Geness v. Commonwealth
Geness v. Commonwealth
Opinion of the Court
Craig Geness, a life-long mentally impaired man once living in an adult group home, now seeks damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act alleging the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania discriminated against him by holding him in custody in Fayette County Prison for 3,309 days without a trial before finally dismissing charges against him.
Mr. Geness struggles to timely sue a responsible party. We dismissed his civil rights and state law claims against the arresting detective as untimely. Our Court of Appeals affirmed on those claims but remanded for us to consider the Commonwealth's liability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). After we found Mr. Geness plead an ADA claim, the Commonwealth argued it can only be sued through its agencies and officials. Mr. Geness responded by adding two Commonwealth agency defendants, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC) and Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Mr. Geness alleges the AOPC can be liable under the ADA both for the conduct of its agent judges in administering dockets and for systemic failures to ensure accessible courts.
The AOPC, repeating some of the Commonwealth's failed arguments, moves to dismiss arguing Mr. Geness fails to plead it violated the ADA, it is shielded by sovereign immunity and quasi-judicial immunity, *532and Mr. Geness's claims are time barred. At this preliminary stage and mindful Mr. Geness is not challenging judicial decision making but rather failures in court administration practices touted to ensure accessibility for mentally impaired persons, Mr. Geness may proceed in challenging the AOPC's alleged failures in the second amended complaint. Discovery may allow us to understand the potential liability and damages among allegedly responsible state actors under the ADA.
I. Allegations.
The Commonwealth criminal justice system's treatment of Mr. Geness is fully described in our May 1, 2017 Memorandum
Mr. Geness pleads at least two theories of liability against the AOPC: (1) under an agency theory, the Fayette County judges' unexplained failure to proceed with hearings, rulings or direction violate the ADA; and, (2) under a direct liability theory, the AOPC systemically failed to monitor and impose policies to ensure access to the courts for mentally impaired persons.
In support of his agency theory, Mr. Geness pleads:
• Over the course of his detention, Mr. Geness filed four Motions for habeas corpus relief and/or Motions to dismiss charges.
• Despite numerous opportunities to do so over his 3,309 days in custody, the Pennsylvania courts held no hearings or issued rulings on those motions despite the judges and AOPC's actual knowledge of Mr. Geness's unchanging mental state and prolonged detention in Fayette County Prison and his later detention.
• Judges repeatedly adjourned trial dates despite knowing Mr. Geness's permanent inability to stand trial.
• The Fayette County Prison Warden made numerous complaints to the assigned trial judge asking the criminal justice system to "do something" to remove Mr. Geness from prison.
• The Commonwealth through AOPC's failure to monitor judges' docket management exhibited deliberate indifference to Mr. Geness's right to be provided statutory safeguards for the protection of disabled persons, and exhibited deliberate indifference to Mr. Geness's rights.
On his direct liability theory, Mr. Geness pleads:
• AOPC supervises and administers the judicial branch of the Commonwealth and acted by and through its officials. AOPC is a subsidiary unit of the Commonwealth and acts as an agent related to supervision and administration of the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System. The *533Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System includes judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the various Pennsylvania counties, including Fayette County. In its capacity as a subsidiary unit of the Commonwealth, AOPC administers the Pennsylvania Unified Judicial System and is responsible for the prompt and proper disposition of all businesses of the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
• Among the duties and responsibilities of the AOPC is ensuring accessible and safe courts for all citizens. The duties of the AOPC include ensuring the courts of the Commonwealth comply with the ADA. The AOPC attempts to ensure compliance with the ADA through interaction with ADA coordinators in each county. For Fayette County, the deputy court administrator, who reports directly to the court administrator, is the ADA coordinator.
• As part of its effort to fulfill its responsibility to ensure the Commonwealth's compliance with the ADA, the AOPC regularly inquires of each county's ADA coordinator about cases involving criminal defendants who are pretrial detainees whose cases have not been timely called to trial under Pennsylvania law.
• AOPC repeatedly contacted the Fayette County court administrator directly to inquire about Mr. Geness's case and the reasons for extended incarceration without trial. Notwithstanding those inquiries, neither the AOPC, nor any other agent of AOPC, including the AOPC's local ADA coordinator in Fayette County, acted to provide Mr. Geness with his right to be brought to trial on the charges he faced.
• During the period of Mr. Geness's incarceration from in or about November 2006 through in or about December 2015, the Fayette County court administrator received from the Fayette County Prison a daily list of prisoners incarcerated in the Fayette County Prison. This list included various information about each incarcerated individual, including the date the individual was incarcerated, as well as the minimum and maximum incarceration dates for each prisoner.
• Mr. Geness appeared on this list every day.
• The AOPC's actions are part of an unlawful pattern and course of conduct intended to harm Mr. Geness with reckless disregard and/or deliberate indifference to his rights.
II. Analysis
A. Mr. Geness continues to plead an ADA claim.
In our February 1, 2019 Memorandum explaining why we denied the Commonwealth's motion to dismiss, we found "Mr. Geness 'sufficiently pleaded' a claim under Title II of the ADA,"
The issue is whether the AOPC is immune from this type of ADA claim.
B. The AOPC, like the Commonwealth, has not shown a basis for sovereign immunity.
In our February 1, 2019 Memorandum, we found sovereign immunity poses no bar to Mr. Geness's claim against the Commonwealth,
The AOPC argues liability cannot attach because it does "not [have] a duty to micromanage case filings."
Mr. Geness plausibly pleads the AOPC's failure to discharge its duties with respect to ADA compliance substantially-even if not exclusively-caused his lengthy pretrial detention. Mr. Geness alleges the AOPC discharges its critical ADA compliance duties by "mak[ing] regular inquiries of each county's ADA coordinator with regard to cases involving criminal defendants who are pretrial detainees whose cases have not been called to trial in a timely fashion according to Pennsylvania law."
As to his own case, Mr. Geness alleges "the Fayette County court administrator received from the Fayette County Prison a daily list of prisoners incarcerated in the Fayette County Prison," and Mr. Geness appeared on this list along with key "information about his incarceration."
*535extended incarceration without trial."
Seemingly looking beyond these plausible allegations, the AOPC claims as a matter of law it could not have acted to help Mr. Geness. The Pennsylvania Rules of Judicial Administration suggest otherwise. Among numerous duties, these Rules charge the AOPC with "review[ing] the operation and efficiency of the system and of all offices related to and serving the system and, when necessary ... report[ing] to the Supreme Court or the Judicial Council with respect thereto";
We are again guided by our Court of Appeals' finding "the[ ] multiple, protracted, and inexcusable delays in the handling of [Mr.] Geness's examinations, transfers, and motions-resulting in nearly a decade of imprisonment and civil commitment before a hearing was finally held on his habeas petition-are more than sufficient to state a claim under the ADA,"
Of course, a developed factual record may show, as a matter of fact , the AOPC could not have done more. The question may then be left to our jury. But Mr. Geness's claim is plausible and we cannot resolve fact disputes at this stage. For the same reason we cannot now resolve the *536AOPC's argument the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services is the party solely or more responsible for Mr. Geness's harm. The AOPC, however, may pursue this argument through a cross-claim against the Department of Human Services.
C. The AOPC cannot shield itself in quasi-judicial immunity.
The AOPC also fails to demonstrate quasi-judicial immunity categorically bars Mr. Geness from proceeding to discovery. "Quasi-judicial immunity, as one might guess, evolved out of its well-known namesake, judicial immunity,"
When considering a claim of quasi-judicial immunity, our Court of Appeals directs our focus to an official's duties rather than mere title. "Regardless of his job title, if a state official must walk, talk, and act like a judge as part of his job, then he is as absolutely immune from lawsuits arising out of that walking, talking, and acting as are judges who enjoy the title and other formal indicia of office."
Before we can consider the AOPC's functions under this framework, however, we cannot avoid the AOPC's failure to clear a more fundamental hurdle to its claim of quasi-judicial immunity: it is not a public official acting in an individual capacity. It is not a public official at all. It is an entity. And courts across the country-including our Court of Appeals-have routinely declined to extend the "strong medicine"
In Dotzel v. Ashbridge , our Court of Appeals again recognized quasi-judicial immunity shields only individual actors "from suit in their individual capacities."
Our Court of Appeals is not alone in finding quasi-judicial immunity inapplicable to entities-and for good reason. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit described "[o]fficial immunities (judicial, legislative, absolute, qualified, quasi, and so on) a[s] personal defenses designed to protect the finances of public officials whose salaries do not compensate them for the risks of liability under vague and hard-to-foresee constitutional doctrines," and "[t]hat justification does not apply to suits against units of state or local government, which can tap the public fisc."
Although our research primarily yielded cases discussing official immunity doctrines in the context of
But even if the AOPC's status as an entity did not preclude it seeking quasi-judicial immunity, the AOPC is not entitled to such immunity. As we have already described, the Pennsylvania Rules of Judicial Administration detail the AOPC's various administrative duties.
D. We already held Mr. Geness's claims are timely.
We decline to revisit our February 1, 2019 finding Mr. Geness's claims are timely. They remain so.
III. Conclusion
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts cannot rely upon fact-based arguments of "not me" when Mr. Geness pleads its role in managing access to courts including through an ADA coordinator in Fayette County. It has not shown a basis for immunity for systemic failures in policy-making to ensure ADA compliance. Mr. Geness's claims are not time-barred based on the plausible allegations of a continuing and "connected pattern of indifference."
Geness v. Cox , No. 16-876,
Geness v. Cox ,
Geness v. Pennsylvania ,
See Geness ,
Georgia ,
ECF Doc. No. 188 at 16 of 33.
Georgia ,
Gay v. Pines ,
ECF Doc. No. 183 at ¶ 7.
ECF Doc. No. 183 at ¶ 66.
Id. at ¶ 7.
Id. at ¶ 69-70.
Id. at ¶ 67.
Pa.R.J.A. No. 505(1).
Pa.R.J.A. No. 505(6).
Pa.R.J.A. No. 505(12).
Geness ,
Russell v. Richardson ,
Antoine v. Byers & Anderson, Inc. ,
Russell ,
Hamilton v. Leavy ,
Dotzel ,
Russell ,
Forrester v. White ,
Lonzetta ,
Dotzel ,
Id. at n.5.
Hernandez v. Sheahan ,
Lane ,
See Pa.R.J.A. No. 505.
See Pines ,
Forrester v. White ,
Cleavinger v. Saxner ,
Pines ,
Geness ,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Craig GENESS v. Commonwealth of PENNSYLVANIA
- Cited By
- 3 cases
- Status
- Published