Court Opinion

ID: 9700792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:49:28.655053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:14.619321
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE,
Chief Justice, concurring and dissenting.
I believe the limitation in section 12-48-15, NDCC, that the money in the account therein established “shall not be available to the inmate until discharge” means exactly that. Where the money is used by the prison administration to provide “necessary medical care,” necessary to the point that denial thereof constitutes an eighth amendment violation, I do not believe the prohibition is applicable. Although the money is used by the prison administration for the inmate, it is not “available to the inmate” as proscribed in the statute. However, in this instance, the amount of money in the account appears barely sufficient to cover the glasses and may not in fact be sufficient. Therefore, I agree with the majority that the administration may be required to provide the glasses if they are proven to be “necessary medical care,” a matter which is yet to be determined.
Construing the complaint in the light most favorable to Ennis, I cannot agree that he has stated a claim for deliberate indifference to his medical needs. At best, because Ennis arguably has sufficient money in the account to pay for the glasses, this is a dispute as to whether the account may be used to pay for the glasses under the statute. There is no indication that if Ennis proves a serious medical need for eyeglasses and is unable to pay for them that the prison administration will refuse to provide them. If Ennis is able to pay for them, I do not believe the prison administration is required to do so nor do I understand the majority opinion to so hold. If, as the majority opinion holds (with which I have already expressed my disagreement) the prison administration cannot use the money in Ennis’s section 12-48-15, NDCC, account for the glasses, there is no indication that the administration will refuse to adhere to the majority’s construction of the statute. The matter of the availability of the account is sufficiently answered through Ennis’s request for declaratory relief.
To elevate the dispute as to the interpretation of the statute to “deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s serious medical needs” does more than construe the complaint in the light most favorable to Ennis. It places the administration in jeopardy of having to defend a lawsuit for civil rights violators each time it disagrees with an inmate over construction of a statute and subjects the individual defendants to unwarranted harassment. The money at issue is, after all, provided by the State to Ennis. He has no constitutional right to it as illustrated by the 1993 legislation which expressly makes the account available for the very purpose Ennis contends it was not available at the time he started this action. See 1993 N.D.Sess.Laws, Ch. 115, § 1.
I would remand to the trial court for the limited purpose of determining whether or not there is a serious medical need for eyeglasses for Ennis and, if so, whether or not Ennis has sufficient funds to pay for them, including the funds in the section 12^8-15, NDCC, account. If sufficient funds are not available, I would instruct the trial court to order the administration to pay for the glasses. In all other respects, I would affirm the trial court’s order dismissing the consolidated claims made by Ennis.