Daywitt v. Harpestead

Background

Kenneth Daywitt, appearing without a lawyer, is a patient civilly committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), operated by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. He sued Jodi Harpestead, Nancy Johnston, and David Clanaugh under federal civil-rights statutes, alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. He sought declaratory and injunctive relief and unspecified compensatory damages, and brought the case for himself and members of the MSOP Jewish group.

Daywitt alleged that he is a member of the Sephardic Orthodox Jewish faith and that a prior settlement agreement required MSOP to live-stream his religious services. He alleged that MSOP’s COVID-19 policies disrupted his access to live-streamed services after the Purim services in 2020, leaving him with only intermittent and inadequate prerecorded videos. He claimed that this violated his religious-practice rights and his equal-protection rights. He also alleged that he told Clanaugh about the settlement agreement, but Clanaugh responded that he could follow directions from supervisors and the volunteer rabbi instead.

Defendants’ motion

The defendants moved to dismiss. Their primary argument was claim splitting, which is the rule against bringing separate lawsuits based on the same operative facts when the claims could have been brought together. They argued that Daywitt’s allegations duplicated those in an earlier related proceeding, No. 20-cv-1980 (D. Minn.), where Daywitt and other MSOP patients challenged COVID-19 restrictions affecting religious practices. They also raised arguments based on subject-matter jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, qualified immunity, and unclear pleading of any state-law claims.

Daywitt argued that the earlier related proceeding concerned the broader removal of Jewish religious practices, while this case concerned the specific live-streaming obligation in the settlement agreement. He also argued that Clanaugh was not named in the earlier proceeding and was the person directly responsible for the streaming problem. Daywitt expressly stated that he was not bringing a breach-of-contract claim.

Court’s analysis

The court held that this case and the earlier related proceeding arose from the same nucleus of operative facts. Both involved MSOP’s COVID-19 response, its effect on Daywitt’s religious practices, the loss of access to live-streamed services, and the alleged failure to follow the settlement agreement. The court said that the settlement agreement did not change the claim-splitting analysis because Daywitt had referred to that agreement in the earlier proceeding.

The court found that Harpestead and Johnston were defendants in both cases, so claim splitting barred the claims against them. Although Clanaugh was not named in the earlier proceeding, the court found that he was in privity with the earlier defendants. Privity means a legal relationship close enough that one person’s interests are represented by another party. The court reasoned that Johnston made the policies and Clanaugh carried them out, and that Daywitt did not allege that Clanaugh acted independently or created separate policies. The court therefore found that claim splitting barred claims against Clanaugh in both his official and individual capacities.

The court added that, even if claim splitting did not bar the individual-capacity claims against Clanaugh, qualified immunity would. Qualified immunity can protect a government official from personal liability unless the alleged conduct violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time. The court found that Daywitt had not alleged that he was treated differently from similarly situated people for purposes of his equal-protection claim. It also found that a right to live-streamed religious services during the COVID-19 pandemic was not clearly established enough that Clanaugh would have understood that denying access was unconstitutional.

The court did not reach the defendants’ other arguments, including their arguments under the jurisdiction and failure-to-state-a-claim rules concerning the alleged state-law claims, because it resolved the matter under claim splitting.

Disposition

Judge Susan Richard Nelson granted the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss and ordered that Daywitt’s Complaint be dismissed without prejudice. The opinion states that judgment was to be entered accordingly.