In Shinault v. Hawks, published January 22, 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of Oregon state corrections officials in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 lawsuit a prisoner brought alleging that the officials violated his 14th Amendment Due Process and 8th Amendment rights by freezing approximately $60,000 in the plaintiff's inmate trust account. The plaintiff had received a settlement of more than $100,000 from a medical liability claim against a drug manufacturer whose products had caused him diabetes. His counsel deposited the money in plaintiff's inmate trust account. The department of corrections issued an order requiring the plaintiff to pay the estimated cost of his current and previous incarceration. The plaintiff requested a case hearing contesting the order. On the day that he did, the department transferred the estimated amount out of his trust account aind into a sub-account in his name. Plaintiff could not access the sub-account. At the hearing, the administrative law judge ultimately ordered the plaintiff to pay a smaller amount than the amount the department had frozen.
The Ninth Circuit held that the department should have given the plaintiff a pre-deprivation hearing before freezing the amounts. Depriving a person of a property interest usually requires a predeprivation hearing, unless circumstances requiring speed are present. Here, there was no reason for speed. The court held that as long as the plaintiff had notice and a chance to object, the department had discretion on what type of pre-deprivation procedure to provide. (California law provides for a pre-deprivation proceeding before inmate trust funds are used to reimburse the state for incarceration costs.) The court nevertheless affirmed summary judgment. Because no settled law established the right to a predeprivation hearing under these circumstances, the officials were entitled to summary judgment.
The court also affirmed summary judgment on the 8th Amendment claim. The plaintiff argued that he was going to use the settlement proceeds for medical care after release, and that freezing and withdrawingthe funds deprived him of medical care. While the state is required to provide inmates with diabetes care during incarceration, and sometimes during a transitional period following release, this right does not shield an inmates assets because they could potentially be used for medical care after release.
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