Opinion ID: 2768598
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: rfra claim for money damages

Text: We turn next to the question of whether Mr. Davila would be entitled to money damages if he succeeds on his RFRA claim at trial. RFRA provides that “[a] person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(c) (emphasis 4 The Defendants cite Brunskill v. Boyd, 141 F. App’x 771 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (unpublished), in which this Court held that denying a prisoner’s request to possess religious materials including “tobacco, sage, cedar, sweetgrass, beads, leather, thread, needles, and feathers” was the “least restrictive means in furthering compelling governmental interests in the security, health, and safety of inmates and staff.” Id. at 773, 776. However, this case is unpublished and therefore not binding precedent. It was also decided well before the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. 16 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 17 of 31 added). The “term ‘government’ includes a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States . . . .” Id. § 2000bb-2(1). “[A]ppropriate relief” is not defined by the statute. Though it is uncontroversial that the “appropriate relief” language authorizes injunctive relief, see, e.g., Gonzales, 546 U.S. at 423, 126 S. Ct. at 1216 (upholding the issuance of an injunction against the federal government under RFRA), the availability of money damages is a question as yet unanswered by both this Court as well as the Supreme Court. So we now take up two questions of first impression: whether RFRA authorizes suits for money damages against officers in their (1) official or (2) individual capacities. 5 Our analysis for each type of suit is distinct. Cf. Allen, 502 5 The Defendants argue that we should not address rulings that the District Court made at the motion-to-dismiss stage because Mr. Davila failed to specifically reference the order granting the motion to dismiss in his notice of appeal. We review de novo questions concerning our subject-matter jurisdiction. Elend v. Basham, 471 F.3d 1199, 1204 (11th Cir. 2006). Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)(1)(B) provides that a notice of appeal “must . . . designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being appealed.” In his notice of appeal, Mr. Davila specifically referenced “the judgment entered by the Honorable Chief Judge Lisa Godbey Wood on February 6th 2013, to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia.” He made no reference to the District Court’s grant of the Defendants’ motion to dismiss. If Mr. Davila cannot challenge the grant of the Defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court would lack subject matter jurisdiction to address his claims regarding monetary relief under RFRA. The Defendants overlook, however, that we always construe pro se pleadings liberally. Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998) (per curiam). Mr. Davila was uncounseled at the time he filed his notice of appeal. Beyond that, we have held that “since only a final judgment or order is appealable, the appeal from a final judgment draws in question all prior non-final orders and rulings which produced the judgment.” Barfield v. Brierton, 883 F.2d 923, 930 (11th Cir. 1989) (footnote omitted). The issues that were dismissed at the motionto-dismiss stage are “inextricably intertwined” with those the District Court denied at the summary judgment stage, Hill v. BellSouth Telecomm., Inc., 364 F.3d 1308, 1313 (11th Cir. 17 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 18 of 31 F.3d at 1272 (treating as separate the questions of authorization for suits for money damages in officers’ individual and official capacities under RLUIPA). While an officer can assert personal-immunity defenses like qualified immunity for suits against him in his individual capacity, the only immunity defenses he can assert in suits against him in his official capacity are forms of sovereign immunity. Id. at 1272–73. After careful consideration, we conclude that Congress did not clearly waive sovereign immunity to authorize suits for money damages against officers in their official capacities under RFRA. Also, even if we were to assume the statute authorizes suits for money damages against officers in their individual capacities, we hold that the Defendants here would be entitled to qualified immunity. A. Suits Against Officers in Their Official Capacities First, we address whether Congress authorized suits for money damages against officers in their official capacities when it passed RFRA. In order to authorize official-capacity suits, Congress must clearly waive the federal government’s sovereign immunity. According to the Supreme Court, “a waiver of sovereign immunity must be unequivocally expressed in statutory text.” FAA v. 2004) (citation omitted), because they all have to do with Mr. Davila’s religious rights under the same set of facts. In any event, the Defendants have not been “prejudiced,” id., because— regardless of the clarity of the notice of appeal—they have argued the money damages questions in their brief before this Court. In short, “[i]t is too late in the day and entirely contrary to the spirit of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for decisions on the merits to be avoided on the basis of such mere technicalities.” Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 181, 83 S. Ct. 227, 230 (1962). We therefore address the money damages questions dismissed by the District Court. 18 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 19 of 31 Cooper, 566 U.S. ___, ___, 132 S. Ct. 1441, 1448 (2012) (quotation marks omitted). “Any ambiguities in the statutory language are to be construed in favor of immunity, so that the Government’s consent to be sued is never enlarged beyond what a fair reading of the text requires.” Id. (citations omitted). “Ambiguity exists if there is a plausible interpretation of the statute that would not authorize money damages against the Government.” Id. At the same time, the Court does not require that Congress use specific language, and the “sovereign immunity canon . . . does not ‘displace the other traditional tools of statutory construction.’” Id. (quoting Richlin Sec. Serv. Co. v. Chertoff, 553 U.S. 571, 589, 128 S. Ct. 2007, 2019 (2008)) (alteration adopted). In Sossoman v. Texas, 563 U.S. ___, ___, 131 S. Ct. 1651, 1658 (2011), the Supreme Court held that identical “appropriate relief” language in the related statute RLUIPA did not waive states’ sovereign immunity from money damages. Id. at 1658. 6 “Appropriate relief,” according to the Court, “is open-ended and ambiguous about what types of relief it includes.” Id. at 1659. It is a “contextdependent” phrase, and “[t]he context here—where the defendant is a sovereign— suggests, if anything, that monetary damages are not suitable or proper.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). The only two circuit courts to address whether RFRA 6 Sossoman abrogated our decision in Allen, 502 F.3d 1255, to the extent that it allowed a suit for damages against RLUIPA against government officials in their official capacity. See Sossamon, 563 U.S. at ___, 131 S. Ct. at 1657. 19 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 20 of 31 waived the federal government’s sovereign immunity have held that it did not. See Oklevueha Native Am. Church of Haw., Inc. v. Holder, 676 F.3d 829, 841 (9th Cir. 2012) (holding that “[a]lthough the Supreme Court in Sossamon considered claims against a state, rather than federal actors, and was therefore guided by the Eleventh Amendment, the Court’s interpretation of ‘appropriate relief’ is also applicable to actions against federal defendants under RFRA” (footnote omitted)); Webman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 441 F.3d 1022, 1026 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (holding that it could not find “an unambiguous waiver in language this open-ended and equivocal”). Arguing that Congress waived the Government’s sovereign immunity, Mr. Davila asks us to consider the statutory interpretation canon that “Congress is aware of existing law when it passes legislation.” Griffith v. United States, 206 F.3d 1389, 1393 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation marks omitted). The purpose of RFRA, according to Mr. Davila, was “to restore the status of an individual’s right to sue under the First Amendment which existed prior to 1993.” And prior to 1993, a number of cases had recognized a claim for money damages against the United States for violations of a constitutional right. See Pet’r’s Br. 50 & n.16 (citing cases). Based on this, he argues that Congress intended to waive its sovereign immunity in light of the existing law at the time of RFRA’s passage. 20 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 21 of 31 We reject Mr. Davila’s analysis, and instead follow the lead of our sister circuits. Though Mr. Davila is certainly right about the existence of a canon that “Congress is aware of existing law when it passes legislation,” he has pointed to no case holding that such a general interpretive rule overrides the specific rule governing a waiver of sovereign immunity. The fact remains that “[a]ny ambiguities in the statutory language are to be construed in favor of immunity.” Cooper, 566 U.S. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 1448. Also, Mr. Davila’s argument is difficult to square with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Sossamon—which directly addressed the ambiguity of the phrase “appropriate relief.” We recognize that in Sossamon, the Court was addressing the sovereign immunity of the states.7 However, the Court’s analysis in addressing the ambiguity of “appropriate relief” applies equally to issues of federal sovereign immunity. Congress did not unequivocally waive its sovereign immunity in passing RFRA. RFRA does not therefore authorize suits for money damages against officers in their official capacities. 7 Congress “enact[ed] RLUIPA pursuant to its Spending Clause and Commerce Clause authority.” Sossamon, 563 U.S. at ___, 131 S. Ct. at 1656. It targets state and police action that restricts the religious exercise of people who are institutionalized. Id. RFRA, on the other hand, was enacted pursuant to Congress’ power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and applies only to the federal government. Id. 21 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 22 of 31 B. Qualified Immunity Second, we decline to address whether RFRA authorizes suits against officers in their individual capacities. Even if RFRA did authorize individualcapacity suits for money damages, these Defendants would be entitled to qualified immunity. 8 “[Q]ualified immunity offers complete protection for government officials sued in their individual capacities as long as their conduct violates no clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Oliver v. Fiorino, 586 F.3d 898, 904 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks omitted). “In analyzing the applicability of qualified immunity, the Court has at its disposal a two-step process. Traditionally, a court first determines whether the officer’s conduct amounted to a constitutional violation. Second, the court analyzes whether the right violated was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the violation.” Lewis v. City of W. Palm Beach, Fla., 561 F.3d 1288, 1291 (11th Cir. 2009) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 559 U.S. 936, 130 S. Ct. 1503 (2010). However, under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 129 S. Ct. 808 (2009), courts are no longer required to conduct the qualified immunity analysis in this order. We 8 Mr. Davila argues that because the question of qualified immunity was not addressed by the District Court, it is “premature to look at the issue in this Court.” However, “[w]e may affirm a decision on any adequate grounds, including grounds other than the grounds upon which the district court actually relied.” Rowe v. Schreiber, 139 F.3d 1381, 1382 & n.2 (11th Cir. 1998) (affirming summary judgment dismissal on qualified immunity grounds even when the district court granted summary judgment on absolute immunity grounds). 22 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 23 of 31 may “exercise [our] sound discretion” in deciding which prong of the inquiry to address first. Id. at 236, 129 S. Ct. at 818. Here, we begin and end our qualified immunity analysis with the second question—whether it was clearly established at the time of the incident that the Defendants violated Mr. Davila’s constitutional rights. We hold that it was not. “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202, 121 S. Ct. 2151, 2156 (2001). This Court has observed that “[a] government-officer defendant is entitled to qualified immunity unless, at the time of the incident, the preexisting law dictates, that is, truly compels, the conclusion for all reasonable similarly situated public officials that what [a] Defendant was doing violated [a] Plaintiff’s federal rights in the circumstances.” Marsh v. Butler Cnty., Ala., 268 F.3d 1014, 1030–31 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (alteration adopted) (quotation marks omitted), abrogated on other grounds by Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007). Whether or not the District Court concludes that the Defendants violated Mr. Davila’s rights under RFRA at trial, the law preexisting the Defendants’ conduct did not compel the conclusion that their actions violated RFRA. Mr. Davila offers three reasons why his right to obtain his beads and shells infused with Ache was 23 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 24 of 31 clearly established. First, he argues that the BOP’s Program Statement required the prison to supplement its ordinary procedures for obtaining religious items when Mr. Davila could not get the items he needed from the prison catalog. He says the Defendants knowingly ignored that Statement. Second, he points out that the Supreme Court has affirmed Santeria as a religion entitled to free exercise rights. And third, he argues that “the issue of whether a prison could prevent members of the Santeria religion from having their personal religious items mailed to them has already been litigated, and the outcome was in favor of the prisoners practicing Santeria.” Pet’r’s Br. 55 (citing Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194, 214 (S.D.N.Y. 1994)). None of these reasons demonstrates a clearly established rule that Mr. Davila is entitled to his beads and shells. First, the fact that the Program Statement requires the Defendants to enact reasonable supplements to the ordinary processes for obtaining religious items does not clearly establish what types of religious accommodations are mandated by RFRA. Second, the fact that the Supreme Court in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc., 508 U.S. 520, 113 S. Ct. 2217, recognized that Santeria is a religion generally entitled to protections does not clearly establish the precise types of protections its followers are statutorily entitled to receive. Officers are entitled to clear notice about how their actions violate federal rights. In order to do away with qualified immunity for these offices, it must have been 24 Case: 13-10739 Date Filed: 01/09/2015 Page: 25 of 31 clearly established under RFRA that a prisoner can get religious property from outside sources when the religious items available through authorized means are not sufficient to meet the prisoner’s religious needs. Mr. Davila has offered no prior case clearly establishing that proposition. Finally, the Campos case Mr. Davila cites is distinguishable because it held that a Department of Correctional Services directive that “prohibit[ed] prisoners from wearing certain religious artifacts, including plaintiffs’ religious beads” violated the First Amendment. Campos, 854 F. Supp. at 197 (emphasis added). Regardless, that case is from a district court in another jurisdiction and does not interpret RFRA. See Thomas ex rel. Thomas v. Roberts, 323 F.3d 950, 955 (11th Cir. 2003) (“[O]nly Supreme Court cases, Eleventh Circuit caselaw, and Georgia Supreme Court caselaw can ‘clearly establish’ law in this circuit.”). Campos does not therefore clearly establish a right under RFRA in the Eleventh Circuit. For those reasons, these Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. So even if Mr. Davila is successful at trial in proving a RFRA violation, these Defendants would be protected from paying money damages in their individual capacities.