Opinion ID: 775595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Belief in Rectitude

Text: 23 The next step in the qualified immunity analysis is to ask whether the Prison Officials could have reasonably but erroneously believed that they were not violating the statute. Devereaux, 263 F.3d at 1074. We agree with the district court that they could have. 24 Although we have shown that the Prison Officials were incorrect, they did have a number of state court cases that lent support to their position, and neither we nor the Supreme Court had ruled that &#167 5301(a) prohibited a veteran from doing what Nelson did here. In fact, it must have seemed (and even now seem) to them that this is another illustration of the aphorism that no good deed goes unpunished. Their approach did inject some flexibility into the trust account system, and, after all, Nelson did ask them to pay the money out of his account and on his behalf, and they could take comfort from Crawford, 56 F.3d at 1167, where we alluded to the efficacy of consent. Moreover, the expenditures were of a discretionary nature, which differentiates them from the enforced cost of care mulcts imposed upon prisoners in past cases. The Prison Officials could see their program as a kind of benefit to Nelson that did not really amount to taking his property by some sort of legal process. All things considered, we cannot say that they behaved so unreasonably that they fell into the category of those who are plainly incompetent or. . . who knowingly violate the law. Malley v. Briggs , 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S. Ct. 1092, 1096, 89 L. Ed. 2d 271 (1986); see also B.C. v. Plumas Unified School Dist., 192 F.3d 1260, 1268 (9th Cir. 1999). 25 That, of course, demonstrates that the Prison Officials need not respond in damages. See Romero v. Kitsap County, 931 F.2d 624, 627 (9th Cir. 1991). It does not mean that they cannot be enjoined from future violations of Nelson's rights. They admit as much. However, they contend that because Nelson has been removed from Calipatria State Prison to a different state prison facility, his action has become moot in that respect. We disagree in part. 26 It is true that when a prisoner is moved from a prison, his action will usually become moot as to conditions at that particular facility. See Dilley v. Gunn, 64 F.3d 1365, 1368-69 (9th Cir. 1995). We, therefore, agree that Nelson's action for injunctive relief against the Calipatria officials, Heiss, Prunty, and Garcia, has become moot. But he has also asserted a claim against Gomez, who was the Director of the Department of Corrections, 8 and, as the complaint alleges, set policy for the whole California prison system. See Cal. Penal Code &#167 &#167 5053-5054. 27 The trust account policy appears to be system wide. For example, the sample form of authorization to maintain a trust account, which we have been given, provides that the Director of the California Department of Corrections maintains the trust accounts. 9 Also at the director level, where the practice of the Calipatria State Prison was approved, it was determined that [n]o changes or modifications are required by the institution, and Nelson's appeal was denied. That is sufficient to indicate that Nelson's request for injunctive relief against the Director of the Department of Corrections should not have been rejected out of hand on a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion. If some slight adjustment in the complaint was required to make it clear that he was challenging a systemwide problem, leave to amend should have been granted. Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1127-28 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc); Noll v. Carlson, 809 F.2d 1446, 1448 (9th Cir. 1987).