Daywitt v. Moser

Background

Kenneth Daywitt, who is civilly committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), practices Judaism and follows a kosher diet. He sued MSOP officials in their official and individual capacities. After the court previously dismissed some claims, the remaining claims alleged that MSOP provided calorically deficient kosher meals in violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution. Daywitt sought declaratory and injunctive relief and monetary damages.

Defendants moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence shows that no reasonable jury could decide for the opposing party. Daywitt moved to supplement the record with a November 24, 2020 declaration concerning whether holiday foods listed in a mail-order catalog were actually kosher.

Motion to Supplement the Record

The fact-discovery deadline was July 15, 2020. Under the applicable rules, Daywitt needed to file a formal motion and show good cause to modify the scheduling order after that deadline.

The court denied the motion. It found that the proposed declaration was not shown to be relevant to the remaining claims, which concerned whether MSOP’s kosher meal plan was calorically deficient—not whether supplemental holiday food outside that plan was kosher. The court also found that Daywitt did not address or satisfy the demanding good-cause standard for an untimely change to the scheduling order.

First Amendment Claim

The court assumed, without deciding, that a civil-commitment institution may be held to a higher dietary standard than a prison and that caloric insufficiency alone, without proof of negative health effects, could substantially burden a person’s religious practice. The court made that assumption because the record contained no evidence that MSOP’s kosher meals had caused Daywitt negative health effects.

The court nevertheless granted summary judgment to defendants on the First Amendment claims. Defendants’ evidence showed that MSOP’s kosher meal plan typically provided 2,500 to 2,800 calories per day, while the regular meal plan typically provided 2,600 to 3,000 calories per day. MSOP’s dietitian stated that clients requiring kosher meals averaged at least 2,400 calories per day in a given week. The record also showed that MSOP provided food in addition to the prepackaged kosher shelf-stable entrée.

Daywitt relied on his deposition testimony and declarations from two other MSOP clients stating that the shelf-stable kosher entrées were small or contained fewer than 400 calories each. The court characterized that evidence as vague, speculative, and unsupported because Daywitt did not provide specific evidence of the meals’ total daily or weekly calorie content. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could not find from this record that MSOP’s kosher meal plan was calorically deficient.

Minnesota Constitutional Claim

The court also granted summary judgment on the claim under Article 1, Section 16, of the Minnesota Constitution. Although Minnesota’s Constitution may provide greater protection for religious liberty than the First Amendment, Daywitt still had to show that the meals imposed a real, rather than remote, interference with his religious autonomy or required conduct inconsistent with his beliefs. For the same evidentiary reasons discussed above, the court found that he had not made that showing.

Because it granted summary judgment on the claims, the court did not address whether defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

Order

The court denied Daywitt’s motion to supplement the record and granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court ordered that judgment be entered accordingly. Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright signed the order.