Case Information
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McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.
Wоmen prisoners, incarcerated at the Nebraska Center for Women
(NCW), brought this § 1983 action in the United States District
Court for the District of Nebraska, alleging, among other things,
that defendants, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services
(DCS) and several DCS officials, violated their rights under the
equal protection clause and Title IX of the Education Amendments,
20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688, by failing to provide equal educational
opportunities for male and female Nebraska prisoners, and that
defendants violated their constitutional right of meaningful access
to the courts by failing to provide an adequate law library at NCW.
After holding a bench trial on liability issues, the district court
issued an opinion in Klinger v. Nebraska Dep't of Correctional
Servs., 824 F. Supp. 1374 (D. Neb. 1993) (Klinger I), rev'd, 31
F.3d 727 (8th Cir. 1994) (Klinger II), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct.
1177 (1995), and certified certain questions to this court for
interlocutory review. On appeal in Klinger II, we reversed the
district court's finding of an equal protection violation and
remanded the case to the district court, which thereafter issued
three more opinions. Id., 887 F. Supp. 1281 (D. Neb. 1995)
(Klinger III); id.,
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district court's entry of final judgment, the parties filed the present appeal and cross-appeal. Plaintiffs appeal from the district court's judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs' Title IX claim. For reversal, plaintiffs argue that the district court erroneously concluded that our decision in Klinger II required judgment in favor of defendants on the Title IX claim. Individual defendants Victor Lofgreen and Larry Tewes cross-appeal from the district court's judgment in favor of plaintiffs on plaintiffs' access-to-courts claim, for which defendants Lofgreen and Tewes were held personally liable to pay $2.00 in nominal damages and plaintiffs were awarded $40,642.44 in attorneys' fees and expenses. For reversal, defendants Lofgreen and Tewes argue that (1) plaintiffs failed to establish a constitutional violation аs a matter of law because there was no complete and systemic denial of access or because plaintiffs suffered no actual injury, (2) they are protected by qualified immunity from personal liability for damages, and (3) the award of attorneys' fees and expenses is unreasonable under Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103 (1992). Upon careful review and for the reasons set forth below, we now affirm the district court's judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs' Title IX claim, reverse the district court's judgmеnt in favor of plaintiffs on their access-to-courts claim, and vacate the award of attorneys' fees and expenses.
Background
The background facts of this case are set forth in detail in
the district court's opinion in Klinger I,
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accordingly, all women incarcerated in Nebraska are housed at NCW. In their amended complaint, plaintiffs alleged that the educational and vocational training opportunities at NCW were inferior to those of male inmates at the Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP). Consistent with plaintiffs' limited factual allеgations, the district court confined plaintiffs' equal protection and Title IX claims to a comparison between NCW and NSP. Klinger I, 824 F. Supp. at 1388 & n.14. Plaintiffs also alleged, among other things, that defendants had failed to provide NCW inmates with an adequate law library or assistance from persons trained in the law.
After the district court granted partial summary judgment to defendants, the case proceeded to trial, which the district court had bifurcated into a liability phase and a remedial phase. Following a four-week trial on liability issues, the district court concluded that plaintiffs had proven an equal protection violation, a Title IX violation, and a deprivation of their right of meaningful access to the courts. Id. at 1466-69. The district court found defendants Frank Gunter and Harold Clarke personally liable for the equal protection and Title IX violations, id. at 1466, and defendants Lofgreen and Tewes personally liable for the access-to-courts violation, notwithstanding their claims of qualified immunity, id. at 1468-69.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), the district court then
certified to this court three issues of law related to the equal
protection claim. On interlocutory appeal, this court reversed the
district court's finding of liability on the equal protection claim
and dismissed that claim. Klinger II,
After the case was remanded to the district court, plaintiffs sought permission to recharacterize their equal protection claims as Title IX claims. Klinger III, 887 F. Supp. at 1285. The district court instead sua sponte elected to reverse its earlier finding of a Title IX violation. Id. The district court reasoned that the holding of Klinger II destroyed the probative force of the evidence upon which it relied in deciding both the equal proteсtion and the Title IX claims (i.e., the comparative inequality between NSP and NCW educational and vocational training programs). Id.
The case then proceeded to the second phase of the trial (the
remedial phase) which, by this time, had been narrowed to assessing
damages resulting from the access-to-courts violation. Following
a bench trial, the district court set forth findings of fact and
conclusions of law, Klinger IV, 902 F. Supp. at 1039-45, and
established a schedule for resolving the issue of attorneys' fees,
id. at 1045-46. On the access-to-courts issue, the district court
found that the general inmate population at NCW had been completely
and systematically denied meaningful access to the courts for the
time period prior to January 1989. Id. at 1043. However, because
there was no evidence that anyone suffered any actual injury as a
result of the deprivation, and there was no evidence to show that
defendants Lofgreen or Tewes acted dеliberately or with reckless
indifference to the rights of the general population prisoners, the
district court awarded only $1.00 in nominal damages. Id. at
1043-44. The district court separately found that segregation and
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orientation inmates were also completely and systematically denied
meaningful access to the courts. Id. at 1044-45. The district
court reasoned that, although those inmates theoretically could
order law books, the privilege was meaningless because thosе
inmates were not provided any legal assistance or access to a law
library. Id. at 1045. The district court then awarded the
segregation and orientation inmates $1.00 in nominal damages. Id.
Citing Bounds v. Smith,
Following the parties' submission of briefs on the attorneys'
fees issue, the district court filed a written decision awarding
plaintiffs $37,084.92 in attorneys' fees and $3,557.52 in expenses.
Klinger V,
After the parties filed their appeals, the Prison Litigation
Reform Act (PLRA) was signed into law. Defendаnts requested
permission to file supplemental briefs addressing the applicability
of the PLRA to the present case. Permission was granted. An
amicus brief on this issue was also filed by the State of Missouri
on behalf of numerous states which support defendants' position
regarding the applicability of the PLRA. In addition, plaintiffs
and defendants submitted letters to this court pursuant to
Rule 28(j) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, bringing to
our attention two recent Supreme Court decisions. Plаintiffs have
cited United States v. Virginia, 116 S. Ct. 2264 (1996), and
defendants have cited Lewis v. Casey,
Discussion
Title IX claim
Plaintiffs argue that the district court erred when it sua sponte reversed its finding of a violation under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a), upon concluding that such reversal was mandated by our equal protection analysis in Klinger II. The district court reasoned as follows.
Because the Court of Appeals has held as a matter of
law that "comparing programs at NSP to those at NCW is
like the proverbial comparison of apples tо oranges,"
Klinger II,
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance, except that . . . [listing exceptions which do not apply in the present case].
IX violation, it follows that the plaintiffs have failed in their burden to prove that the NCW women were denied educational opportunities in violatiоn of Title IX "on the basis of sex."
Klinger III,
We agree with plaintiffs insofar as they assert that the
standard for finding a Title IX violation differs from the standard
applicable to a constitutional equal protection claim. See, e.g.,
Jeldness v. Pearce,
Nevertheless, we disagree with plaintiffs' assertion that, in
the present case, they may properly assert a Title IX claim by
comparing educational opportunities available to female prisoners
at NCW with educational opportunities available to male prisoners
only at NSP. Title IX prohibits gender-based inequality or
discrimination "under any education program or activity receiving
Federal financial assistance." Title IX's definition of "program
or activity," 20 U.S.C. § 1687, provides in pertinent part:
and beauty pageants. "When a statute lists specific exemptions,
other exemptions are not to be judicially implied." Jeldness v.
Pearce,
For the purposes of this chapter, the term "program or activity" and "program" mean all of the operations of --
(1)(A) a department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or of a local government; or
(B) the entity of such State or local government that distributes such assistance and each such department or agency (and each other State or local government entity) to which the assistance is extended, in the case of assistance to a State or local government;
. . . . any part of which is extended Federal financial assistance, except that [stating an exception that dоes not apply in the present case].
The legislative history of § 1687 contains the following explanation:
For education institutions, the bill provides that where federal aid is extended anywhere within a college, university, or public system of higher education, the entire institution or system is covered. If federal aid is extended anywhere in an elementary or secondary school system, the entire system is covered.
For State and local governments, only the department or agenсy which receives the aid is covered. Where an entity of state or local government receives federal aid and distributes it to another department or agency, both entities are covered.
. . . .
For other entities established by two or more of the above-described entities, the entire entity is covered if it receives any federal aid.
S. Rep. No. 100-64, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 4 (1988), reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.A.N. (Legislative History) 3, 6 (summary of the bill). In other words, the purpose of § 1687 was "to make clear *12 that discriminatiоn is prohibited throughout entire agencies or institutions if any part receives Federal financial assistance." Id.
In the present case, the subset of Nebraska prisons comprised of NCW and NSP, clearly does not constitute a "program or activity" within the meaning of § 1687. The Nebraska prison system as a whole, however, does qualify as a "program or activity" within the statutory definition. See 20 U.S.C. § 1687(1)(A) (the term "program or activity" means "all of the operations of . . . a department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or of a local government" which receives federal funds). It is undisputed that DCS is the recipient of federal funds. See Klinger I, 824 F. Supp. at 1432 (noting parties' stipulation).
It is beyond controversy that male and female prisoners may
lawfully be segregated into separate institutions within a prison
system. Gender-based prisoner segregation and segregation based
upon prisoners' security levels are common and necеssary practices.
When considering single-sex prisons, the only logical and workable
application of the definition of "program or activity" under Title
IX requires comparison of educational opportunities for female and
male prisoners within the entire system of institutions operated by
a state's federally-funded correctional department or agency,
taking into account the objective differences between the male and
female prison рopulations and such penological and security
considerations as are necessary to accommodate in this unique
The legislation was deemed to reverse the Supreme Court's
decision in Grove City College v. Bell,
Access-to-courts claim
On cross-appeal, defendants Lofgreen and Tewes argue that the
district court erred in holding that plaintiffs had been denied
meaningful access to the courts during the period of January 1988
to January 1989. They refer to the Supreme Court's 1977 landmark
decisiоn in Bounds v. Smith, which essentially held that a state
could afford prisoners meaningful access to the courts by providing
either access to an adequate law library or adequate assistance
from persons trained in the law.
undisputed that NCW inmates were not provided any assistance from
someone with legal training until January 1989. The issue in this
case focuses on plaintiffs' access to an adequate law library.
Describing the purported law library as "a disorganized pile of
books stored in a small room," the district court held that "the
NCW law library at all pertinent times was so disorganized that the
condition of the law library amounted to a complete and systematic
denial of access to the courts under Bounds, even though the
general population inmates at NCW had physical access to the
library." Klinger IV,
Defendants Lofgreen and Tewes argue that the present case is
more like Schrier v. Halford,
Upon careful review, we hold that plaintiffs' access-to-courts
claim fails as a matter of law under Lewis v. Casey, which was
decided after the district court rendered its decision in the
present case. In Lewis v. Casey, the Supreme Court held, based
upon principles of standing, that actual injury must be proven in
order to prevail on an access-to-courts claim. Id. at 2179-80
("[i]nsofar as the right vindicated by Bounds is concerned,
'meaningful access to the courts is the touchstone' . . . and the
inmate therefore must go one step further and demonstrate that the
alleged shortcomings in the library or legal assistance program
hindered his [or her] efforts to pursue a legal claim").
Accordingly, even though plaintiffs did show a сomplete and
systemic denial of access to a law library or legal assistance
prior to January 1989, plaintiffs' claim fails as a matter of law
because none of the inmates at NCW suffered actual injury or
prejudice as a result of that denial of access. See Klinger IV,
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we аffirm the district court's judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiffs' Title IX claim, reverse the district court's judgment in favor of plaintiffs on their access-to-courts claim, and vacate the award of attorneys' fees and expenses.
Because we hold that the district court erred in finding that a constitutional access-to-courts violation had occurred, we need not address the issues of qualified immunity, the excessiveness of the award of attorneys' fees and expenses, or the applicability of the Prison Litigation Reform Act.
A true copy.
Attest:
CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.