Court Opinion

ID: 9635095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:36:25.181872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:36.833967
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION

Justice McCAFFERY.
I fully concur with and join the majority’s holding that the Commonwealth Court correctly entered summary judgment in *440this case, and I further agree with the majority’s legal conclusion that administrative prison transfers are presumed to further a legitimate penological objective unless a prisoner-plaintiff proves otherwise. Thus, I join the majority opinion with the exception of footnote one. In particular, I wholly agree with this Court’s rejection of the burden-shifting approach set forth in Rauser.
However, I write separately to express my opinion that the essential relief requested by Appellant, to wit, re-transfer to SCI-Huntingdon, is simply not a cognizable remedy under any test.
Appellees herein moved for summary judgment on the ground that the specific remedy that Appellant seeks — the re-transfer back to SCI-Huntingdon from SCI-Greene — is not one that is available to him. The Commonwealth Court and the majority herein declined to address that issue, and instead determined that Appellant had failed to set forth a viable cause of action based on retaliation for having engaged in constitutionally protected conduct. However, I believe it is logical and necessary for this Court to determine as an initial matter whether the relief Appellant seeks is cognizable before determining whether he has set forth a valid cause of action. If the remedy is not cognizable, it is irrelevant whether the cause of action can survive scrutiny. If we determine that prisoners have no right to re-transfer as a remedy in a retaliation case, a position that I advocate, then these causes of action are subject to dismissal at the outset upon proper motion. However, if the issue of available remedy remains unresolved at this time, then similar causes of action will proceed beyond the pleading stage, resulting in the unnecessary waste of precious time and resources of prison officials and the courts. Further, by failing now to address the issue of whether a prisoner may or may not seek transfer or re-transfer as a remedy for a retaliation claim, we simply invite the filing of additional meritless lawsuits by prisoners unhappy with their current places of confinement. Therefore, I believe it is imperative that we first address the issue of whether the courts can grant the relief Appellant requests. For the *441following reasons, I believe they cannot; I do not believe that Appellant has a cognizable remedy.
There is no dispute that prison officials have broad discretion in carrying out their difficult duties to administer and control prison populations, and accordingly courts do not exercise oversight of the decisions of such officials except under limited circumstances. On more than one occasion, the United States Supreme Court has expressed the opinion that excessive judicial involvement in prison management “often squanders] judicial resources with little offsetting benefit to anyone” and “run[s] counter to the view ... that ... courts ought to afford appropriate deference and flexibility to state officials trying to manage a volatile [prison] environment.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 482, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). Further, the Supreme Court has consistently held that prisoners have no federal due process rights to be incarcerated in any particular prison or to avoid transfer to another prison absent a state-created liberty interest. See McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 39, 122 S.Ct. 2017, 153 L.Ed.2d 47 (2002); Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 251, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983); Montanye v. Haymes, 427 U.S. 236, 241, 96 S.Ct. 2543, 49 L.Ed.2d 466 (1976); and Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 224, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976). As the Court stated in McKune:
It is well settled that the decision where to house inmates is at the core of prison administrators’ expertise. For this reason[,] the [United States Supreme] Court has not required [prison] administrators to conduct a hearing before transferring a prisoner to a bed in a different prison, even if life in one prison is much more disagreeable than in another. The Court has considered the proposition that a prisoner in a more comfortable facility might begin to feel entitled to remain there throughout his term of incarceration. The Court has concluded, nevertheless, that this expectation is too ephemeral and insubstantial to trigger procedural due process protections as long as prison officials have discretion to transfer him for whatever reason or for no reason at all.
*442Id. at 39, 122 S.Ct. 2017 (citations and quotation marks omitted; emphasis added). And, as the Court stated in Montanye:
[N]o Due Process Clause liberty interest of a duly convicted prison inmate is infringed when he is transferred from one prison to another within the State, whether with or without a hearing, absent some right or justifiable expectation rooted in state law that he will not be transferred except for misbehavior or upon the occurrence of other specified events.... As long as the conditions or degree of confinement to which the prisoner is subjected is within the sentence imposed upon him and is not otherwise violative of the Constitution, the Due Process Clause does not in itself subject an inmate’s treatment by prison' authorities to judicial oversight. The Clause does not require hearings in connection with transfers whether or not they are the result of the inmate’s misbehavior or may be labeled as disciplinary or punitive.
Id. at 242, 96 S.Ct. 2543 (emphases added).1
It follows that if prison administrators may transfer prisoners for any reason, and if a prisoner has no right to a hearing prior to his or her transfer to another prison, then a prisoner has no right to seek the remedy of re-transfer even under a claim of a retaliatory transfer, absent a violation of state law, which Appellant has not alleged in this case.
Further, although suits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enforce constitutional rights typically contemplate injunctive relief as well as monetary relief, the United States Supreme Court has noted that the availability of this relief is quite circumscribed:
Section 1983 by its terms confers authority to grant equitable relief as well as damages, but its words allow a suit in equity only when that is the proper proceeding for redress, and they refer to existing standards to determine what is a proper proceeding. Even in an action between private *443individuals, it has long been held that an injunction is to be used sparingly, and only in a clear and plain case. When a plaintiff seeks to enjoin the activity of a government agency, even within a unitary court system, his case must contend with the well-established rule that the Government has traditionally been granted the widest latitude in the dispatch of its own internal affairs.
Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 378-79, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Therefore, I would hold that re-transfer is not a cognizable remedy when a prisoner alleges that he was transferred from one prison to another in retaliation for having exercised a constitutional right.2 Because I believe Appellant herein cannot realize the remedy he seeks under any circumstances, I believe further that there is no need to engage in a determination as to whether he has set forth a legitimate retaliation claim.

. Appellant cites no Pennsylvania law establishing a right or expectation that he would not be transferred except for misbehavior or upon the occurrence of other specified events.

. I note that monetary damages are available in prisoner retaliation cases, as well as appropriate injunctive relief. See, e.g., Wilson v. Marrow, 917 A.2d 357 (Pa.Cmwlth.2007) (disposing of a prisoner retaliation and other constitutional tort claim seeking monetary damages); Rauser v. Horn, 241 F.3d 330 (3d Cir.2001) (establishing the “Rauser test” for a prisoner retaliation claim that in part sought monetary damages); Allah v. Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220 (3d Cir.2000) (reinstating a prisoner retaliation action that in part sought compensatory and punitive damages). Moreover, Section 6604(a) of the Pennsylvania Prison Litigation Reform Act provides that the relief to be afforded under prison conditions litigation be, among other things, "the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of ... law.” 42 Pa.C.S. § 6604(a). Re-transfer is hardly the least intrusive means necessary in light of the availability of monetary damages or other appropriate and narrowly-tailored injunctive relief.