Daywitt v. Moser

Background

Kenneth Daywitt and William De’Angelo Kinnard are civilly committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake, Minnesota. Daywitt practices Judaism and alleges that his faith requires him to eat kosher food. Kinnard practices Rastafarianism and alleges that his faith requires a strict vegan diet.

The defendants are five MSOP-Moose Lake officials sued in their individual and official capacities. The plaintiffs sought declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and monetary damages based on allegations that MSOP’s kosher and vegan food had insufficient variety, insufficient calories, and faulty preparation. They asserted claims under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Minnesota Constitution, and Minnesota Rules 4665.2900 and 4665.3000. The federal claims were brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

A magistrate judge recommended granting in part and denying in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The parties objected. Because the plaintiffs’ objections repeated arguments made before the magistrate judge without specifically challenging the recommendation’s reasoning, the district court reviewed those portions for clear error. The court found no clear error.

Court’s analysis

The defendants specifically objected to allowing Daywitt’s claims based on the insufficient caloric content of the kosher meals to proceed. The court applied the standard for a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, which asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to state a plausible claim for relief.

Daywitt alleged that the kosher meals contained between 1,700 and 1,800 calories, were substantially lower in calories than regular meals, and were below the daily amount recommended by the National Research Council for moderately active adult males. He also alleged that the meals did not sustain him in good health and that he and other patients sometimes had to eat non-kosher food to supplement the calories. The court held that, if accepted as true and interpreted in Daywitt’s favor, these allegations plausibly showed that the food policy substantially burdened his sincerely held religious beliefs.

The court rejected the defendants’ argument that Daywitt had to plead facts showing that the available kosher calories were insufficient to sustain him in good health under a standard applied to prison inmates. The court stated that Daywitt is civilly committed, not imprisoned, and that civilly committed people are entitled to more considerate treatment and conditions of confinement than prison inmates. The court also rejected the argument that Daywitt had to show that sufficient kosher calories were unavailable through every other possible means.

The court modified the recommendation because it had omitted Daywitt’s claims against the defendants in their individual capacities concerning the insufficient caloric content of the kosher food. The court stated that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on those claims. The court also dismissed without prejudice claims subject to the defendants’ sovereign-immunity defense.

Disposition

The court overruled the plaintiffs’ objections, overruled the defendants’ objections, and adopted the June 5, 2019 Report and Recommendation as modified.

The defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part. The court ordered the following dismissals:

- The plaintiffs’ state-law claims against the defendants in their official capacities were dismissed without prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ individual-capacity claims under Minnesota Rules 4665.2900 and 4665.3000 were dismissed with prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ individual-capacity claims under Article 1, Section 2, of the Minnesota Constitution were dismissed with prejudice. - Kinnard’s individual-capacity claims under Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution concerning vegan food were dismissed without prejudice. - Daywitt’s individual-capacity claims under Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution concerning the alleged lack of variety or faulty preparation of kosher food were dismissed without prejudice. - Daywitt’s individual-capacity claim for monetary damages under Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution concerning the alleged insufficient caloric content of kosher food was dismissed with prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ official-capacity claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for monetary damages were dismissed without prejudice. - Kinnard’s § 1983 First Amendment free-exercise claims concerning vegan food were dismissed without prejudice. - Daywitt’s § 1983 First Amendment free-exercise claims concerning the alleged lack of variety or faulty preparation of kosher food were dismissed without prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ § 1983 substantive-due-process claims under the Fourteenth Amendment were dismissed with prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ § 1983 equal-protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment were dismissed without prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ § 1983 claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act were dismissed without prejudice. - The plaintiffs’ § 1983 claims under the Civil Rights Act were dismissed without prejudice.

The defendants’ motion to dismiss was denied in part as to Daywitt’s claims concerning the insufficient caloric content of kosher food: his individual-capacity claim for declaratory or injunctive relief under Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution; his official-capacity § 1983 claim for declaratory or injunctive relief based on the First Amendment’s free-exercise clause; and his individual-capacity § 1983 claims for declaratory or injunctive relief and monetary damages based on that clause.