Court Opinion

ID: 9480297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:44:00.849682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:35.878836
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Chief Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the judgment of the court affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment to appellee Dugger, Secretary of the Department of Corrections (Department), on the ground of qualified immunity. I do so because I cannot identify any constitutional violation on which appellant Lee’s section 1983 claim for damages could be based. Therefore, I do not see how Dugger could have been on notice that his conduct violated Lee’s constitutional rights.
Dugger concedes on appeal that the Department kept Lee in confinement past the date on which he was entitled to be released. Lee thus satisfies three prerequisites of a section 1983 claim:1 Department officials acted under color of state law; they infringed a liberty interest protected by the fourteenth amendment;2 and Lee’s unauthorized confinement constituted a deprivation of that interest. The fourteenth amendment, however, does not protect against all deprivations of life, liberty, or property; it protects only against deprivations that occur without the due process of law. See Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 145, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 2695-97, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979).3 Accordingly, I now consider what process appellant was due.
*825Florida law prior to June 6, 1983, provided for judicial review of final agency decisions adversely affecting a party. See Fla. Stat. §§ 120.57, .68(1) (1983). Judicial review was instituted by “filing a petition in [a] district court of appeal.” Id. § 120.68(2). Petitions for an extraordinary writ (habeas corpus or mandamus) filed directly in a district court of appeal served to trigger review when a party was kept in confinement due to an adverse agency decision. See, e.g., Ellis v. Wainwright, 428 So.2d 785, 786 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1983); Morris v. Wainwright, 409 So.2d 1161, 1162 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1982); Holman v. Florida Parole & Probation Comm’n, 407 So.2d 638, 638-39 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1981); Wright v. Wainwright, 359 So.2d 11, 11-12 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1978); cf. Florida Dep’t of Rehab. v. Jerry, 353 So.2d 1230, 1233-34 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1978) (discussing applicability of Administrative Procedure Act to prison disciplinary proceedings), cert. denied, 359 So.2d 1215 (Fla.1978), overruled on other grounds, Florida Home Builders Ass’n v. Department of Labor & Employment Sec., 412 So.2d 351, 354 (Fla.1982). The Florida statutory model thus provided for judicial review, upon petition by the adversely affected party, of the Department’s decision to deny gain-time. Such review was simply the final stage in the decision-making process established by the legislature for consideration of a prisoner’s request for release.
On June 6, 1983, the legislature eliminated the appellate courts’ jurisdiction to entertain direct appeals, by adversely affected prisoners, of most agency actions. See 1983 Fla.Laws ch. 83-78, §§ 1, 4; see also Thomas v. Florida Parole & Probation Comm’n, 436 So.2d 349 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1983); Hansen v. Florida Parole & Probation Comm’n, 436 So.2d 349-50 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1983). Prisoners could, however, continue to seek judicial review directly from the district court of appeal, pursuant to section 120.68, of agency proceedings that involved the adoption or the validity of an agency rule. See id. § 1; Fla.Stat. §§ 120.54(3)-.54(5), .54(9), .56 (1983). Although they could no longer file directly for appellate review of other agency actions, aggrieved prisoners could nonetheless seek to remedy an adverse decision by filing a petition for an extraordinary writ in the circuit court. See Hall v. Wainwright, 498 So.2d 670 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1986); Hansen, 436 So.2d at 349-50.
In Baranko v. Wainwright, 448 So.2d 1067 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1984), upon which Lee relies, the basis of the court’s jurisdiction is not identified. The petition for writ of habeas corpus appears to have been filed directly in the district court of appeal, however, rather than in the circuit court (a court of first instance), and the three-judge Baranko court reached its decision after reviewing a record from below. See id. at 1068-69. These facts indicate that the Baranko court sat as an appellate body from which judicial review of an administrative agency decision could be obtained directly, in accordance with section 120.68. Similarly, although the record on appeal does not set forth all of the steps taken by Lee in obtaining his release, Lee’s complaint states that he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus directly with the district court of appeal. This indicates that, as in Baranko, the court that granted Lee’s petition and issued the writ sat in its capacity to review the Department’s decision.
Regardless of the basis of the court’s jurisdiction, then, Lee has received precisely the process due him under the Florida scheme. Because of its mistaken interpretation of a newly amended Florida statute as not applying in Lee’s case, Department officials who considered his request for release denied him a full hearing and kept him too long in confinement. The Department’s error, however, was then corrected in the manner provided by Florida law: Lee petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in the district court of appeal; that court reviewed the Department’s decision and ordered Lee’s release. Lee received the relief he sought, and he received it by invoking procedures available to him under Florida law. If Lee’s claim is that his right to due process was violated by a state scheme that required him to petition for a writ of habeas corpus in order to rectify a mistaken decision of the Department, I am not *826persuaded. If Lee’s argument is that a mistake, made by a Department official somewhere on the decision-making ladder and corrected pursuant to established procedures at a succeeding level, subjects the mistaken official to liability under section 1983, I am still less persuaded.
Finally, I find no other constitutional violation on which Lee could base a section 1983 claim. I join the court, therefore, in affirming the judgment below on the ground that the appellee has qualified immunity, i.e., nothing in the law placed him on notice that his allegedly unlawful conduct violated any of appellant’s constitutional rights.4

. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982) provides in pertinent part:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.

. The fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "[n]o State shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

.Lee may well have a state tort claim for false imprisonment. As the Supreme Court stated in Baker, however, a prima facie tort case for false imprisonment does not constitute a fourteenth amendment claim merely because the defendant was a state official: "Section 1983 imposes liability for violations of rights protected by the Constitution, not for violations of duties of care arising out of tort law. Remedy for the latter type must be sought in state court under traditional tort-law principles." 443 U.S. at 146, 99 S.Ct. at 2695-96. See generally Smolla, The Displacement of Federal Due Process Claims by State Tort Remedies: Parratt v. Taylor and Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company, 1982 U.Ill.L.Rev. 831.

. I also agree with the court that Baranko did not clearly establish the law controlling Lee’s case. Baranko is a confusing case, but I read it as holding specifically that a “forfeiture" of the right to earn gain-time (as well as a forfeiture of gain-time earned) can only be declared pursuant to established procedures. See Baranko, 448 So.2d at 1069. Since Baranko involved only an alleged forfeiture of the right to earn gain-time, its additional commentary on the need for the fuller procedures when gain-time is withheld, as a result of a prisoner’s failure to comply with the statutory prerequisites previously in effect, is dicta. See id. Indeed, in light of Baranko's explicit distinction between “forfeiture” and "failure to comply with statutory prerequisites," see id., the Department acted reasonably when it explained, in response to Lee’s request for release, that his gain-time had been withheld and not forfeited.
Finally, I would note that, to the extent that Lee’s suit for damages is brought against Dugger in his official capacity, the federal courts may lack jurisdiction to entertain it in light of a recent Supreme Court pronouncement. In Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, - U.S. -, -, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2311-12, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), the Court declared that “States or governmental entities that are considered 'arms of the State’ for Eleventh Amendment purposes” and state "officials acting in their official capacities” are not "persons” for the purpose of a section 1983 damages suit.