United States District Court, D. Colorado
TERRELL S. HUBBARD, Plaintiff,
v.
TOM NESTOR, MICHAEL YOWELL, WADE ADAMS, DERIK MATTHESON, and COLE BRITTON, Defendants.
ORDER
SCOTT
T. VARHOLAK UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
This
civil action is before the Court on Defendants' Motion to
Reconsider (the “Motion to Reconsider”) [#174],
which was referred to this Court for resolution [#175]. This
Court has carefully considered the Motion to Reconsider and
related briefing, the case file, and the applicable case law,
and has determined that oral argument would not materially
assist in the disposition of the Motion to Reconsider. For
the following reasons, the Motion to Reconsider is
GRANTED.
I.
Background
Plaintiff
brings claims for alleged violations of his Fourteenth
Amendment right to Due Process and violation of his Fourth
and Fifth Amendment rights while he was detained at the
Lincoln County Jail. [See #61 at 4-5] On October 12,
2018, Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment (the
“Summary Judgment Motion”) seeking summary
judgment in their favor on all of Plaintiff's remaining
claims in the lawsuit. [#153] More specifically, Defendants
argue that (1) Plaintiff was not entitled to a hearing prior
to being relocated within the Lincoln County Jail, because
the relocation was related to maintaining the order, safety,
and security of the jail, its staff, and other inmates; (2)
Plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated,
because he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy
in his jail cell and he has not established the violation of
any rights under the Fifth Amendment; (3) Plaintiff failed to
exhaust his administrative remedies prior to bringing this
lawsuit; (4) Defendants are entitled to qualified immunity;
and (5) Defendant Sheriff Tom Nestor is not liable in his
official capacity, because Plaintiff failed to prove any
underlying constitutional violation and Sheriff Nestor is
entitled to qualified immunity. [Id.] On November
11, 2018, Plaintiff filed his Response to Defendants'
Motion for Summary Judgment (the “Summary Judgment
Response”). [#157] On December 3, 2018, Defendants
filed their Reply in the Matter of Their Motion for Summary
Judgment (the “Summary Judgment Reply”). [#164]
On
December 24, 2018, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Strike New
Arguments and Affidavit Raised in Defendants' Reply in
the Matter of Their Motion for Summary Judgment (the
“Motion to Strike”), arguing that Defendants'
Summary Judgment Reply contained new arguments and evidence
that were not raised in the Summary Judgment Motion and thus
should be stricken. [#165] On January 14, 2019, Defendants
filed a response to the Motion to Strike [#169], and
Plaintiff then filed a reply in support of the Motion to
Strike [#171]. On January 25, 2019, this Court issued an
Order granting in part and denying in part the Motion to
Strike. [#172] Relevant to the instant Motion to Reconsider,
the Court granted the Motion to Strike “to the extent
it [sought] to strike Defendants' argument that
‘Plaintiff was not a typical “pre-trial
detainee”, in that he was a parolee (and, therefore,
still a “constructive prisoner”), who was on
pre-trial status for a new charge' while detained at the
Lincoln Country Jail” and determined that the stricken
argument “[would] not be considered by the Court in
connection with Defendants' Summary Judgment
Motion.” [Id. at 6-7]
The
entirety of Defendants' argument in the Summary Judgment
Reply related to Plaintiff's parolee status (the
“Parolee Argument”) consists of the following two
paragraphs:
Defendants stress that, while Plaintiff was a pretrial
detainee with respect to the criminal charge he received for
making a “shank” while being held in the Limon
Correctional Facility, he was transported to the Jail as a
parolee on his prior charges in order to face his new charge,
and remained on that status while he was an inmate at the
Jail . . . In Colorado, “a parolee is considered to be
under a restraint imposed by law and is not a free person,
but rather, a constructive prisoner of the state and under
the control of the appropriate state officials.”
People v. Gallegos, 914 P.2d 449, 450 (Colo.App.
1995).
Plaintiff was not a typical “pre-trial detainee”,
in that he was a parolee (and, therefore, still a
“constructive prisoner”), who was on pre-trial
status for a new charge. It was not unreasonable for Jail
officials to take that factor into account when managing
Plaintiff's behavior. “Admittedly, prisoners do not
shed all constitutional rights at the prison gate, but lawful
incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or
limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction
justified by the considerations underlying our penal
system.” Sandin v. Connor, 515 U.S. 472, 485
(1995) (internal citations omitted).
[#164 at 8-8]
On
February 8, 2019, Defendants filed the instant Motion to
Reconsider, which requests that the Court reconsider that
portion of its January 25, 2019 Order that granted the Motion
to Strike to the extent it sought to strike the Parolee
Argument. [#174] On February 19, 2019, Plaintiff filed a
response to the Motion to Reconsider [#179], and Defendants
then filed a reply in support of the Motion to Reconsider
[#185].
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
“The
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not specifically provide
for motions for reconsideration.” Spring Creek
Expl. & Prod. Co., LLC v. Hess Bakken Inv. II, LLC,
No. 14-cv-00134-PAB-KMT, 2015 WL 3542699, at *2 (D. Colo.
June 5, 2015). Rather, “motions for reconsideration
fall within a court's plenary power to revisit and amend
interlocutory orders as justice requires.” Id.
Although a court has the authority to revisit and amend its
interlocutory orders, judges in this district generally
“have imposed limits on their broad discretion to
revisit interlocutory orders.” Id.
Accordingly, in determining whether to revisit an
interlocutory order, courts generally “consider whether
new evidence or legal authority has emerged or whether the
prior ruling was clearly in error”. Id.
“Motions to reconsider are generally an inappropriate
vehicle to advance ‘new arguments, or supporting facts
which were available at the time of the original
motion.'” Id. (quoting Servants of the
Paraclete v. Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1012 (10th Cir.
2000)).
III.
ANALYSIS
In the
Motion to Reconsider, Defendants offer two arguments in
support of their contention that the Parolee Argument should
not have been stricken by the Court. First, Defendants
contend that, upon raising a defense of qualified immunity in
their Motion for Summary Judgment, the burden shifted to
Plaintiff to establish (1) a constitutional violation and (2)
that the constitutional right at issue was “clearly
established.” [#174 at ¶¶ 11-12] As a result
of this burden-shifting, Defendants argue that the waiver
cases relied upon by Plaintiff in his Motion to Strike are
inapplicable and Defendants' Parolee Argument is properly
construed as a rebuttal to Plaintiff's arguments in the
Summary Judgment Response in support of a constitutional
violation. [Id. at 4] Second, Defendants contend
that, because qualified immunity may be raised at any time
prior to trial, Defendants “could, hypothetically,
submit an additional Motion for Summary Judgment on the
stricken issue (which relates to qualified immunity) at any
time.” [Id. at ¶ 17] Defendants thus
contend that “it would promote judicial economy, as
well as adhere to this ...