King v. Keyser

Background

On January 13, 2020, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally sufficient claim. Colleen King then filed a timely motion under Rule 60(b)(1), which allows relief from a final order because of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. She asked the court to reverse the January 13 order and reinstate the case.

The defendants were William Keyser, Edward Burnett, Jimi DeWitt, Brisa Powell, Jeff McKoy, and Alicia Smith-Roberts. The opinion states that claims King attempted to assert on behalf of her husband had previously been dismissed without prejudice because a nonlawyer cannot represent another person in court. The court therefore considered only arguments concerning King’s own claims.

King’s Arguments

King argued that the court had mistakenly understood her complaint as asserting a right to participate in the Family Reunion Program. Her filing stated both that she did not claim a protected right to participate in the program and that she had been denied the opportunity to participate because of discrimination, retaliation, and revenge related to grievances and lawsuits against correctional officials.

The court understood King’s claim, under either description, as asserting a First Amendment right of intimate association. The court also noted that King’s filing attempted to raise some allegations about retaliation for her own complaints to state officials that had not appeared in her complaint. The court declined to consider those new allegations in a Rule 60(b)(1) motion.

Court’s Analysis

The court held that it had not misunderstood King’s claim. It had considered the alleged retaliatory reason for denying her participation in the Family Reunion Program when it analyzed her intimate-association claim.

The court also distinguished between a general right to intimate association and whether a particular right was sufficiently established to defeat qualified immunity. Qualified immunity can protect government officials from liability unless the law clearly established that their specific conduct violated a constitutional right. The court relied on its conclusion that, in the relevant federal appellate circuit, a particularized right to spousal visitation in prison had not been clearly established. King did not identify another particularized right that the defendants allegedly violated.

The court therefore concluded that it had not made a legal error when it granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and granted them qualified immunity.

Disposition

The court denied the motion for relief under Rule 60(b)(1). The clerk was instructed to terminate the two motions. The court also certified that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to appeal without paying filing fees.