Court Opinion

ID: 9468621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:19:15.593916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:57.447122
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc
CANBY, Circuit Judge.
The State in its petition for rehearing directs our attention to Lono v. Ariyoshi, 621 P.2d 976 (Hawaii 1981). In that case the Supreme Court of Hawaii dealt with the same transfer regulations involved in the present case. It held that no fourteenth amendment liberty interest was created by the regulations because the prison administrator had unlimited discretion to order a transfer or not. 621 P.2d at 980-81. With all due respect to the Hawaii Court’s conclusion, we do not find it controlling here.
 It is of course the sole prerogative of the highest state court to determine the meaning of a state statute or regulation. Once that meaning is determined, however, it is a federal question whether the interest created by the state statute or regulation is to be accorded protection under the fourteenth amendment. Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 9, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 1560, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978).
*715We do not read Lono v. Ariyoshi as having interpreted Regulation IV differently from this court. While the Hawaii Court points out, as did this court, that the prison administrator ultimately has complete discretion whether or not to transfer, the Lono opinion does not suggest any weakening of the preconditions required by the Regulation for the exercise of the prison administrator’s discretion. We have held that those preconditions establish a liberty interest within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment, and we adhere to that holding. On that federal question, we respectfully disagree with the Supreme Court of Hawaii.
Nor do we think that the result in this case is affected by Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). Parratt dealt with the negligent loss of a $23 hobby kit by prison officials, and the Court held that the prisoner was not deprived of his property without due process where there was a state tort claims statute that could afford full redress. That type of post-deprivation hearing was sufficient, in the Court’s view, to satisfy the fourteenth amendment.
We do not believe that Parratt applies to the present case. The majority opinion in Parratt concentrates on the problems inherent in turning federal courts into forums for dealing with common law torts that are the regular business of state courts. 101 S.Ct. at 1917. The present case, dealing with a liberty interest, is of a wholly different nature. Indeed, Justice Blackmun’s concurring opinion (joined by Justice White) in Parratt suggests that the Parratt ruling is confined to deprivation of property. 101 S.Ct. at 1918. In short Parratt is simply a different case from the present one.
It is true that there is general language in the majority opinion in Parratt suggesting that where a deprivation occurs because a state fails to follow its procedure rather than because it follows its procedure, and there is a state court remedy, then the state has provided all the process that is due. 101 S.Ct. at 1917. But this statement must be read in the context in which it was made, that of a tortious deprivation of property for which the state provides a tort remedy. A broader reading that would apply to the present case would remit all § 1983 cases to state courts whenever the conduct complained of violated state law as well as the federal Constitution. The result would be to read into § 1983 a requirement of exhaustion that has consistently been rejected by the federal courts.1 Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 183, 81 S.Ct. 473, 481, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961); Morrison v. Jones, 607 F.2d 1269, 1275 (9th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 962, 100 S.Ct. 1648, 64 L.Ed.2d 237 (1980); Canton v. Spokane School District, 498 F.2d 840, 844 (9th Cir. 1974). For this reason, also, we conclude that Parratt does not control the present case.
The petition for rehearing is denied. Judge Goodwin dissents and would grant the rehearing. The suggestion for rehearing en banc having failed to receive the affirmative vote of a majority of the active judges, rehearing en banc is denied.

. It is also clear that Parratt cannot be read as holding that a state court remedy for a violation of the fourteenth amendment itself provides all the process that is due. The problems with such a circular proposition are insurmountable. Section 1983 actions .may be brought in state court. Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 283-84 n.7, 100 S.Ct. 553, 558 n.7, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980); Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 3 n.1, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2503 n.1, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980). State courts are obligated to enforce applicable federal law. U.S.Const. art. VI, cl. 2. By entertaining § 1983 actions, a state court consequently provides a remedy for state deprivation of any federal right. To say that such a remedy provides all the process that is due from a state would be to deprive the federal courts of primary enforcement of federal rights. Parratt of course evinces no such intention.