Court Opinion

ID: 9380170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-17 16:00:35.064317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:23.045934
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 22-8033     Document: 010110828056      Date Filed: 03/17/2023    Page: 1
                                                                                  FILED
                                                                      United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                         Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                         March 17, 2023
                          _________________________________
                                                                         Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                             Clerk of Court
  DAVID A. JACKSON-MACKAY,

        Plaintiff - Appellant,

  and

  ARTHUR D. PENROD; TYLER E.
  MCCURDY; AUSTIN D. ANDERSON,

        Plaintiffs,

  v.                                                          No. 22-8033
                                                    (D.C. No. 2:22-CV-00083-SWS)
  MICHAEL MCDONALD, Sergeant, Platte                           (D. Wyo.)
  County Detention Center; DAVID
  RUSSELL, Captain, Platte County
  Detention Center; CLYDE HARRIS,
  Sheriff, Platte County Sheriff’s
  Department; PLATTE COUNTY
  WYOMING; PLATTE COUNTY
  SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT; PLATTE
  COUNTY DETENTION CENTER;
  PLATTE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS,

        Defendants - Appellees.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
                          _________________________________

        *
         After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
 unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of
 this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
 ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
 precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
 estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Appellate Case: 22-8033    Document: 010110828056        Date Filed: 03/17/2023      Page: 2

 Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges.
                   _________________________________

       David A. Jackson-Mackay, an inmate at the Platte County Detention Center,

 appeals the dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) of his1 civil-

 rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.2 Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

 § 1291, we affirm in part and remand in part.

       The complaint states that all defendants are sued in their individual and

 official capacities. But it makes no sense to sue a governmental entity in its

 individual capacity. And “[a] suit against a government agent in his official capacity

 is treated as a suit against the government.” Mocek v. City of Albuquerque, 813 F.3d

 912, 932 (10th Cir. 2015). Therefore, the district court properly classified the

 defendants into two groups: First, the County Defendants are the Platte County

 entities (the Detention Center, the County, the Commissioners, and the Sherriff’s

 Department) and all the individuals sued in their official capacities; the claims

       1
          Mr. Mackay brought this litigation with other inmates at the Detention
 Center, but his co-plaintiffs do not join this appeal.
        2
          Although Mr. Mackay has three strikes under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) and
 therefore, absent exceptional circumstances, cannot file a complaint in federal court
 in forma pauperis, or without prepayment of court fees, that provision does not bar
 this action because it was not Mr. Mackay who chose the federal forum—Defendants
 removed the case from state court. See Woodson v. McCollum, 875 F.3d 1304, 1307
 (10th Cir. 2017) (“Section 1915(g) . . . does not prevent an indigent prisoner-plaintiff
 with three strikes from proceeding in a case that someone else filed in federal court.”
 (internal quotation marks omitted)). It is an open question, however, whether the
 three-strike bar applies to this appeal. We need not decide this novel issue here
 because “we have long recognized that we retain discretion to ignore the three-strikes
 rule and reach the merits of an appeal.” Smith v. Veterans Admin., 636 F.3d 1306,
 1309 (10th Cir. 2011). We therefore address the merits of this appeal.

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 against them were treated as “simply a suit against Platte County.” Order at 4,

 Jackson-Mackay v. McDonald, No. 2:22-CV-00083-SWS (D. Wyo. May 26, 2022),

 ECF No. 47. Second, the Individual Defendants are the three officials at the

 Detention Center sued in their individual capacities.

       Mr. Mackay alleges that the defendants violated his rights under the First and

 Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by instituting a policy

 (1) that required Detention Center officials to scan mail received from courts into the

 Detention Center’s electronic kiosk system instead of opening it in the presence of

 the addressee inmate, and (2) that forbade inmates from sealing their own outgoing

 court mail.3 His principal claim is that the policy violated his constitutional right of

 access to the courts. But he contended in his response to the Individual Defendants’

 motion to dismiss that the complaint encompasses two additional claims: that the

 policy violated (1) his due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and

 (2) his free-speech rights under the First Amendment.

        The district court granted the Individual and County Defendants’ motions to

 dismiss. We affirm the dismissal of Mr. Mackay’s access-to-courts claim for

 substantially the same reason the district court gave: Mr. Mackay did not show that

 the mail policy “frustrated or impeded” his nonfrivolous litigation efforts. Gee v.

       3
          Mr. Mackay also raises a claim under the Sixth Amendment. We dispose of
 this issue summarily because that Amendment does not support Mr. Mackay’s civil-
 rights claim regarding court mail. The Supreme Court held in a case examining
 inmate access to mail: “As to the Sixth Amendment, its reach is only to protect the
 attorney-client relationship from intrusion in the criminal setting.” Wolff v.
 McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 576 (1974) (emphases added).
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 Pacheco, 627 F.3d 1178, 1191 (10th Cir. 2010). We also conclude that Mr. Mackay

 did not preserve a due-process claim for appeal. But because a “document filed pro

 se is to be liberally construed, and a pro se complaint, however inartfully pleaded,

 must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers,”

 Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (per curiam) (citation and internal

 quotation marks omitted), we hold that Mr. Mackay adequately raised his claim that

 the mail policy violated his First Amendment right to free speech. The Individual

 Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from this claim because no clearly

 established law holds that the mail policy violated the Constitution. But “an entity

 defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity,” Callahan v. Unified Gov’t of

 Wyandotte Cnty., 806 F.3d 1022, 1030 (10th Cir. 2015), so we remand for further

 consideration the question, which the district court did not address, whether

 Mr. Mackay’s free-speech claim against the County Defendants stated a claim upon

 which relief can be granted.

       I.     ANALYSIS

       “We review de novo a district court’s decision on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion for

 dismissal for failure to state a claim.” Waller v. City & County of Denver, 932 F.3d

 1277, 1282 (10th Cir. 2019). “In reviewing a motion to dismiss, we accept the facts

 alleged in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the

 plaintiff.” Mayfield v. Bethards, 826 F.3d 1252, 1255 (10th Cir. 2016). Because

 Mr. Mackay appears pro se, we construe his pleadings liberally. See id. Still,

 “conclusory allegations without supporting factual averments are insufficient to state

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 a claim on which relief can be based.” Hall v. Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1110 (10th

 Cir. 1991).

       A city or county “can be directly sued under § 1983 when its officers commit

 constitutional violations in accordance with the municipality’s official policy. But

 liability will not attach where there was no underlying constitutional violation by any

 of the municipality’s officers.” Ellis ex rel. Est. of Ellis v. Ogden City, 589 F.3d

 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2009) (brackets, citation, and internal quotation marks

 omitted); see Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 403

 (1997) (treating a county as a municipality for purposes of § 1983 actions). We

 therefore begin by addressing whether the complaint identifies any constitutional

 violations.

               A. Access-to-Courts Claim

       To bring an access-to-courts claim “a prisoner must demonstrate actual injury

 from interference with his access to the courts—that is, that the prisoner was

 frustrated or impeded in his efforts to pursue a nonfrivolous legal claim concerning

 his conviction or his conditions of confinement.” Gee, 627 F.3d at 1191.

 Mr. Mackay’s complaint does not make this showing. It does not allege any facts

 demonstrating that the Detention Center’s outgoing-mail policy hindered

 Mr. Mackay’s efforts to pursue legal claims concerning his conviction or conditions

 of confinement. Regarding incoming mail, his complaint simply alleges, “When the

 Defendants[] began scanning incoming court mail, including blank self-help fill-in-

 the-blank court forms, the Defendants’ conduct amounted to obstructing Plaintiffs’

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 access to the courts. The Defendants’ obstructive conduct frustrated and impeded

 Plaintiffs’ ability to file and pursue civil rights claims against another jail.” Aplt.

 App., Vol. I at 31. As the district court ruled, these are conclusory allegations that do

 not explain how any litigation was hampered.

        Mr. Mackay made somewhat more specific allegations in his response to the

 Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss, claiming:

        Plaintiffs[] received a court’s “Memorandum and Order” in March 2022
        from the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, requiring
        [them] to complete the “enclosed form,” which was a fill-in-the-blank form
        the court had provided. . . . [I]f Plaintiffs[] failed to complete and return the
        form by a specified date, the action would be subject to dismissal.
 Aplt. App., Vol. II at 83–84. Mr. Mackay did not provide the name or number for the

 case to which he referred. But in his brief on appeal, he lists a case number for

 Jackson-Mackay et al. v. Cotant et al., No. 8:22CV00010 (D. Neb.). For the first

 time, he contends that because the defendants “intercept[ed] these forms [from the

 Nebraska district court], [Mr. Mackay] and his co-parties were unable to timely file

 those documents with the Court and had no alternative means by which to access

 those forms or similar forms.” Aplt. Br. at 7. These allegations come far too late to

 cure deficiencies in the complaint. But we note that in any case, the record of the

 Nebraska federal court shows that the order that Mr. Mackay complains of was

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 directed only at his co-plaintiffs, and they were able to comply with the court order

 anyway.4

       The district court properly dismissed the access-to-courts claim against all the

 defendants because there was no constitutional violation.

              B. Due-Process Claim

       In his response to the Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss, Mr. Mackay

 contended that one of the claims he brought was “a due process . . . case.” Aplt. App.,

 Vol. II at 83. But his brief on appeal does not argue that his due-process rights were

 violated, or argue that the district court erred in failing to address a due-process

 claim. Nor do we see an allegation of a denial of due process in his complaint. We

 therefore consider the issue forfeited and waived. See Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d

 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he omission of an issue in an opening brief

 generally forfeits appellate consideration of that issue.”).5

       4
          Because it is a matter of public record, we can take judicial notice of the
 docket in Jackson-Mackay v. Cotant, No. 8:22CV00010. See Tal v. Hogan, 453 F.3d
 1244, 1264 n.24 (10th Cir. 2006).
        5
          We note that some of Mr. Mackay’s pleadings also may suggest that he is
 making an equal-protection claim. In his response to the Individual Defendants’
 motion to dismiss, he wrote that “Defendants[] arbitrarily engaged in a course of
 conduct that singled out a select group of inmates” and that he was not treated like
 other “similarly situated inmates.” Aplt. App., Vol. II at 83. And he makes a similar
 allegation in his appellate brief. See Aplt. Br. at 2, 6. (“[T]he Appellees[] did not
 equally apply this policy to all inmates at the Platte County Detention Center;
 instead, the Appellees[] arbitrarily and capriciously applied this ‘policy’ only to
 certain inmates with whom the Appellees[] were irritated”; “the issues raised in the
 District Court Complaint were not regarding a single incident of opening or reading
 Court mail. It was a policy or custom that was recently instituted and was a blanket
 policy for specific inmates that chose to challenge the jail staff’s conduct.”). But the
 complaint did not allege facts showing disparate treatment of similarly situated
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               C. Free Speech Claim

        As we have noted, the district court addressed only whether Mr. Mackay had

 adequately pleaded an access-to-courts claim. But in our view Mr. Mackay also

 adequately presented an argument (the merit of which was not resolved below) that

 the mail policy was unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s Free Speech

 Clause. In his complaint Mr. Mackay asserted that the mail policy violated his rights

 under the First Amendment. He alleged that “Plaintiffs[] have a constitutional right to

 communicate with the Court freely and unobstructed” and that “Defendants’ conduct

 of inspecting and reading both incoming and outgoing Court mail outside of

 Plaintiffs’ presence create[d] a chilling effect and is a violation of Plaintiffs’ rights.”

 Aplt. App., Vol. I at 28. He also cited cases that recognize an inmate’s First

 Amendment interest in having incoming legal mail opened only in the inmate’s

 presence. See Merriweather v. Zamora, 569 F.3d 307, 317 (6th Cir. 2009); Jones v.

 Brown, 461 F.3d 353, 358 (3d Cir. 2006); see also 28 CFR § 540.19 (defining legal

 mail as “mail from courts or attorneys” and indicating that such mail is to be opened

 in the inmate’s presence).

        Further, in his response to the Individual Defendants’ motion to dismiss,

 Mr. Mackay stated that his was “a freedom of speech case.” Aplt. App., Vol. II at 83.

 And in his response to the County Defendants’ motion to dismiss, he reiterated the

 assertions that “mail to and from the courts should be opened in the presence of

 persons and his later pleadings do not develop the necessary elements of a claim. We
 therefore need not address this possible claim.
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 inmate-addressee[s]” and that the mail policy “clearly impedes [Plaintiffs’] access to

 the court and violates their First Amendment rights.” Id. at 179, 181 (emphasis

 added). He cited Jones in both responses to the motions to dismiss. Finally,

 Mr. Mackay’s appellate brief cites Merriweather and Jones and claims that

 “Appellees’ conduct of inspecting and presumably reading both incoming and

 outgoing mail to and from the Courts outside of the Appellant’s presence creates a

 ‘chilling effect’ and violates the Appellant’s constitutional rights.” Aplt. Br. at 5. As

 a pro se litigant, Mr. Mackay adequately preserved the issue.

       Nevertheless, we affirm the dismissal of the First Amendment claim against

 the Individual Defendants. They raised qualified immunity as an affirmative defense

 to all the claims. “A § 1983 defendant’s assertion of qualified immunity is an

 affirmative defense that creates a presumption that the defendant is immune from

 suit. To overcome this presumption, the plaintiff must show (1) the defendant’s

 actions violated a constitutional or statutory right, and (2) that right was clearly

 established at the time of the defendant’s complained-of conduct.” Truman v. Orem

 City, 1 F.4th 1227, 1235 (10th Cir. 2021) (brackets, citation, and internal quotation

 marks omitted). To show that the law was clearly established, a plaintiff must

 ordinarily identify “an on-point Supreme Court or published Tenth Circuit decision

 that establishes the unlawfulness of the defendant’s conduct [or show that] the clearly

 established weight of authority from other courts . . . ha[s] found the law to be as the

 plaintiff maintains.” Cummings v. Dean, 913 F.3d 1227, 1239 (10th Cir. 2019)

 (original brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

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         Mr. Mackay has not pointed to any decision of this court or the Supreme Court

  that clearly establishes his right to have incoming court mail opened in his presence

  or to seal his own outgoing mail. And we held in an unpublished opinion that a prison

  regulation allowing officials to open incoming mail not marked as confidential legal

  material without the inmate-addressee present “satisfie[d] the four factors set forth in

  Turner v. Saf[]ley, 482 U.S. 78, 89–91 (1987), for determining the validity of a

  prison regulation” and did not violate an inmate’s “right of access to the courts and

  his right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to his mail.” Medel v. Deland,

  974 F.2d 1345 (tbl.), 1992 WL 201073, at *1 (10th Cir. 1992). See Grissom v.

  Roberts, 902 F.3d 1162, 1168 (10th Cir. 2018) (“an unpublished opinion can be quite

  relevant in showing that the law was not clearly established”; indeed, we “presume

  that an unpublished decision was not contrary to clearly established law at the

  time.”).

         But the qualified immunity that protects the Individual Defendants does not

  protect the County Defendants. See Callahan, 806 F.3d at 1030. We think the proper

  course is to remand the claims against them to the district court for consideration in

  the first instance.

                D. Declaratory Judgment

         Finally, Mr. Mackay appeals the district court’s failure to issue a declaratory

  judgment that the mail policy was unconstitutional and requests a judicial decision

  “regarding whether or not Court mail should be treated as special (legal) mail.” Aplt.

  Br. at 10. The second request was never made to the district court, so we decline the

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  invitation to opine on the scope of “legal mail.” As for a declaration of

  unconstitutionality, it would hardly be appropriate with respect to the claims that we

  have rejected on the merits. We leave to the district court to determine what remedy,

  if any, would be appropriate on Mr. Mackay’s First Amendment claim.

        II.    CONCLUSION

        We AFFIRM the judgment below in all respects except that we REMAND to

  the district court for further proceedings Mr. Mackay’s free-speech claim against the

  County Defendants.

                                              Entered for the Court

                                              Harris L Hartz
                                              Circuit Judge

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