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rejecting generalized complaints about the Treatment Center, and noting that "[s]uch standing as the plaintiffs may have to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief must be carefully tailored to address the particular facts and circumstances presented by the plaintiffs as harm to them personally"
Summary of this case from Alves v. MurphyOpinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 06-10682-DPW.
September 13, 2007
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
The plaintiffs in this action have been civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons under Mass. Gen. L. ch. 123A, at the Nemansket Correctional Center administered by the Massachusetts Department of Correction. They seek, in themes and variations, certain declarations and parallel injunctions that conditions of confinement for sexually dangerous persons who are committed should be identical to those of persons who are committed to institutions administered by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. The defendants move to dismiss the action.
After careful review of the complaint and the Memorandum submitted by the plaintiffs in opposition to the motion to dismiss, I find that the plaintiffs are seeking to relitigate the propriety of the regime for the confinement of sexually dangerous persons found constitutionally satisfactory after nearly a quarter century of litigation in the decisions of the First Circuit in King v. Greenblatt, 149 F.3d 10 (1st Cir. 1998) (" King III'), as refined upon remand in King v. Greenblatt, 53 F. Supp. 2d 117 (D. Mass. 1999) ( "King IV"). While the defendants erroneously argue that the doctrine of res judicata bars plaintiffs' claims, I find that the plaintiffs are not properly parties against whom the formal doctrine of res judicata can be raised. Nevertheless, the decisions of the First Circuit in King III and of Judge Mazzone in King IV enunciate principles that are respectively binding upon and persuasive to me in approaching this dispute. Those principles appear fatal to plaintiffs' claims on the merits even if they were to allege, which they do not, that they were personally suffering cognizable harm from the conditions of confinement at the Center.
The complaint references a number of generalized claims all of which in their broadest form appear to have been resolved by the ultimate appellate and trial court decisions in the King litigation. To declare those principles in yet another case would simply be redundant or, if the declaration were to go beyond any demonstrated harm to the plaintiffs before me, constitute an improper advisory opinion.
Such standing as the plaintiffs may have to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief must be carefully tailored to address the particular facts and circumstances presented by the plaintiffs as harm to them personally. The only specific matter placed in controversy by their complaint is the dissatisfaction of the plaintiff Shedlock with the apparent policy of the Department of Correction to require those civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons, like those serving prison sentences, to purchase typewriters or computers though an authorized vendor. This specific claim does not rise to the level of a constitutional dispute; rather the policy seems an understandable and not unconstitutional effort by the Department of Correction to keep control over the kinds of equipment which can be used by certain classes of committed persons. Plainly, neither declaratory nor injunctive relief would not be available for that claim.
Although the plaintiffs broadly seek an order for separate regulations of civilly committed persons on topics such as "property, disciplinary housing, the assignment of roommates based on compatibility, program access, library accesses, civilly committed persons' canteen access and availability and civilly committed persons' telephone and mail policies," Complaint ¶ 29, there is no basis to find the plaintiffs themselves face unconstitutional conditions in the current circumstances. The plaintiffs do make somewhat more particularized complaint at, for example, page 9 of their Memorandum in opposition to the motion to dismiss. But these also are not framed as specific harms to these plaintiffs but rather consist of generalized statements of dissatisfaction about the cost of telephone services, the requirement to use the commissary for food and appliance items and double bunking.
As to double bunking, I have held, and the First Circuit has affirmed, in a case in which several plaintiffs civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons at the Center actually alleged harm to themselves personally, that conclusory complaints about double bunking do not state a constitutional claim. Cote v. Murphy, Civil Action No. 03-10716-DPW, slip op. at 6-11, (D. Mass. Sept. 27, 2004), aff'd, 152 Fed. Appx. 6 (1st Cir. 2005).
In its broad generalities the plaintiffs' complaint does not present a ripe case or controversy as to the plaintiffs which would justify revisiting the principles developed in the resolution of the King v. Greenblatt litigation. In its single concrete claim regarding limitation on approved vendors of equipment, the complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. Accordingly, the defendants' motion to dismiss is hereby GRANTED and the clerk is directed to enter an Order of Dismissal of this case.