Opinion ID: 787387
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 25 It is settled law that a denial of summary judgment is ordinarily not a final judgment from which an appeal will lie. An exception exists, however, when government officials seek summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity, and the court denies the motion as a matter of law. See Bernard v. County of Suffolk, 356 F.3d 495, 501-02 (2d Cir.2004); Luna v. Pico, 356 F.3d 481, 486 (2d Cir.2004); Kinzer v. Jackson, 316 F.3d 139, 142-43 (2d Cir.2003). Such an order is collateral to the merits of the underlying action and is, therefore, considered final for appellate purposes. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528-30, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); African Trade & Info. Ctr., Inc. v. Abromaitis, 294 F.3d 355, 359 (2d Cir.2002). Here, defendants appeal the district court ruling that the evidence, when viewed most favorably to Sira, does not, as a matter of law, support their claim of qualified immunity. We therefore have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 26 II. Conversion of the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings to a Motion for Summary Judgment 27 Before addressing the merits of defendants' qualified immunity claim, we consider their challenge to the district court's order converting their motion for judgment on the pleadings, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c), to a motion for summary judgment, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 56.
28 A district court must convert a motion for judgment on the pleadings to one for summary judgment if the motion includes material outside the pleadings and that material is not excluded by the court. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c). In this case, defendants attached to their motion (1) Sira's misbehavior report, (2) the full transcript of the non-confidential portion of his disciplinary hearing, (3) the full transcript of the confidential portion of the hearing, (4) the disposition ruling by Capt. Morton, and (5) Director Selsky's reversal order. Although none of these documents was attached to Sira's complaint or to defendants' answer, defendants maintain that all were fairly incorporated into the complaint and, therefore, not outside the pleadings. 29 A complaint is deemed to include any written instrument attached to it as an exhibit, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(c); Goldman v. Belden, 754 F.2d 1059, 1065 (2d Cir.1985), materials incorporated in it by reference, see Cortec Indus., Inc. v. Sum Holding L.P., 949 F.2d 42, 47 (2d Cir.1991), and documents that, although not incorporated by reference, are integral to the complaint, Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147, 153 (2d Cir.2002); see Cortec Indus., 949 F.2d at 47. Here, Sira's complaint explicitly refers to and relies upon two of the documents at issue, the misbehavior report and the disposition sheet, see Complaint ¶¶ 35-42, 66, to show that Sira was deprived of liberty without adequate notice of the charges against him. These documents are thus incorporated by reference into the complaint. 30 Although the complaint does not expressly cite the reversal order, this document is also incorporated into the pleading because reversal was integral to Sira's ability to pursue a § 1983 challenge to procedures that caused him to lose good-time credits. See Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 648, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997) (holding that prisoner who files a § 1983 action challenging discipline procedures resulting in loss of good-time credits must show that the conviction has been overturned); see also Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 489, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) (explaining that reversal rule does not simply engraft an exhaustion requirement upon § 1983, but rather den[ies] the existence of a cause of action absent reversal). In Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749, ___, 124 S.Ct. 1303, 1306, 158 L.Ed.2d 32 (2004) (per curiam), the Supreme Court recently clarified that a § 1983 action challenging the validity of a disciplinary sanction that does not affect the overall length of the prisoner's confinement may be brought regardless of whether the sanction was overturned. But that is not this case. Absent the reversal order, Sira's procedural challenges would necessarily have implicated the invalidity of the loss of his good-time credits. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. at 481-82, 114 S.Ct. 2364. Accordingly, the reversal order is fairly deemed incorporated. 31 The hearing transcripts, however, are another matter, being neither expressly cited in the complaint nor integral to the claims raised. Defendants nevertheless assert that Sira's paraphrasing of certain events occurring during parts of the disciplinary hearing and his single quotation of one excerpt from Lt. Schneider's testimony, see Complaint ¶¶ 45-64, incorporate the whole of these transcripts by reference into the complaint. We disagree. Limited quotation from or reference to documents that may constitute relevant evidence in a case is not enough to incorporate those documents, wholesale, into the complaint. See Cosmas v. Hassett, 886 F.2d 8, 13 (2d Cir.1989) (rejecting argument that short quotations from an annual report and 10K statement incorporated those documents into the complaint). Because the hearing transcripts were not incorporated into the complaint and because the district court did not exclude those documents from its consideration of defendants' motion, we conclude that the district court was required to convert the motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c).
32 Rule 12(c) provides that when a court converts a motion for judgment on the pleadings into one for summary judgment, it shall provide all parties ... a reasonable opportunity to present all material made pertinent to such a motion. Here, the district court did not notify the parties prior to converting the motion. Defendants assert that this failure requires reversal because they were prejudicially denied an opportunity to present all pertinent material as required by Rule 12(c). Here again, we disagree. 33 A party is deemed to have notice that a motion may be converted into one for summary judgment if that party should reasonably have recognized the possibility that such a conversion would occur. Gurary v. Winehouse, 190 F.3d 37, 43 (2d Cir.1999). By attaching to their motion extensive materials that were not included in the pleadings, defendants plainly should have been aware of the likelihood of such a conversion. See id. Under such circumstances, they cannot complain that they were deprived of an adequate opportunity to provide the materials they deemed necessary to support their motion. See M.J.M. Exhibitors, Inc. v. Stern (In re G. & A. Books, Inc.), 770 F.2d 288, 295 (2d Cir.1985). 34 In any event, defendants cannot demonstrate prejudice. Their complaint is not, after all, that judgment was entered in favor of Sira without affording them a full opportunity to be heard. Their complaint is that judgment was not entered in their favor. But if defendants could not establish their entitlement to qualified immunity on a presentation that supplemented the pleadings, they would certainly not have fared better had the district court ignored their attachments and treated their motion as one to dismiss. To the extent defendants submit that sua sponte conversion deprived them of the opportunity to submit affidavits or to discover evidence that might have strengthened a summary judgment motion, we note that district courts enjoy considerable discretion in entertaining successive dispositive motions. See Kovacevich v. Kent State Univ., 224 F.3d 806, 835 (6th Cir.2000) (District courts may in their discretion permit renewed or successive motions for summary judgment....); Enlow v. Tishomingo County, 962 F.2d 501, 507 (5th Cir.1992); see also 10A C. Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 2712, at 215 (3d ed.1998). The district court has not here precluded the defendants from filing a further motion for summary judgment at the conclusion of discovery; thus, we discern no prejudice from the challenged conversion warranting reversal.