Opinion ID: 4238479
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail

Text: In Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 372 (1992), pretrial detainees held at a county jail in Massachusetts sued the county, state, and related entities, claiming they were being held under unconstitutional conditions. The district court ruled that conditions at the jail were constitutionally deficient; thus, the district court enjoined the state defendants from, among other things, housing two or more inmates in a single cell. Id. at 372–73. When conditions at the jail did not improve, the district court ordered the state defendants to renovate another existing facility to serve as a substitute detention center. Id. at 373–74. The First Circuit affirmed and ordered that the jail be closed unless the state defendants timely presented a plan to create a constitutionally adequate facility for the pretrial detainees. Id. at 374. Days before the deadline to present a plan for a new facility, the state defendants submitted a plan to create a substitute facility with only single-occupancy cells, and the district court entered a consent decree obligating the state defendants to construct a facility containing 309 single occupancy rooms. Id. at 374–75. When the inmate population outpaced population projections, the parties moved the district court to modify the decree to provide a facility with an increased number of cells. Id. at 375–76. The district court granted the modification on the condition that “singlecell occupancy is maintained” under the new plan for the facility. Id. at 376. The state defendants again moved to modify the consent decree, this time to allow for double bunking of male detainees in roughly one-third of the cells in the new jail. Id. The state defendants attributed the need for a second modification to a 28 further increase in the population of pretrial detainees. Id. The state defendants argued that the continued increase in the pretrial detainee population—a change in fact—coupled with a change in law regarding the constitutionality of double bunking pretrial detainees, see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), supported the requested modification. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 376. The district court denied the motion, in part, because the state defendants failed to make a “clear showing of [a] grievous wrong evoked by new and unforeseen conditions.” Id. at 377 (quoting United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 119 (1932)). The district court explained that modification would violate a primary purpose of the decree—to provide for a separate cell for each detainee—although it never decided whether double celling would be unconstitutional. Id. at 377. The First Circuit affirmed. Id. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and remanded so the lower courts could apply the proper standard to modification requests under Rule 60(b)(5). See id. at 393. The Court began by emphasizing the need for flexibility when considering a motion for modification of a consent decree in institutional reform litigation. Id. at 380–83. After all, consent decrees in such cases “often remain in place for extended periods of time, [meaning] the likelihood of significant changes occurring during the life of the decree is increased.” Id. at 380. The Court further explained that the experience of the Courts of Appeals “demonstrated that a flexible approach is often essential to achieving the goals of reform litigation,” as the Courts of Appeals observed that consent decrees frequently “reach beyond the parties involved directly 29 in the suit and impact [] the public’s right to the sound and efficient operation of its institutions.” Id. at 381 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court then outlined what a movant must show when seeking modification of a consent decree under Rule 60(b)(5). The party seeking modification of a consent decree bears the burden of showing that “a significant change either in factual conditions or in law” warrants revision of the decree. Id. at 384. Changed factual circumstances may warrant modification of a consent decree when the changed circumstances “make compliance with the decree substantially more onerous,” when “a decree proves to be unworkable because of unforeseen obstacles,” or when “enforcement of the decree without modification would be detrimental to the public interest.” Id. at 384. A party need not show that a change in fact was both unforeseen and unforeseeable. Id. at 385. Conversely, a court should deny a party’s request for a modification under Rule 60(b)(5) if the party merely establishes that “it is no longer convenient [for the moving party] to live with the terms of a consent decree.” Id. at 383. Furthermore, a modification should be denied “where a party relies upon events that actually were anticipated at the time it entered into a decree.” Id. at 385. The Court explained: If it is clear that a party anticipated changing conditions that would make performance of the decree more onerous but nevertheless agreed to the decree, that party would have to satisfy a heavy burden to convince a court that it agreed to the decree in good faith, made a reasonable effort to comply with the decree, and should be relieved of the undertaking under Rule 60(b). Id. 30 If a party meets its burden of establishing a change in fact that warrants modification of a consent decree, the district court should examine “whether the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the changed circumstance.” Id. at 391. This analysis focuses on whether the proposed modification “is tailored to resolve the problems created by the change in circumstances.” Id. In performing this analysis, a court must bear in mind that the public interest and principles of federalism require a federal court to defer to state or local government officials and to consider a state or local government’s financial constraints. Id. at 392. But a modification “must not create or perpetuate a constitutional violation.” Id. at 391. Additionally, in accord with the requirement that a modification be tailored to the change in circumstances, the existence of a change in circumstances often will not justify a modification to the consent decree that lowers the terms of the consent decree to “the constitutional floor.” Id. In this sense, a court modifying a consent decree may “do no more” to the consent decree than is warranted by the change in circumstances and “should not ‘turn aside to inquire whether some of the provisions of the decree . . . could have been opposed with success if the defendants had offered opposition.’” Id. at 391-92 (quoting United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 116-17 (1932)). Thus, even where a change in circumstances occurs, the plaintiff will retain those benefits secured under the consent decree that are not impugned by the change in circumstances. See id. The Court then instructed the district court on remand to first consider whether the purported change in factual circumstances—the upsurge in the pretrial detainee 31 population—was foreseen by the state defendants. Id. at 385. But the Court also advised that the district court erred by concluding that modification was inappropriate simply because it would not provide for a separate cell for each detainee. The Court explained: Even if the decree is construed as an undertaking by [the state defendants] to provide single cells for pretrial detainees, to relieve [them] from that promise based on changed conditions does not necessarily violate the basic purpose of the decree. That purpose was to provide a remedy for what had been found, based on a variety of factors, including double celling, to be unconstitutional conditions obtaining in the [jail]. If modification of one term of a consent decree defeats the purpose of the decree, obviously modification would be all but impossible. That cannot be the rule. The District Court was thus in error in holding that . . . modification of the single cell requirement was necessarily forbidden. Id. at 387.