Prisoner Adequately Alleged Religious Exercise Infringement
MADDOX v. LOVE (August 24, 2011)
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The Illinois Lawrence Correctional Center is a medium-security adult prison facility in Sumner, Illinois with approximately 2,000 inmates. Those inmates proclaim numerous different religious affiliations (46 as of May 2009). When Mannie Maddox arrived as an inmate in early 2004, he was a member of the African Hebrew Israelite (AHI) faith. AHI was one of the 17 religious affiliations for which Lawrence offered regularly scheduled services. Maddox attended services for about six months, until they were terminated. Maddox filed a grievance, asserting a denial of his right to exercise his religion. The prison denied the grievance on the grounds that Lawrence canceled the services for budgetary reasons. Maddox appealed the decision through two more stages of review without success. The prison chaplain also denied Maddox’ request to allow the AHI inmates to meet without a formal service. The prison requires that such meetings be supervised and the chaplain's schedule could not accommodate another religious gathering. Maddox filed a § 1983 complaint against the chaplain and the prison wardens alleging violations of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Judge Gilbert (S.D. Ill.) restructured the pro se complaint into four counts. He dismissed for failure to state a claim the counts relating to discrimination in the allocation of the prison budget. He granted summary judgment on the two counts alleging failure to provide reasonable access to religious materials and failure to provide worship services, concluding that Maddox failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. Maddox appeals.
In their opinion, Seventh Circuit Judges Sykes, Tinder, and Hamilton affirmed in part and reversed and vacated in part. The Court first addressed its jurisdiction, since the district court dismissed the two counts on exhaustion grounds without prejudice. Normally a dismissal without prejudice would preclude appellate jurisdiction. Here, however, Maddox cannot cure the complaint’s defects. That makes the decision a final judgment for appellate jurisdiction purposes. On the merits, the Court first addressed the free exercise and religious discrimination counts. The Court understood the district court's dismissal of these counts, as they were restructured, given the principle that prisons need not provide identical resources to every faith within the prison population. An allegation of a disproportionate allocation of resources does not state a claim. The Court did find fault, however, with the district court's restructuring of Maddox' allegations and explored the substance of those allegations. Maddox alleged a disproportionate allocation of resources to other religions, a singling out of AHI for budget cuts, and refusal to pursue alternatives for AHI members. The Court found that those allegations did, in fact, state a claim for relief. Prisons cannot discriminate against particular religions. Although it is premature to conclude that they did here, Maddox is allowed to make his case. The Court turned to the access to religious materials claim. Since Maddox concedes that he did not grieve that complaint, the Court concluded that the district court properly dismissed that count. Finally, on the group worship claim, the district court dismissed because Maddox failed to exhaust administrative remedies. He did not name the individuals he complained of, as required by the then-current Illinois Administrative Code. The Court disagreed. First, prison officials never raised this procedural infirmity during any of the three grievance stages. Instead, they rejected the grievance on the merits at each stage. When the prison addresses a grievance on the merits without addressing any procedural defect, the grievance has obviously served its purpose in notifying prison officials of the prisoner's complaint. They cannot later rely on that procedural defect to make out an exhaustion defense. Second, the procedural infirmity here was caused by prison's own error. Maddox was given a form that complied with a prior version of the administrative code. It did not require the same degree of factual particularly as did the code in effect at the time of the grievance. Maddox provided all the information that was requested on the grievance form.
Anthony Fletcher is an inmate at 
In 1996, Llwellyn Greene-Thapedi filed a tax return for tax year (“TY”) 1992. The government challenged her reported tax liability. Ultimately, the U.S. Tax Court determined that she owed an additional ≈$10,000. In December 1997, the IRS assessed a deficiency for the amounts owed plus interest and asserts that it sent Green-Thapedi a notice of deficiency. Green-Thapedi claims that she never received the notice. When the U.S. threatened to levy assets, Green-Thapedi paid the ≈$10,000 and interest through December 1997 but refused to pay the additional interest on the ground that she did not receive the notice. She also brought suit in tax court to recover a ≈$10,000 overpayment on her tax for TY1999. While her suit was pending, the government applied the TY1999 overpayment to the claimed TY1992 deficiency. Green-Thapedi brought an action in federal district court to recover the TY1999 overpayment. The district court stayed the action pending the outcome in the tax court. The tax court held that her TY1999 claim was moot because the government had credited her claimed overpayment to TY1992. The government moved to dismiss in the district court for Green-Thapedi’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies in that she never made a refund claim with the IRS. The district court denied the motion. It held that Green-Thapedi’s petition in the tax court constituted an informal claim for refund. Green-Thapedi then amended her complaint to add a claim for a refund of ≈$10,000 for TY1992. The court below found that the government properly calculated Green-Thapedi’s taxes and penalties and found that Green-Thapedi did not present sufficient evidence to rebut the government’s position on the notice. Green-Thapedi appeals.