THE H ONORABLE HAROLD D. VIETOR, United States District Judge for 1 the Southern District of Iowa. United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________ Nos. 96-3876 and 97-1529

___________ Henry E. Parrish; Yvonne L. Parrish, * * Plaintiffs - Appellants, * * Appeals from the United States
v. * District Court for the * Southern District of Iowa Donald Mallinger; Richard Larkin; * Crispus Nix, * * Defendants - Appellees. *

___________ Submitted: September 12, 1997 Filed: January 7, 1998

___________ Before FAGG, WOLLMAN, and LOKEN, Circuit Judges.

___________ LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Io wainmate Henry Parrish and his wife Yvonne brought this damage actio n under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against three prison officials for seizing funds that came into Par rish’s inmate account to satisfy his obligations under the Iowa Victim Restitutio n Act, Iowa Code ch. 910. The dist rict court initially granted summary judgment to one

1 defendant, Richard Larkin, but granted Henry Parrish pa rtial summary judgment againstThe Victim Restitution Act has been significantly amended since the April 1991 2 events in question. See generally Mahers v. Halford , 76 F.3d 951, 952-54 (8th Cir

. 1996), cert. denied , 117 S . Ct. 696 (1997). Unless otherwise noted, references in this opinion will be to statutes in effect in April 1991.
-2- the other two, Crispus Nix and Donald Mallinger, concluding they had violate d Pa rrish’s due process rights and were not entitled to qualified immunity. Nix an d Mal linger appealed the qualified immunity ruling, and we remanded for furthe r consideration in light of two intervening decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa , Wal ters v. Grossheim , 525 N.W.2d 830 (Iowa 1994), and State v. Van Hoff, 52 8 N.W.2d 99 (Iowa 1995). On remand, the district court granted Nix and Mallinge r qualified immunity on Henry’s cla ims, and dismissed Yvonne’s claims when she failed to respond to defendant s’ motion for summary judgment. The Parrishes appeal. After review ing the grant of summary judgment de novo , see Get Away Club, Inc. v

. Coleman , 969 F.2d 664, 666 (8th Cir. 1992), we affirm.

Io wa requires nearly all convicted offenders to pay restitution to crime victim s and the State. See Iowa Code § 910.2 (1990). The sentencing court determines the 2 amount of restitution, the persons to whom it must be paid, and any public service that must be performed as restitution. See§ 910.3. An offend er committed to prison “shall make restitution while placed at that facility.” § 910.5(1). The Department o f Corrections must establish a restitution payment plan, taking into account the offender’s income, family circumstances, and other individualized factors. See §§ 910.4, 910.5(1). Prison officials may deduct up to fifty percent of an inmate’s prison earnings an d allowa nces for restitution payments. See Iowa Admin. Code § 201-20.11(7) (1991)

. Restitution may also be deducted “from a credit to an inmate’s account from an outside

source b y written authorization from the inmate, approval from th e warden/sup erintendent, or by court order.” Iowa Admin. Code § 201-20.11(10). An inmate may at any time petition the sentencing court “on any matter related to the plan of restituti on or restitution plan of payment.” § 910.7; see State v. Van Hoff, 41 5 N.W.2d 647, 649 (Iowa 1988).-3-

Pri or to April 1991, the Iowa State Penitentiary, where Henry Parrish wa s incarcerated, published to inmates a Policy & Procedure Statement adopting the abovereferenced restitution payment standards. On April 12, 1991, the Linn County District Court issued three restitution orders establishing Parrish’s total restitution obligation at $1106.97. Later that month, Parrish received $650 from his mother. Parrish deposited the money in his inmate account a nd requested that $456 be paid to his wife. On April 23, W arden Nix approved Parrish’s restitution payment plan, which provided tha t “[p]ayments will consist of 20 percent of my institutional allowance.” Also on April 23, Warden Nix approved a staff recommendation that the $650 from Parrish’s mother be applied to hi s restitution obligation. On April 25, the prison issued a $456 check t o Yvonne Parrish. The next day, Mallinger, the prison Business Manager, learned that Warden N ix had previously approved applying the entire $650 against Parrish’ s
re stitution debt. Mallinger directed a subordinate to contact the payor bank and sto p payment on the $456 check. Yvonne had already cashed the check, but she returne d t he money when the bank threatened criminal prosecution. Parrish later received two more checks from his mother totaling $70.
The Parrishes then commenced this action, alleging that defendants “confis cate[d] Plaintiff Henry’s monies . . . in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendm ent,” and seeking $570,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. Thei r damage c laims center on a nervous breakdown, loss of employment, and involuntar y ment al health commitment that Yvonne Parrish allegedly suffered as a result of thi s ep isode. Defendants have held the $720 from Parrish’s mother in a special accoun t pending the outcome of this litigation.

Defendan ts concede, as they must, that Parrish has a property interest in th e money his mo ther sent him that is protected by the Due Process Clause of th e Fourteenth Amendment. See Mahers v. Halford , 76 F.3d at 954. But the Due Process Clause will support many types of § 1983 claims. See Zinermon v. Burch , 494 U.S

. 113, 125-26 (1990). Although his brief ignores the dis tinction, it is apparent that Henry-4-

Parrish presents two very different due process claims. The first is a substantive attack on defendants’ authority to take money that came into his inmate account from a source outside the prison an d apply that money to satisfy his admittedly valid restitution debt. The second is a procedural attack, alleging that more process w as due before the money could be taken and applied in this fashion. The two claims are analytically distinct

. Accordingly, we discuss each in turn.

A
. In arguing that Warden Nix lacked substantive authority to take his money, Parrish re lies on our decision in Sell v. Parratt , 548 F.2d 753 (8th Cir.), cert. denied , 434 U.S. 873 (1977). In Sell , two inmates possessed cash in violation of priso n regulations. Prison officials confiscated the cash and paid it into an Inmates Welfare Fund for the benefit of all inmates. Though the confiscation was proper un der the prison policy prohibiting inmates from possessing cash, we held that the inmates’ due process rights were violated when they were permanently deprived of the cash because “a n administrativ e agency has no right without underlying statutory authority to prescribe and enforce forfeitures of property as punit ive measures for violations of administrative rules and regulations.” 548 F.2d at 759 (emphasis added).
Relying on Sell , the district court initially granted partial summary judgment in Parrish’s favor on the ground that neither the Iowa Victim Restitution Act nor § 201- 20.11(10) of the Iowa Administrat ive Code permitted this taking of an inmate’s money froman outside source. In Walters and Van Hoff , the Iowa Supreme Cour t subsequent ly decided that the statutes do authorize such action. Thus, we remande d because these decisions c onfirm there was no due process constraint on Warden Nix’s subst antive authority under § 201-20.11(10) of the Administrative Code to approv e payi ng money Parrish received from an outside source to satisfy his court-ordere d restitution debt. Legislation authorizing the paying of an inmate’s restitution debt out of his prison account “is reasonably related to a legitimate governmental purpose” and therefore satisfies the modern, highly deferential substantive due process standard.-5-

Honeywell, Inc. v. Minnesota Life & Health Ins. Guar. Ass’n , 110 F.3d 547, 554 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied , 118 S. Ct. 156 (1997).

Se eking to revive this issue, Parrish argues on appeal that the sentencing cour t ordered him to pay restitution in accordance with his restitution payment plan, that the plan only authorized deductions of twenty percent of his prison allowance, and that his property interest includes enforcing this limitation in the plan. In other words, Parrish contends that Warden Nix’s authority under § 201-20.11(10) could only be exercised

co nstitutionally through a payment plan. However, this is nothing more than a n assertion that defendants acted contrary to state law, and “something more than a violation of state law must be claimed to e stablish a substantive due process violation.” Weimer v. Amen , 870 F.2d 1400, 1 406 (8th Cir. 1989). Moreover, a violation of state law doe s not deprive an official of qualified immunity, unless the violation itself gives rise to a § 1983 cause of action. See Swenson v. Trickey , 995 F.2d 132, 135 (8th Cir.), cert. denied , 510 U.S. 999 (1993); Bartlett v. Fisher , 972 F .2d 911, 915 (8th Cir. 1992).

B. That brings u s to the more complex question whether Nix and Mallinger are enti tledto qualified immunity on Parrish’s claim that he was denied procedural du e process. A procedural due process claim focuses not on the merits of a deprivation, but

on whet her the State circumscribed the deprivation with constitutionally adequat e procedures. This inquiry examines “the procedural safeguards built into the statutory or administrative procedure of effecting the deprivation, and any remedies for erroneous dep rivations provided by statute or tort law.” Zinermon , 494 U.S. at 126. Relevan t factors in clude the affected private interest, the risk of an erroneous deprivation, th e probable value of additional procedural safeguards, and the government’s interest , including burdens that additional safeguards would entail. See Mathews v. Eldridge , 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). In most cases, some type of predeprivation notice an d hearing are constitutionally required before a property interest is invaded, but in some situations meaningful postdeprivation remedies are const itutionally sufficient. Compare Zinermon , 494 U.S. at 136-39, and Logan v.-6-

Zimmerm an Brush Co. , 455 U.S. 422, 436 (1982), with Hudson v. Palmer , 468 U.S

. 517 (1984), and Parratt v. Taylor , 451 U.S. 527 (1981), overruled on other grounds , Daniels v. Williams , 474 U.S. 327 (1986).

In this case, the State clearly provided an adequate postdeprivation remed y because Par

rish could have petitioned the sentencing court to review these deductions under Iowa Code § 910.7. Indeed, such a petiti on may be filed predeprivation. Parrish argues that more process was due -- that defendants were constitutionally required to pr ovide predeprivation notice and some form of hearing before taking $720 from hi s
ac count to satisfy his restitution debt. Limiting the inquiry in this fashion puts th e Mathews v. Eldridge factors in rather nice balance. On the one hand, the privat e inte rest at stake is not particularly strong because, though Parrish was deprived of the immediate u se of the money, he received the benefit of having it applied to satisfy a restitution debt that would otherwise survive incarceration. See Beeks v. Hundley , 34 F.3d 658, 661 (8th Cir. 1994). Moreover, as we emphasized in Mahers v. Halford , 76 F.3d at 955-56, Parrish received significant predeprivation process -- a hearing in the sentencing court before the amount of restitution was established, plus notice of hi s individua lpayment plan and the prison’s deduction policies. Finally, the State ha s strong interests in compensating victims, teaching inmates responsibility, an d maintainin g administrative control over its prisons. For these reasons, in Mahers v

. Halfo rd we rejected a procedural due process challenge to automatic twenty percen t deductions under an Iowa Department of Corrections policy first adopted in 1992.

On the othe r side of the Mathews v. Eldridge scale, giving inmates a limited , in formal predeprivation opportunity to contest particular deductions can be mad e administr atively feasible and is consistent with the statutory directive that restitutio n must reflect individualized factors bearing on an inmate’s ability to p ay. See Iowa Code §§ 910.4, 910.5(1). These factors led the Iowa Supreme Court to conclude tha t predeprivation n otice and a brief opportunity to object are required. See Walters , 525-7-

N.W. 2d at 833. That decision was later adopted by the Iowa Legislature an d incorporated into a 1995 statute, Iowa Code § 904.702.

Parrish argues that this case is factually different than Mahers v. Halfordan d urges us to conclude that he had a clear ly established right to predeprivation notice and hearing whe n Nix and Mallinger implemented their decision to apply the funds t o Parrish’s re stitution debt. We reject this contention. The issue here is qualifie d imm unity, a doctrine designed to protect from damage liability “all but the plainl y incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. ” Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986). Qualified immunity shields prison officials from damage liability unles s they “violate clearly established stat utory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald , 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982). Whether

a broa d constitutional right such as due process is “clearly established” for qualifie d immunity purposes is a particularized inquiry:

The contou rs of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonabl e official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an offi cial action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law th e unlawfulness must be apparent.

Ander son v. Creighton , 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987) (citations omitted). Subsequen t developments are relevant in determining what law was “clearly est ablished” at the time defendants acted. See Offet v. Solem , 936 F.2d 363, 367 (8th Cir. 1991). In our view, the subsequent actions of the Iowa Supreme Court and the Iowa Legislature to clarify state law, an d our subsequent decision in Mahers v. Halford , make it clear that th e extent to whi ch Parrish was entitled to predeprivation notice and hearing was far from clearly established in April 1991. Accordingly, we agree wi th the district court that Nix and Mall inger are entitled to qualified immunity from Henry Parrish’s damage claims.-8-

After the court dismissed Henry Parrish’s claims, defendants moved to dismiss Yvonne Parrish’s claims. She defaulted on tha t motion, despite the fact that the district court granted her request for an extension of time to res pond. The district court granted summary judgment dismissing her c laims for this reason. That was not an abuse of the court’s considerable discretion.
The judgments of the district court are affirmed.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U. S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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