Opinion ID: 404985
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: other conditions of confinement: the pendent state law claims206

Text: 134 Neither the plaintiffs nor the United States asserted any claims under Texas law. In their Amended Complaint, the plaintiffs allege that their living and working conditions are inadequate and dangerous, and that TDC's industries and work areas fail to meet applicable minimum health and safety standard(s). These allegations, however, are followed by the assertion that these alleged deficiencies violate the United States Constitution. The Amended Complaint does not mention Texas law, nor does the Complaint in Intervention filed by the United States. 207 Like the Amended Complaint, the Complaint in Intervention asserts that various alleged deficiencies in the living and working conditions at TDC violate the United States Constitution. 135 After the lengthy trial was completed, the district court directed the parties to brief the applicability of various Texas health and safety statutes. Although TDC contends that these statutes do not apply to state agencies, the district court held that they apply to TDC. 208 It then concluded that enforcement of these statutes would remedy the harmful conditions it found and that, therefore, it was unnecessary to decide the constitutional claims. 209 136 Plaintiffs defend the district court's disposition as the least intrusive means of dealing with these conditions, and as an appropriate exercise of the court's power and discretion under the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction. Their argument blends two distinct doctrines: pendent jurisdiction over state law claims and judicial self-restraint to avoid deciding issues on constitutional grounds when they can be decided on some other basis. 210 137 Federal courts are necessarily confined to the limited jurisdiction granted by article III and by act of Congress. 211 However, the Supreme Court has long held that the Constitution does not prohibit the assertion of state law claims that form a separate but parallel ground for relief also sought in a substantial claim based on federal law. 212 The trial court's jurisdiction over state law claims is ultimately a question of judicial power under the Constitution. The definition of that power is not to be crabbed. 213 In United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, the Court held: 138 Pendent jurisdiction, in the sense of judicial power, exists whenever there is a claim 'arising under (the) Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority   ,' U.S.Const., Art. III, § 2, and the relationship between that claim and the state claim (asserted by the plaintiff) permits the conclusion that the entire action before the court comprises but one constitutional 'case.'  214 139 The state and federal claims must derive from a common nucleus of operative fact. 215 But if the plaintiff's claims are such that he would ordinarily be expected to try them all in one judicial proceeding, then ... there is power in federal courts to hear the whole. 216 That power, the Court continued, need not be exercised in every case in which it is found to exist. 217 The jurisdiction is discretionary, and (i)ts justification lies in considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants. 218 140 The Gibbs decision, like the others in this field, is predicated on the assumption that the plaintiff invokes the court's jurisdiction. 219 Indeed both of the leading treatises on federal civil procedure include pendent jurisdiction under the subject Joinder of Claims. 220 Professor Moore states that it is unnecessary as a matter of pleading to assert that the case involves pendent jurisdiction but it may avoid later difficulties if the pendent basis of the jurisdiction is plainly stated. 221 In some cases the act of assuming jurisdiction might, as Professor Moore suggests, indicate both the invocation of the court's jurisdiction and the court's decision to exercise its discretion. 222 141 The pleadings in this case did not invoke the court's pendent jurisdiction and, as a result, exercise of that discretion was not even mentioned until after the lengthy trial on the merits had been completed. These factors would militate against the exercise of pendent jurisdiction even if the plaintiffs, and not the court, had invoked it at that belated time. 223 142 The exercise of pendent jurisdiction is an expansive act, permitting disposition in one suit of both state and federal claims. Avoiding decision of federal constitutional claims is, by contrast, an act of judicial self-restraint. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declared that it will decide federal constitutional issues only if necessarily compelled to do so in order to decide a case. 224 If possible, it will avoid deciding such issues by deciding instead a dispositive, pendent state law claim. 225 143 The concept that a federal trial court may of its own volition, after trial, consider state law claims not pleaded by the plaintiffs does not appear consonant with either doctrine. 226 Not only does the court thus reshape the plaintiffs' suit, but it does so after trial when there is no opportunity to fashion proof or presentation directly to the state law issues. 227 Moreover, because the applicability of general Texas statutes to state agencies is unclear, 228 the district court should have been reluctant to consider claims grounded on those statutes. 229 Needless decisions of state law should be avoided both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the parties, by procuring for them a surer-footed reading of applicable law. 230 144 We conclude that the district court should not have relied on pendent jurisdiction and should not, therefore, have decided these claims on the basis of state law. 145 We turn to the various health and safety deficiencies found by the district judge to appraise whether they, considered either alone or together with the other conditions at TDC, constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Aside from the fire hazards discussed earlier, these deficiencies are: the sanitation problems resulting from overcrowding, which facilitate the spread of disease and tax sanitary facilities; inadequate plumbing; violations of food handling standards at some units; violations of sanitation standards in food processing areas; and inadequate safety measures in TDC's industrial operations. 231 146 Although we do not condone TDC's failure to observe the standards applicable to private industry, we do not find that any of these conditions alone, or all of them together, considered in combination with the overcrowding and security deficiencies, constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The reduction of overcrowding will patently relieve some of these conditions. The others can and should be attacked in a state court action in which the question of applicability of the statutes in question to TDC can be considered directly, not as a peripheral issue in this already complex case.