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Roosevelt Florida v. Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections6/21/2002
Plaintiffs, Roosevelt Florida, Russell Blanchard and Donald Ray Evans, appeal from a judgment dismissing their petition for damages without prejudice following plaintiffs' failure to amend their petition to reflect that they had first exhausted the administrative remedies provided for in the Corrections Administrative Remedy Procedure, LSA-R.S. 15:1171, et seq. For the following reasons, we reverse and remand.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On July 27, 1999, plaintiffs, formerly inmates incarcerated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections ("the Department"), filed a petition styled "Class Action Petition for Damages" against the Department and Richard Stalder, Secretary of the Department, asserting that plaintiffs had "sustained damages, economic and non-economic, from a denial of due process and loss of liberty interest by reason of an illegal forfeiture of good time and concomitant increase in the number days they were wrongfully incarcerated." Plaintiffs averred that pursuant to Department Regulation B-04-005, the Department had instituted a disciplinary policy of referring disciplinary cases to a "Special Court," through which plaintiffs were subjected to a forfeiture of up to 180 days of good time. They further averred that because the imposition of this additional penalty pursuant to Department Regulation B-04-005 was illegal and without force of authority of law (in that it was never properly promulgated as mandated by the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act), see Rivera v. State, 98-0507, 98-0508, pp. 5-6 (La. App. 1st Cir. 12/28/98), 727 So. 2d 609, 612-613, writ denied, 99-0289 (La. 3/26/99), 740 So. 2d 617, they and others similarly situated had been illegally incarcerated beyond the dates on which they should have been released. Accordingly, plaintiffs contended that they were entitled to monetary awards as damages for "loss of denial of due process and liberty interests, illegal detention, wrongful imprisonment, past and future emotional and mental anguish, pain and suffering, loss of earnings, loss of earning capacity and other economic and non-economic injuries."
The Department and Stalder then filed dilatory exceptions raising the objections of improper cumulation of actions and vagueness. In support of its exceptions, the Department contended that plaintiffs' suit was governed by the Corrections Administrative Remedy Procedure ("CARP"), LSA-R.S. 15:1171, et seq. Accordingly, defendants contended that pursuant to LSA-R.S. 15:1177, plaintiffs could not cumulate separate actions for judicial review. Additionally, the Department and Stalder contended that plaintiffs' petition was vague in that it failed to specify the file numbers of the administrative remedy procedures ("ARP") in which they sought administrative review of their complaints and of which they sought judicial review in the district court.
In her report addressing the exceptions, the Commissioner recommended that the exception of vagueness be maintained as meritorious and that plaintiffs be given thirty days to amend their petition to set forth plaintiffs' department identification numbers or the ARP numbers of the requests sought to be reviewed. The Commissioner further recommended that the district court defer ruling on the exception of improper cumulation, but that if the court desired to rule on this exception also, it likewise should be maintained as meritorious.
In accordance with the Commissioner's recommendation, the district court maintained the exception of vagueness and ordered plaintiffs to amend their petition within thirty days to indicate the individual department identification number of each plaintiff, as well as the number assigned to
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