NOT PRECEDENTIAL 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

___________ 

No. 20-3235 

__________ 

RANCOURT LITTLE MOUNTAIN WOODELL, 

 Appellant 

v. 

JOHN E. WETZEL, Secretary of the PA.D.O.C.; 

TAMMY FURGUSON, SCI-Superintendent; 

JOHN DOE #1, Corrections Emergency Response Team; 

JOHN DOE #2, Corrections Emergency Response Team; 

JANE DOE #3, SCI Phoenix Mailroom Inspector; 

JOHN DOE #4, SCI Phoenix Mailroom Inspector; 

SMART COMMUNICATION 

____________________________________ 

On Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 

(D.C. Civil Action No. 2-18-cv-04430) 

District Judge: Honorable Edward G. Smith 

____________________________________ 

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) 

October 3, 2022 

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., PORTER, and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges 

(Opinion filed: December 6, 2022) 
2

___________

OPINION*

__________

PER CURIAM

Rancourt Little Mountain Woodell appeals pro se from the District Court’s order 

dismissing his amended complaint. For the following reasons, we will affirm.

I.

Woodell is a Pennsylvania prisoner currently incarcerated at the State Correctional 

Facility at Phoenix (“SCI-Phoenix”). In October 2018, he filed a complaint pursuant to 

42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel and former 

SCI-Phoenix Superintendent Tammy Ferguson. In the operative amended complaint, he 

claimed, inter alia, that the defendants violated his rights under the First, Eighth, and 

Fourteenth Amendments by losing or destroying his personal property and legal materials

during his transfer from SCI-Graterford. He also claimed that the Department of 

Corrections’ (“DOC”) new mail policy, DC-ADM 803, violated his First Amendment 

right to freedom of expression. Specifically, he alleged that under the new policy, both 

privileged legal mail and non-privileged mail must be sent to a third-party processing 

center, Smart Communications, which scans the mail, forwards the digital files to the 

prisons for printing, and destroys the originals.1

 Woodell stated that his family would no 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

1 According to the defendants, the policy was implemented in 2018 “in response to 

escalating drug problems in Pennsylvania’s state prisons.” Stay Mot. 1, ECF No. 14. 
3

longer send him correspondence or photographs because the originals would be stored in 

Smart Communications’ database and then destroyed. By way of relief, Woodell sought 

an injunction and damages. 

In January 2019, the defendants moved to stay Woodell’s case pending resolution 

of a challenge to DC-ADM 803 pending in the United States District Court for the 

Middle District of Pennsylvania. Soon thereafter, the parties in that matter reached an 

agreement according to which the DOC defendants would no longer process privileged 

legal mail through Smart Communications. As a result of this change to the policy, 

Woodell consented to dismissal without prejudice of his claim for injunctive relief. The

District Court then dismissed the request for injunctive relief without prejudice to 

Woodell’s raising it again by appropriate motion and denied the defendants’ stay motion 

as moot.

In April 2019, the defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint pursuant 

to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that Woodell had failed to state a 

claim with respect to either the alleged property loss or the DOC’s mail policy. The 

District Court granted the motion, concluding that Woodell had not alleged a plausible

infringement of any constitutional right.2

 The District Court further concluded that 

amendment would be futile and dismissed the amended complaint. Woodell timely 

appealed. 

II.

2 The District Court also screened the amended complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(e)(2) and dismissed a number of additional claims that Woodell raised in his 

pleadings and response to the motion to dismiss. 
4 

 We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.3 4

 We exercise plenary review 

over the District Court’s order dismissing a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). See

Fleisher v. Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d 116, 120 (3d Cir. 2012). 

III. 

 We will affirm. In his brief, Woodell primarily challenges the District Court’s 

determination that he failed to state a First Amendment claim with respect to his 

contention that his family will no longer send him correspondence, photographs, or 

religious documents because all mail must go to Smart Communications first, and 

because the originals will be destroyed. Even assuming, however, that Woodell stated a 

plausible claim for a First Amendment violation, the defendants were entitled to qualified 

immunity from his request for damages. 

3

 The District Court dismissed without prejudice Woodell’s official capacity claims 

against Ferguson and Wetzel because they were protected by Eleventh Amendment 

immunity. The District Court deemed the dismissal as one as without prejudice because 

it was a dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and such a dismissal should be 

without prejudice. Mem. Op. 27, ECF No. 27 (citing Blanciak v. Allegheny Ludlum 

Corp., 77 F.3d 690, 694 n.2 (3d Cir. 1996)). However, the Supreme Court has never 

decided that Eleventh Amendment immunity is a matter of subject-matter jurisdiction nor 

suggested that the immunity-from-liability defense could be jurisdictional. In re Venoco 

LLC, 998 F.3d 94, 109 (3d Cir. 2021). In any event, in the context of the District Court’s 

ruling, the without-prejudice designation does not suggest that the dismissal is not final. 

Cf. Borelli v. City of Reading, 532 F.2d 950, 951 (3d Cir. 1976) (per curiam) (explaining 

that a dismissal without prejudice is not a “final” order if “the deficiency may be 

corrected by the plaintiff without affecting the cause of action”). 

 

4

 On appeal, Woodell challenges the District Court’s adjudication of his First, Fourth, 

Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims relating to the loss or destruction of his 

personal property and legal materials; his First Amendment claim relating to DC-ADM 

803; his First Amendment claim asserting that he was denied access to the courts; and his 

claim relating to the “Native American Religious Freedom Act.” We therefore deem 

forfeited any challenge to the District Court’s other rulings. See M.S. ex rel. Hall v. 

Susquehanna Twp. Sch. Dist., 969 F.3d 120, 124 (3d Cir. 2020). 
5 

 State officials have qualified immunity from claims for monetary relief if their 

conduct “does not violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a 

reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) 

(citation and quotation marks omitted); see also Bistrian v. Levi, 696 F.3d 352, 366 (3d 

Cir. 2012) (“For a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours must be 

sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing 

violates that right.” (citation and quotation marks omitted)). Although it is well 

established that “state prisoners, by virtue of their incarceration, do not forfeit their First 

Amendment right to use of the mails,” Jones v. Brown, 461 F.3d 353, 358 (3d Cir. 2006) 

(citation and quotation marks omitted), Woodell has not cited, and we cannot locate, any 

precedent that clearly establishes that it violates the First Amendment for the DOC to use 

vendors, such as SMART Communications, to scan non-privileged mail, send the digital 

files to the prisons, and destroy the originals. Therefore, the defendants were entitled to 

qualified immunity from Woodell’s First Amendment challenge to the mail policy.5

 

5

 As previously noted, Woodell initially requested an injunction to stop the defendants 

from processing incoming privileged legal mail through Smart Communications. He 

later agreed to effectively withdraw his request, however, because the DOC had changed 

its policy and no longer required incoming legal mail to be sent to Smart 

Communications. Accordingly, as noted above, the District Court entered an order 

dismissing Woodell’s claim for injunctive relief. The District Court dismissed the claim 

without prejudice and advised him that if he “has concerns with the implementation of 

the new mail policy, . . . he may file an appropriate motion with the court relating to any 

claim for injunctive relief that he might have.” Order 2 n.3, ECF No. 18. Because 

Woodell did not subsequently seek or obtain leave to raise a new claim for an injunction, 

only his claim for damages stemming from the violation of his First Amendment rights 

remained. See generally Fed. R. Civ. P. 15. Insofar as Woodell challenges the District 

Court’s denial of his motion to oppose the Middle District settlement agreement, the 

District Court correctly noted that he cannot challenge the terms of that agreement in this 
6 

 Woodell also challenges the District Court’s determination that he failed to state a 

claim with respect to the defendants’ alleged interference with his personal property and 

legal materials during the transfer from SCI-Graterford. We see no error in the District 

Court’s disposition of these claims. First, to the extent that Woodell alleged that the 

deprivation or destruction of his personal property amounted to cruel and unusual 

punishment under the Eighth Amendment, the District Court correctly concluded that the 

loss of property is not sufficiently serious to give rise to an Eighth Amendment claim. 

See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994). To the extent that Woodell alleged 

that the deprivation of his legal materials resulted in the denial of his First Amendment 

right to access the courts, this claim failed because, for the reasons stated by the District 

Court, he did not identify a lost, meritorious legal opportunity in either his state postconviction or federal habeas proceedings. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 352–53 

(1996). Furthermore, to the extent that he asserted a claim that the loss or destruction of 

his personal property violated the Fourth Amendment, it is well established that “the 

Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply in prison 

cells.” Hudson v. Palmer, 568 U.S. 517, 529–30 (1984). 

lawsuit. Cf. Caplan v. Felheimer Eichen Braverman & Kaskey, 68 F.3d 828, 836 (3d Cir. 

1995) (“Generally, it is true that those who were not parties before the district court may 

not appeal an order of the district court.”); Binker v. Commonwealth of Pa., 977 F.2d 

738, 745 (3d Cir. 1992) (recognizing an exception to the general rule that a nonparty 

lacks standing to appeal a district court’s approval of a settlement agreement where, 

among other things, the nonparty participated in some way in the district court 

proceedings). Woodell does not appear to challenge the disposition of his other motions 

and filings concerning the settlement agreement. Therefore, he has forfeited any such 

challenge. See M.S. ex rel. Hall, 969 F.3d at 124. 

 
7 

IV. 

 We have considered Woodell’s remaining arguments on appeal and conclude that 

they are meritless.6 7

 Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment. 

6

 Woodell argues in his brief that the defendants violated the “Native American Religious 

Freedom Act” when they destroyed personal property with religious significance. 

Although he raised this claim in his initial complaint, the District Court dismissed it 

without prejudice, and Woodell did not include it in his amended complaint. Therefore, 

we cannot consider it on appeal. See W. Run Student Hous. Assocs., LLC v. Huntington 

Nat. Bank, 712 F.3d 165, 171 (3d Cir. 2013) (“The amended complaint supersedes the 

original and renders it of no legal effect, unless the amended complaint specifically refers 

to or adopts the earlier pleading.” (alterations and quotation marks omitted)). 

7

 Woodell’s motion to expand the record is denied. See Burton v. Teleflex Inc., 707 F.3d 

417, 435 (3d Cir. 2013). (“[A] court of appeals may allow a party to supplement the 

record on appeal in exceptional circumstances.”).