Paul J. Baldoni, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 46A03-0509-CV-421 
_________________________________ 
 
June 26, 2007 
 
Sullivan, Justice. 
 
While an inmate at an Indiana Department of Correction (“DOC”) facility, Aaron Israel, 
also known as Aaron Isby, stabbed Officer Douglas Darby in the neck with a knife.  In a 1990 
prison disciplinary proceeding, three years of disciplinary segregation were imposed and, rele-
vant to this case, Israel was ordered to pay $8,363.85 in restitution for Officer Darby’s hospital, 
doctor, and ambulance bills.  On November 20, 1996, a check in the amount of $2,800, a result 
 
of a class action lawsuit settlement, was deposited into Israel’s inmate trust account.  On No-
vember 26, 1996, the DOC withdrew $2,800.17 from Israel’s trust account for restitution pur-
poses.   
 
Israel responded by filing a small claims action against the DOC in the Small Claims Di-
vision of the LaPorte Superior Court.  His argument was that the DOC’s withdrawal of funds 
from his trust account violated the terms of a written agreement he had with a prison counselor 
that purported to limit the amount the DOC could withdraw from his account.  The small claims 
court decided the case against him. 
 
Israel appealed.  The DOC sought dismissal of the appeal on grounds that the small 
claims court did not have jurisdiction to review a disciplinary decision against Israel, citing this 
Court’s recent pronouncement in Blanck v. Indiana Department of Correction that “[f]or a quar-
ter-century, our Court has held that DOC inmates have no common law, statutory, or federal 
constitutional right to review in state court DOC disciplinary decisions.” 829 N.E.2d 505, 507 
(Ind. 2005).  The Court of Appeals rejected the DOC’s jurisdictional argument, but decided the 
merits in the DOC’s favor.  Israel v. Indiana Dep’t of Corr., 854 N.E.2d 1220 (Ind. Ct. App. 
2006) (mem.).   
 
We grant Israel’s petition for transfer and hold that the trial court should have dismissed 
Israel’s lawsuit. 
 
At issue here is the DOC’s enforcement of its disciplinary decision that Israel pay restitu-
tion for hospital, doctor, and ambulance costs incurred by Officer Darby after Israel stabbed him 
in the neck with a knife.  Restitution here was a prison disciplinary sanction.  It was “agency ac-
tion related to an offender within the jurisdiction of the department of correction” and, as such, 
not subject to judicial review.  Blanck, 829 N.E.2d at 510 (quoting Ind. Code § 4-21.5-2-5(6)).  
In addition, any arrangement the DOC may have made with Israel to specify how the sanction 
would be met would also have been “agency action” not subject to judicial review.  
 
This case should have been dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 
 
2
Shepard, C.J., concurs and Rucker, J., concurs with separate opinion.  Boehm, J., dissents with 
separate opinion in which Dickson, J., concurs. 
 
3
Rucker, Justice, concurring. 
 
In my view Blanck v. Ind. Dep’t of Corr., 829 N.E.2d 505 (Ind. 2005), was wrongly de-
cided.  Indeed I joined Justice Boehm’s concurring in result opinion for that reason.  But Blanck, 
and the authority on which it rests, is now settled law, namely: the enforcement of prison disci-
plinary sanctions are not subject to judicial review.  Id. at 510-11.  I therefore concur in the ma-
jority opinion in this case.  
 
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Boehm, J., dissenting. 
Israel was ordered to pay restitution to a prison guard whom he injured.  He claims he en-
tered into a contract with the state providing for the maximum amount to be taken from his 
prison account to satisfy his obligation.  He later received a check for $2,800 as his share of a 
damage award in a class action.  That amount was applied by prison authorities to his restitution 
obligation.  Israel claims that (1) restitution is not an allowable sanction and (2) the seizure of his 
check breached the contract.  The majority holds that the seizure of the settlement check was res-
titution as a result of a disciplinary sanction and is therefore not subject to judicial review.  Thus, 
the majority concludes that Israel’s claim should have been dismissed for lack of subject matter 
jurisdiction.  I respectfully dissent.         
Indiana Code section 11-11-5-3(5) (2004) provides that the Indiana Department of Cor-
rections “may impose . . . as a disciplinary action . . . Restitution . . . .”  There appears to be little 
merit to Israel’s contention that restitution is unavailable as a form of prison discipline.  The is-
sue, however, is not the merits of Israel’s claim, but whether it is within the subject matter juris-
diction of the courts. 
In Blanck v. Indiana Department of Corrections, this Court held that “inmates have no 
common law, statutory, or federal constitutional right to review in state court DOC disciplinary 
decisions.”  829 N.E.2d 505, 507 (Ind. 2005).  That decision was based in part on Indiana Code 
section 4-21.5-2-5(6) (2004), which excludes from judicial review “agency action related to an 
offender within the jurisdiction of the department of correction.”  Blanck alleged violation of his 
rights under a statute requiring periodic review of his placement in solitary confinement.  Blanck, 
829 N.E.2d at 508.  The trial court dismissed the claim for failure to state a claim.  Id. at 507.  A 
three justice majority affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Blanck’s complaint but held that 
dismissal should have been based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction grounds rather than for 
failure to state a claim.  Id. at 511-12.  Justice Rucker and I agreed with the majority that no pri-
vate cause of action was created by the statutory provisions Blanck cited.  However, the dissent 
argued that if there were a private right of action under those statutes, it was within the subject 
matter jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction.  Id. at 512 (Boehm, J., dissenting). 
 
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The majority today expands its view of the sweep of section 5(6) to eliminate court juris-
diction of any claim tangentially related to prisoner discipline.  This is contrary to precedent and, 
I submit, cannot be correct. 
Seven years before Blanck, in Ratliff v. Cohn, 693 N.E.2d 530, 530 (Ind. 1998), this 
Court addressed a juvenile’s action alleging that her placement in an adult prison by the Depart-
ment of Corrections was unconstitutional.  Ratliff claimed that inattention to her serious medical 
needs violated the Eighth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and that she was denied condi-
tions of reasonable care and safety in violation of her due process rights.  We held that both 
claims withstood 12(b)(6) dismissal.  We also held these claims were within the subject matter 
jurisdiction of the courts.  Id. at 547.  Specifically, we said: 
There is nothing in [Indiana Code section 4-21.5-2-5(6)] to support the 
Commissioner’s broad statement that courts lack the power of judicial review 
over alleged violations of an inmate’s right to medical treatment under the Eighth 
Amendment and an inmate’s constitutionally protected interests in conditions of 
reasonable care and safety under the Fourteenth Amendment.  The grounds urged 
by the Commissioner in support of his challenge to the trial court’s jurisdiction 
are insufficient to undermine the Marion Superior Court’s general subject matter 
jurisdiction.        
We find no lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.  The trial court’s dismissal 
cannot be affirmed upon such a claim. 
Id. at 548 (internal citation omitted).   
Israel’s claim of illegal discipline and breach of contract may have no merit.  But I agree 
with the Court of Appeals that these claims are within the jurisdiction of the courts.  The Court 
of Appeals concluded that Israel  
does not ask us to review the disciplinary decision per se, but rather he asks us to 
determine whether the IDOC had the statutory authority to make the decision it 
did—to order restitution—and if it did, whether the IDOC breached a contractual 
agreement secondary to but separate to that disciplinary decision.  To the extent 
that Israel’s claim adheres to these reviewable inquiries and does not exceed the 
subject matter jurisdiction of this Court, we address his case.   
Israel v. Indiana Dep’t of Corr., No. 46A03-0509-CV-421, slip op. at 6 (Ind. Ct. App. September 
26, 2006).  Israel claims that the DOC’s withdrawal of funds from his trust account violated the 
terms of a written agreement he had with the DOC.  There is no doubt that a common law breach 
of contract claim is within the jurisdiction of Indiana state courts.  If the statute identifying per-
 
6
missible forms of discipline creates a cause of action, that too is within the jurisdiction of the 
courts.  The majority reads Indiana Code section 4-21.5-2-5(6) to remove from judicial review 
any claim that relates to discipline, however tenuously.  So interpreted, the statute violates both 
the Indiana and Federal Constitutions.  The Open Courts Clause of the Indiana Constitution 
states that “[a]ll courts shall be open; and every person, for injury done to him in his person, 
property, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law.”  Ind. Const. art. 1, § 12.  The 
Clause prevents the legislature from arbitrarily or unreasonably denying access to the courts to 
assert an existing statutory or common law cause of action.  Martin v. Richey, 711 N.E.2d 1273, 
1283 (Ind. 1999).  The majority’s reading of the statute results in a statute that contravenes the 
Open Courts Clause.  Furthermore, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitu-
tion, if a statute infringes upon a “fundamental right,” such as the right of access to courts, the 
classification is subject to strict scrutiny analysis.  Alston v. DeBruyn, 13 F.3d 1036, 1041 (7th 
Cir. 1994) (citing Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821 (1977)).  It must be narrowly tailored to 
effectuate a compelling state interest.  Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 235 
(1995).  Even if the State’s interest in avoiding mass inmate litigation over DOC disciplinary ac-
tions is compelling, the majority’s reading of the statute insulates even illegal discipline from 
judicial review and denies access to the courts to assert conventional claims such as Israel’s 
breach of contract.  If read this broadly, the statute is not narrowly tailored to vindicate the 
state’s interest.  I would read section 4-21.5-2-5(6) to restrict inmates from challenging the 
DOC’s decision to choose from among permissible actions under the disciplinary statutes. The 
Frivolous Claims Act is sufficient to address the state’s interest in eliminating frivolous litigation 
of other claims.  Unlike Blanck, Israel has alleged rights of action, and the court has general ju-
risdiction to review them, just as it did the constitutional claims advanced by Ratliff.    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7
The majority’s holding today extends Blanck.   Even if related to discipline, a breach of 
contract claim is subject to judicial review and within the subject matter jurisdiction of state 
courts.  I do not suggest there is merit to Israel’s claims.  They may be subject to dismissal for 
failure to state a claim.  They are, however, within the jurisdiction of the courts.   
Dickson, J., concurs. 
 
 
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