ALD
- 012 NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________ No. 11

- 2384

___________ JOSEPH WILLIAMS, Appellant v. JOHN CLANCY, Administrator; SHELIA LEONARDO, Administrator; KEITH HOOPER, Supervisor o f Operations; JACQUELINE PERRY, Administrator; JOHN DOE ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR; MR. CONKLIN, Computer Lab; MS. SANDERS, Counselor; MISS LEWIS, Counselor; MR. MCLARY, Business Manager; JOHN DOE COUNSELORS; JANE DOE COUNSELORS, jointly, severally, or in the alternative, are sued in their official and their individual capacity

____________________________________ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. Civil No. 10

- cv - 2449) District Judge: Honorable Peter G . Sheridan

____________________________________ Submitted for Possible Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6 October 14, 2011 Before: SLOVITER, FISHER and WEIS, Circuit Judges Opinion filed : October 21, 2011

_________ OPINION

_________ PER CURIAM

.2 I. In May 2010, inmate Joseph Williams filed a civil rights complaint in federal court against thirteen New Jersey Department of Corrections officials (collectively, “App ellees”) employed at his place of confinement: the Talbot Hall Assessment and Treatment Center in Kearny, New Jersey. 1

Williams then mo ved for an extension of time to file an amended complaint. The District Court granted that motion, and Williams’s amended complaint was due on June 17, 2011. Williams , however, never filed an amended compla int. Instead, he timely In his complaint, Williams alleged that Appellees violated his constitutional rights under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments by placing him in a holding cell, depriving him of his personal property, and denying him meaningful access to the courts. Williams also alleged that Appellees violated unspecified provisions of the New Jersey state constitution.
T he District Court scre ened Williams complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). By order entered April 15, 2011, the District Court sua sponte: (1) dismissed with prejudice Williams’s claims regarding deprivation of property; (2) dismissed without prejudice his claim s regardi ng placement in a holding cell and access to courts; (3) declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his claims arising under state law; and (4 ) granted him thirty days to file an amended complaint in order to fix the apparent defects in the claims dismissed without prejudice.

1 Williams has since been released from custody and now appears to reside in northern New Jersey.3 a ppealed the District Court’s April 15, 2011 order.

II. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See Welch v. Folsom , 925 F.2d 666, 668 (3d Cir. 1991) (without

- prejudice dismissal is ‘final’ and appealable if plaintiff elec ts to stand on dismissed complaint). Our review is plenary. See Allah v. Seiverling , 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir. 2000). We will summarily affirm the District Court’s April 15, 2011 order because this appeal does not present a substantial question. Murra y v. Bledsoe , 650 F.3d 246,

--- (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam).
III. A. We first conclude that t he District Court did not err in dismissing Williams’s claim that he was denied due process when, as punishment for his “failure to properly smile during the p rocess of his identification photograph,” h e was place d in a holding cell separate from the general inmate population . A legal prerequisite to stating a viable due
process claim is that a cognizable interest in life, liberty, or property is at stake

. Art way v. Att’y Gen. of the State of N.J. , 81 F.3d 1235, 1268 (3d Cir. 1996). However, inmates have no liberty interest in remaining in the general population (and the interests in life and property are not implicated in this context)

. See Torres v. Fauver , 292 F.3d 141, 150 (3d Cir. 2002) (“Because disciplinary detention and ‘administrative segregation [are] the sort[s] of confinement that inmates should reasonably anticipate receiving at some point in their incarceration,’ Torres’s transfer to ‘less amenab le and more restrictive quarters’4 did not implicate a liberty interested protected by the Due Process Clause”) (quoting Hewitt v. Helms , 459 U.S. 460, 468 (1983) )

. Notably, Williams did not allege in his complaint any facts suggesting that the conditions of his segregated detention imposed “atypical and significant hardship . . . in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life

. ” Sandin v. Conner , 515 U.S. 472, 485 (1995).
B. Second , we conclude that the District Court did not err in dismissing Wil liams’s disciplinary segregation claim insofar as it was presented in the context of the Eighth Amendment. To state an Eighth Amendment ‘ condition s of confinement ’ clai m, an inmate must allege that his conditions were so severe as to deprive him of an ide ntifiable , basic human need. See Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) ; Wilson v. Seiter , 501 U .S. 294, 305 (1991). Williams made no such allegations in his complaint.
C. Third, we conclude that t he District Court properly dismissed Williams’s
Fou rteenth Amendment deprivation of personal property claim. Williams alleged that Appellees confiscated the funds in his possession

— as well as funds in his inmate trust

account

— at the time he was placed in the holding cell. He alleged that these funds were not returned. Williams’s allegations failed to state a procedural due process claim; property loss caused by the intentional acts of government officials does not give rise to such a claim where a post

- deprivation remedy satisfying minimal procedural d ue process requirements5 is available under state law. See Parratt v. Taylor , 451 U.S. 527, 543 (1981), overruled in part on other grounds by Daniels v. Williams , 474 U.S. 327 (1986). Here, Williams made no allegations suggesting that t he New Jersey Tort Claims Act (“NJTCA”), N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:1

- 1, failed to provide him with a sufficient po st

- deprivation judicial remedy. S ee Holman v. Hilton , 712 F.2d 854, 857 (3d Cir. 1983) (under the NJTCA, “prison inmates are entitled, as they were at common law, to a cause of action against prison officials and other public employees for injuries resulting from tortious acts committed during the performance of duties of a ministerial nature”).
D. Finally, we conclude that the District Court did n ot err in dismissin g Williams’s claims concerning meaningful access to the courts and the absence of a law library at
Talbot Hall . To establish a cognizable access to courts claim, a complainant must demonstrate that: (1) he suffere d an “actual injury” (i.e., that he lost an opportunity to pursue a nonfrivolous claim); and ( 2) he has no other remedy, save the present civil rights suit, that can possibly compensate for the lost claim. Monroe v. Beard , 53 6 F.3d 198, 205 (3d Cir. 2008). In addition, “[t] he complaint must des cribe the underlying arguable claim well enough to show that it is ‘more than mere hope,’ and it must describe the ‘lost remedy.’” Id. at 205

- 06 (citing Christopher v. Harbury , 536 U.S. 403, 416

- 17 (2002)). Williams’s claim rest s sol ely on the allegati ons that Appellees denied him access

to courts because Talbot Hall does not have a law library , because they withh eld certain legal documents, and because they recorded his communication s with the District Court6 Clerk. Thus, Williams failed to state an ac cess to courts claim because he did not allege

an actual injury relative to the complained

- of actions by Appellees. See also Lewis v. Casey , 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996) (recognizing that inmates have no “freestanding right to a law library or legal assistanc e”).
IV. Accordingly, for the reasons given in this opinion, we will summarily affirm the order of the District Court

. Williams’s motion to remand is denied. 2

2 Williams seeks remand to the District Court so that it may consider additional alle gations in support of his original complaint. Williams jettisoned the opportunity to bolster his claims when he declined to file an amended complaint with the District Court.