Court Opinion

ID: 9928322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-31 16:02:12.305446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:44:54.359851
License: Public Domain

Appellate Case: 23-3060     Document: 010110992775      Date Filed: 01/31/2024   Page: 1
                                                                                 FILED
                                                                     United States Court of Appeals
                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        Tenth Circuit

                              FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT                       January 31, 2024
                          _________________________________
                                                                        Christopher M. Wolpert
                                                                            Clerk of Court
  DUSTIN J. MERRYFIELD,

        Plaintiff - Appellant,

  v.                                                         No. 23-3060
                                                (D.C. No. 5:21-CV-03255-DDC-KGG)
  LAURA HOWARD; TONYA TAYLOR;                                 (D. Kan.)
  MARC QUILLEN; STACEY PAIGE;
  HALEIGH BENNETT; MARSHAL
  NEWELL; JANE AND JOHN DOES,

        Defendants - Appellees.
                       _________________________________

                              ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
                          _________________________________

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

       The Kansas Sexually Violent Predator Act (the Act) permits involuntary civil

 commitment of sexually violent predators. See Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a01.

 Appellant Dustin J. Merryfield has been involuntarily committed under the Act since

 the year 2000.

       *
         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 This order and judgment is not binding
 precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral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: 23-3060    Document: 010110992775        Date Filed: 01/31/2024    Page: 2

       In November 2021, Merryfield filed a pro se complaint in the United States

 District Court for the District of Kansas. Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983, he accused

 various persons of violating his property and liberty interests in various ways, such as

 by depriving him of possessions and denying him the opportunity to solicit a pen pal.

 The parties stipulated to a set of facts, and the defendants then moved for judgment

 on the pleadings. The district court granted that motion and entered judgment in the

 defendants’ favor.

       Merryfield now appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we

 affirm.

 I.    STANDARD OF REVIEW

       We review de novo a district court’s order granting judgment on the pleadings,

 and we apply the same standards as we would when reviewing an order dismissing

 for failure to state a claim. See Corder v. Lewis Palmer Sch. Dist. No. 38, 566 F.3d

 1219, 1223 (10th Cir. 2009).

 II.   ANALYSIS

       A.     The State’s Refusal to Return Merryfield’s Hot Pots

       Since his commitment, Merryfield has resided most of the time at the Larned

 State Hospital. In 2018 and 2019, however, he resided at a different state hospital.

 When he was transferred back to Larned in August 2019, he was not allowed to keep

 his hot pots. He administratively grieved this action and received a favorable

 decision, but his hot pots have not been returned to him.

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        The district court ruled that the statute of limitations for this claim was two

 years, and that the claim accrued in August 2019, when the property was first taken.

 Thus, Merryfield’s lawsuit, filed in November 2021, was too late to assert this claim.

        On appeal Merryfield does not challenge this reasoning. He instead argues the

 district court failed to make any ruling about his hot pots. He is mistaken—the

 district court ruled that the statute of limitations bars the claim. Given Merryfield’s

 lack of argument about the statute of limitations, we affirm the district court’s

 dismissal of this claim. See Nixon v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 784 F.3d 1364, 1369

 (10th Cir. 2015) (affirming dismissal of a claim when the “opening brief contain[ed]

 nary a word to challenge the basis of the dismissal”).

        B.     Policy 8.6 and Due Process

        Merryfield also argues that the district court failed to rule on a claim

 challenging a hospital policy known as Policy 8.6. Our review of the record shows

 the fault lies with Merryfield, not the district court.

        The Act declares a set of rights for persons committed as sexually violent

 predators, see Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a22(b), and requires the Kansas secretary for

 aging and disability services to “establish procedures to assure protection of persons’

 rights guaranteed under this section,” id. § 59-29a22(d). In his complaint, Merryfield

 alleged that the secretary delegated this responsibility to administrators at the Larned

 hospital, who in turn promulgated Policy 8.6. The policy says that it “establishes a

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 procedure to afford residents an opportunity to request and receive due process when

 a resident’s right(s), as provided in [the Act], are denied or restricted.” R. at 62.1

        Merryfield tells us that, through his complaint, he “requested the District Court

 find Policy 8.6 and its hearing procedure to be a violation of his Constitutional

 rights.” Aplt. Opening Br. at 5. He says he raised a claim “that Policy 8.6 is

 unconstitutional on its face and as applied,” presumably under the Due Process

 Clause. Id. at 8. But, he says, the district court never ruled on that claim.

        Merryfield is correct that the district court never ruled on any facial or

 as-applied challenge to Policy 8.6, but that is because he did not adequately raise the

 issue. Merryfield is entitled to a liberal construction of his pleadings, see Hall v.

 Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1110 (10th Cir. 1991), and his complaint pointed out

 perceived flaws in Policy 8.6. But if he meant to seek relief based on a constitutional

 defect, that intention was obscured by the peculiar organization and language of the

 complaint. Moreover, the defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings asked

 for judgment “on each of [Merryfield’s] claims,” R. at 66, and requested the district

 court to dismiss Merryfield’s claims “in their entirety,” R. at 81. Yet not until this

 appeal did he point out that “[t]he Motion for Judgment on the Pleading[s] [did] not

 contain a request to dismiss the claim that Policy 8.6 is unconstitutional on its face

 and as applied.” Aplt. Opening Br. at 8. He did not alert the district court to this

 omission, failing to inform the district court that the defendants’ motion, although

        1
            All “R.” cites are to volume I of the record.
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 intended to cover all claims, failed to mention one of them. Rather, his response

 brief invoked Policy 8.6 in support of other arguments, including arguments

 seemingly inconsistent with a claim that the policy is unconstitutional. See, e.g.,

 R. at 111–12 (asserting that Policy 8.6 creates an enforceable liberty interest and

 failure to follow it is “shocking and intolerable conduct”). In these circumstances we

 hold that the district court did not err in failing to address the issue. Cf. Muskrat v.

 Deer Creek Pub. Sch., 715 F.3d 775, 791 (10th Cir. 2013) (“[I]f [plaintiffs] had all

 along been intending to prove their case under [a more lenient] standard, we cannot

 understand why they did not at least mention that standard at summary judgment. At

 a minimum, one would expect a statement such as, ‘Notably, Defendants do not

 argue that their conduct satisfies the [alternative] standard.’”).

        C.     Request to Solicit a Pen Pal

        The district court ruled that the defendants’ denial of Merryfield’s request to

 solicit a pen pal failed to create a constitutional claim because the defendants’ actions

 were not excessive in relation to the purposes of Merryfield’s confinement, nor did

 the defendants impose an atypical or significant hardship. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441

 U.S. 520, 561 (1979) (liberty restrictions on pretrial detainees may not be “excessive

 in relation to [a legitimate nonpunitive governmental] purpose”); Sandin v. Conner,

 515 U.S. 472, 484 (1995) (restraints on convicted prisoners may not “impose[]

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 atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of

 prison life”).2

        Merryfield says the district court granted the defendants qualified immunity on

 this claim because he had failed to show clearly established law. He argues this was

 error, but he argues against a ruling the district court never made.

        “Qualified immunity shields federal and state officials from money damages

 unless a plaintiff pleads facts showing (1) that the official violated a statutory or

 constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the

 challenged conduct.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011) (internal

 quotation marks omitted). The defendants invoked qualified immunity, and the

 district court held that Merryfield “failed to shoulder his burden under the first prong

 of the qualified immunity test,” R. at 165 (emphasis added). This ruling applied to

 all claims, not just the pen-pal claim. In any event, the district court never said

 Merryfield failed to show clearly established law as to his pen-pal claim.

        Because Merryfield does not address the district court’s reasons for dismissing

 his pen-pal claim, we affirm that dismissal. See Nixon, 784 F.3d at 1369.3

        2
          The district court applied these standards while recognizing that Merryfield’s
 status is somewhere in between traditional civil commitment and traditional
 imprisonment.
        3
          Merryfield’s claim that the procedural rights granted under the Act clearly
 establish the due-process right that the defendants allegedly violated fails for the
 same reason. The district court never ruled that the right was not clearly established.
 It ruled only that Merryfield had not stated a federal due-process claim.
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          D.    Lost Mail

          In February 2021, Larned staff seized two pieces of mail addressed to

 Merryfield and sent them to his therapist. Merryfield alleged that his therapist told

 him she never received those pieces of mail, and now Larned cannot locate them. He

 therefore claimed that the defendants violated his right to receive mail (apparently

 referring to a First Amendment right). The district court ruled that Merryfield failed

 to state a claim because his allegations showed no more than nonactionable

 negligence.

          Merryfield appears to argue that his rights under the Act, and policies

 promulgated under the Act, necessarily mean the defendants’ conduct was deliberate,

 not negligent. Because we do not see how these authorities dictate that the

 defendants possessed a certain state of mind, we reject this argument.

          Merryfield also claims he cannot access unpublished decisions cited by the

 district court. But the district court’s analysis was sound regardless of these

 unpublished decisions. We therefore affirm the district court’s disposition of this

 claim.

          E.    Access to the Courts

          Merryfield’s complaint alleged that the administrative grievance process at his

 facility is sometimes never completed, thus violating his First Amendment right to

 access the courts. The district court ruled that the grievance procedures in question

 were not a prerequisite to filing a § 1983 suit, and, in any event, exhaustion would be

 excused if prison officials were thwarting the administrative remedy process. Thus,

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 Merryfield had not alleged any actual injury, so he failed to state an access-to-courts

 claim.

          On appeal, Merryfield does not challenge this reasoning. Rather, he offers two

 new arguments. First, he says that the district court’s dismissal of some of his claims

 on statute-of-limitations grounds shows he suffered an access-to-courts violation. He

 apparently means to say he could not file suit earlier because he was waiting for the

 grievance process to end. Second, he claims the maladministration of the grievance

 process “prevents him from ever having the State Court review whether he is being

 abused or not.” Aplt. Opening Br. at 21. Because he never presented these

 arguments to the district court, they are forfeited, see Schrock v. Wyeth, Inc.,

 727 F.3d 1273, 1284 (10th Cir. 2013), and we affirm the district court’s dismissal of

 the access-to-courts claim.

          F.    Dismissal of Defendant Howard

          The first-named defendant is Laura Howard, secretary of the Kansas

 department of aging and disability services, who is the legal custodian of persons

 committed under the Act, see Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a07(a). The district court held

 that Howard is immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment to the extent

 Merryfield sues her for damages in her official capacity, and that Merryfield failed to

 state a claim against her for damages in her individual capacity because he failed to

 allege personal participation in any of the underlying events.

          Merryfield challenges the Eleventh Amendment ruling (although not

 the personal-participation ruling), claiming it contradicts an unpublished Kansas

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 state-court decision about whether the department secretary was a proper defendant

 in a § 1983 lawsuit. Because we affirm the district court’s dismissal on the merits of

 all Merryfield’s causes of action, however, any claim against Howard must also fail

 even if she was a proper defendant.

 III.   CONCLUSION

        We affirm the district court’s judgment.

                                            Entered for the Court

                                            Harris L Hartz
                                            Circuit Judge

                                           9