Opinion
No. 48 M.D. 2010
08-14-2012
Nearly Pierre-Louis, Petitioner v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Corrections, Clerk of Court of Philadelphia County, Respondents
BEFORE: HONORABLE DAN PELLEGRINI, President Judge HONORABLE P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge HONORABLE JAMES GARDNER COLINS, Senior Judge
OPINION NOT REPORTED
MEMORANDUM OPINION BY JUDGE BROBSON
Petitioner Nearly Pierre-Louis (Pierre-Louis), pro se, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset (SCI-Somerset), petitions this Court in our original jurisdiction for an order directing Respondent Department of Corrections (Department) and Respondent Clerk of Court of Philadelphia County (Clerk of Court) to return $237.00 in funds taken from Pierre-Louis' inmate account and paid to Philadelphia County for court-ordered costs. Before this Court is Pierre-Louis' application for summary relief in the form of a Motion for Summary Judgment (Motion) against the Department and the Clerk of Court. Also before the Court is the Department's application for summary relief in the form of a Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment (Cross-Motion), in which the Clerk of Court joined with respect to the statute of limitations issue. For the reasons that follow, we grant both the Department's and the Clerk of Court's Cross-Motion and deny the Motion filed by Pierre-Louis.
Pierre-Louis is incarcerated under the name Perrie Neaily.
Pierre-Louis is an inmate at SCI-Somerset where he is imprisoned for, inter alia, attempted murder. At his sentencing hearing, the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia County (trial court) ordered Pierre-Louis to pay $237.00 in court costs. Specifically, the trial court's order provided that Pierre-Louis was to pay the costs during his period of parole, not during incarceration. Despite the trial court's order, on March 23, 2006, the Department began deducting funds from Pierre-Louis' inmate account under 42 Pa. C.S. § 9728(b)(5) (Act 84) to satisfy his court costs. The deductions occurred on a monthly basis until April 2, 2007, when the Department collected the last payment. The Department transmitted the collected funds to the Clerk of Court. On February 1, 2010, Pierre-Louis filed a Complaint in the nature of a Petition for Review with this Court. We deemed it defective. On February 16, 2010, Pierre-Louis filed an Amended Petition for Review (Amended Petition), by which he asked this Court to compel the Department or the Clerk of Court to return the $237.00 taken from his inmate account.
Act 84 provides, in part, as follows:
The county correctional facility to which the offender has been sentenced or the Department of Corrections shall be authorized to make monetary deductions from inmate personal accounts for the purpose of collecting restitution or any other court-ordered obligation. Any amount deducted shall be transmitted by the Department of Corrections or the county correctional facility to the probation department of the county or other agent designated by the county commissioners of the county with the approval of the president judge of the county in which the offender was convicted.42 Pa. C.S. § 9728(b)(5). Irrespective of whether the source is the inmate's earnings or gifts from family or friends, Act 84 permits the Department to deduct any money from an inmate's account. Danysh v. Dep't of Corr., 845 A.2d 260, 263 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004).
In his Motion, Pierre-Louis argues that the Department improperly deducted $237.00 from his inmate account in violation of the trial court's order. The Department raises two arguments in its Cross-Motion. First, it argues that Pierre-Louis' mandamus and due process claims are time-barred. The Clerk of Court joins the Department in this argument. Second, the Department argues that Pierre-Louis' claims are barred by the doctrine of laches. In response to Respondents' statute of limitations argument, Pierre-Louis contends that the statute of limitations was tolled until he discovered the harm that the Department committed by deducting funds from his inmate account.
Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1532(b) provides, in part, that "any time after the filing of a petition for review in an appellate or original jurisdiction matter the court may on application enter judgment if the right of the applicant thereto is clear." We scrutinize an application for summary relief under the principles of summary judgment. Kopko v. Miller, 842 A.2d 1028, 1030 n.4 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004). We only will grant summary judgment when "there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id. We view the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id. As a result, we will resolve any doubt as to the existence of a genuine issue of material fact in favor of the nonmoving party. Id.
First, we will consider whether Pierre-Louis' action is time-barred by the applicable statute of limitations. As the Department and the Clerk of Court correctly noted, this Court recently addressed an issue similar to that now before us in Curley v. Smeal, 41 A.3d 916 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2012). Our decision in the instant case, therefore, is necessarily informed by our rationale in Curley. Curley involved an amended petition for review filed in this Court's original jurisdiction by Todd Curley (Curley), an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy (SCI-Mahanoy), which alleged that the Department and the Wayne County Clerk of Courts had been deducting funds from his personal inmate account for seven years without a court order. Curley asserted that because the trial court never issued an order directing him to pay any court costs, the Department illegally deducted costs from his inmate account and the Wayne County Clerk of Courts illegally received the money and refused to return it. Curley requested a permanent injunction, barring further deductions, a declaratory judgment that the Department and Wayne County Clerk of Courts acted without authority in making or collecting previous deductions, and reimbursement for all deducted funds along with the costs. In opposition to the amended petition for review, the Department and Wayne County Clerk of Courts filed motions for judgment on the pleadings, asserting that Curley's claims were barred by the statute of limitations, equitable estoppel, and laches.
In considering the issue of whether Curley's claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations, the Court in Curley characterized Curley's action as seeking relief in mandamus. Relying upon Section 5522(b)(1) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa. C.S. § 5522(b)(1), we noted that a petitioner seeking mandamus has six months from the date of injury to file a claim and that the statute of limitations starts to run when the injury is suffered and the attendant right to seek a legal recourse arises. Curley, 41 A.3d at 919. Moreover, a party seeking to bring the action has the affirmative duty to use all reasonable diligence to ascertain the facts and circumstances that form the right of recovery, and he also must institute an action within the required time frame. Id. The Court in Curley concluded that Curley's claims were subject to the six-month statute of limitations for mandamus and were time barred. In reaching that conclusion, we explained:
"A writ of mandamus is an extraordinary remedy designed to compel official performance of a ministerial act or mandatory duty." Evans v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. and Parole, 820 A.2d 904, 914 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2003). "The purpose of mandamus is not to establish legal rights, but to enforce those rights already established." Id.
Section 5522(b)(1) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa. C.S. § 5522(b)(1), provides that a petitioner must commence within six months "[a]n action against any officer of any government unit for anything done in the execution of his office, except an action subject to another limitation specified in this subchapter." The Department does not challenge Pierre-Louis' failure to name the Secretary of Corrections. Nonetheless, we note that Section 5522(b)(1) of the Judicial Code refers to actions against an "officer of any government unit" rather than actions against the government unit itself. Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1094(c), however, provides that in an action seeking the performance of a public act or duty by, inter alia, an executive or administrative agency, the party commencing the action may name only the department and is not required to specifically join the government officials who would be required to perform the act or duty if mandamus relief is granted. Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1094(c) is applicable to this original jurisdiction matter in accordance with Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 106. Thus, it is irrelevant that Pierre-Louis did not name the Secretary of Corrections in this action.
In this case, because Curley has requested relief in mandamus, his petition is time barred as the applicable statute of limitations is six months, and the injury was inflicted in 2002 when the Department started making the deductions. Even though Curley stated that he only became aware of the information from the jailhouse lawyer on December 31, 2009, a lack of knowledge does not toll that statute of limitations in a mandamus action, which would have been six months after the Department began deducting the money in 2002. Consequently, he is
not entitled to the return of the money the Department deducted from his inmate account.Curley, 41 A.3d at 919-20.
Pierre-Louis' claims are akin to those at issue in Curley, and, therefore, we will apply the six-month statute of limitations applicable to mandamus actions. Here, the parties agree that the Department deducted funds from Pierre-Louis' inmate account without court authorization from March 2006 until April 2007. The trial court's order, indeed, expressly provided that Pierre-Louis was to pay court costs during his period of parole. Nonetheless, the statute of limitations for Pierre-Louis' claims began to run when the first deduction occurred on March 23, 2006. Pierre-Louis, however, did not initiate the instant action until February 1, 2010, almost four years later, when he filed the Petition for Review. As a result, his suit falls well outside the six-month period for bringing an action in mandamus.
We note that the monthly deductions do not constitute a continuing violation. Curley, 41 A.3d at 919 n.4; see also Casner v. Am. Fed'n of State, Cnty. and Mun. Emp., 658 A.2d 865, 871 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1995) (adopting rationale that continuing violation occurred "would effectively render the limitation period for any cause of action alleging loss of payment meaningless when the payment is received on a regular basis. '[T]he purpose of a statute of limitation is to bar stale claims and avoid problems of proof arising from stale memories.'")
Prior to this Court's issuance of its opinion in Curley, the Department argued that either the six-month statute of limitations for mandamus actions or, alternatively, the two-year statute of limitations for due process claims applied to Pierre-Louis' claims. However, in Curley we held that the six-month statute of limitations applicable for mandamus actions applies to Act 84 claims of this type, and so we apply it now in this case. We note, however, that even if the longer statute of limitations period for due process claims were applicable, Pierre-Louis' claims would still be time barred, as he waited almost four years after the first deduction from his inmate account to file his Petition for Review with this Court.
Pierre-Louis contends, nevertheless, that his claims are timely, because the statute of limitations was tolled and did not begin to run until he discovered that the deductions from his inmate account were not authorized. Pierre-Louis, without proffering any evidence, claims that he was unable to obtain a copy of the trial court's order until he initiated this case. Upon reviewing the order, Pierre-Louis discovered that his "right[s] were being violated by the [Department]" because it was deducting funds from his account during his incarceration. (Petitioner's Br. at 11.) We, however, have held that "[a] lack of knowledge, mistake or misunderstanding does not toll the statute of limitations." Curly, 41 A.3d at 919. Moreover, in his Response to the Department's Cross-Motion, Pierre-Louis stated that he "spent four years researching Act 84" prior to bringing this instant action in February 2010. (Petitioner's Res. at 1-2.) We conclude that Pierre-Louis did not use all reasonable diligence to determine within the required period of time whether the Department's deductions were proper, i.e., in accordance with the trial court's order. Consequently, Pierre-Louis is not entitled to the return of the money that the Department deducted from his inmate account because his claims are time-barred.
We note that the Department attached the sentencing order to its Answer and New Matter.
We also note that Pierre-Louis attached monthly account statements to his Amended Petition to evidence the Department's deductions.
Accordingly, Pierre-Louis' Motion is denied, the Department's and the Clerk of Court's Cross-Motions are granted, and the Amended Petition is dismissed.
Based on the outcome of our decision, we will not address whether Pierre-Louis' actions are barred by the doctrine of laches. --------
/s/_________
P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge
ORDER
AND NOW, this 14th day of August, 2012, the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Nearly Pierre-Louis is hereby DENIED, the Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment of the Department of Corrections and of the Clerk of Court of Philadelphia County are hereby GRANTED, and Nearly Pierre-Louis' Amended Petition for Review is hereby DISMISSED with prejudice.
/s/_________
P. KEVIN BROBSON, Judge