Jones v. Cate
Plaintiff Rodney Wayne Jones, a prisoner in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) in the state prison at Corcoran, alleges that prison guards took and destroyed his personal and legal property. Plaintiff filed a grievance and pursued it through the four levels of administrative review. Those reviews found, in essence, that all legal materials had been returned to plaintiff and the items of personal property were excess property disposed of in accordance with prison regulations.
Plaintiff filed this lawsuit, alleging that prison officials violated (1) his due process rights, (2) his right to equal protection, and (3) his First Amendment rights to (a) be free from retaliatory action and (b) access to the courts. The defendants demurred to these claims. The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend and plaintiff appealed.
We conclude plaintiff’s allegations do not state an equal protection violation because indigency is not a suspect classification and the regulations for the disposition of excess inmate property satisfy the rational basis test. Also, plaintiff’s allegations do not state a claim for the deprivation of property without due process of law because California law provides plaintiff with an adequate post-deprivation remedy.
We further conclude plaintiff’s allegations that his legal property was destroyed in retaliation for his filing a grievance states a claim for retaliation in violation of his First Amendment rights. Also, we direct the trial court to grant plaintiff leave to amend his access-to-court claim to set forth factual allegations satisfying the actual injury requirement for such a claim.
We therefore reverse the judgment.
Comments on Jones v. Cate