Steve R. Anctil v. Department of Corrections , 2018 ME 53 ( 2018 )

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2018 ME 53Docket: Ken-17-417
Submitted
On Briefs: April 10, 2018
Decided: April 19, 2018
Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
STEVE R. ANCTIL
v.
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
PER CURIAM
[¶1] On August 18, 2017, Steve R. Anctil, an inmate at the Maine State
Prison, filed a petition in the Superior Court (Kennebec County) pursuant to
M.R. Civ. P. 80C, seeking review of a disciplinary decision of the Department of
Corrections. In his petition, Anctil identified the matter as “Disciplinary Case
Number MSP-2017-1051”; asserted that several procedural and constitutional
errors were committed in the report of, hearing on, and decision in that matter;
and requested that the Superior Court vacate the disciplinary decision and
award damages. With the petition, Anctil filed an application to proceed
without payment of fees, an indigency affidavit, and a certificate with attached
documentation establishing the balance in his prisoner trust account. Anctil
appeals from the court’s (Marden, J.) dismissal of his petition, which the court
2
entered sua sponte in a one-sentence decision: “After review of the pleadings
the Court ORDERS: case dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.”1 The record is
otherwise devoid of any indication of the basis on which the court concluded
that it lacked jurisdiction.
[¶2] Seven months before the Superior Court dismissed this petition, we
addressed the court’s similar action in another matter. In Mutty v. Department
of Corrections, as here, an inmate filed a petition pursuant to Rule 80C, seeking
review of a disciplinary decision of the Department of Corrections. 2017 ME 7,
¶ 3, 153 A.3d 775. The Superior Court, sua sponte, dismissed the matter for
failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted, stating, “The court
cannot determine its jurisdiction in the absence of its determination of the date
of the final agency action.” Id. ¶ 4 (quotation marks omitted). We determined
that although the court may dismiss a matter when a jurisdictional defect is
“clear from the petition, or when a party in the case raises the jurisdictional
defect, and the court then determines that the petition was untimely,” nothing
in the Maine Administrative Procedure Act, 5 M.R.S. §§ 8001-11008 (2017),
required that the petitioner allege the specific date of the final agency action.
1 The Department did not appear in the matter before the trial court and is not a party to the
appeal.
3
Mutty, 2017 ME 7, ¶¶ 10, 12, 153 A.3d 775. We held, “A petition that states a
claim for relief and facially meets statutory requirements is, at least
preliminarily, sufficient to establish jurisdiction.” Id. ¶ 11. We therefore
vacated the dismissal in the absence of any “affirmative basis in the record” to
support it. Id. ¶¶ 12-13; see Fleming v. Comm’r, Dep’t of Corr., 2002 ME 74,
¶¶ 8-12, 795 A.2d 692 (vacating the dismissal of an inmate’s Rule 80C petition
and holding that the petitioner’s failures to call his pleading a “petition,” strictly
comply with notice requirements, and ensure that the Department filed the
agency record did not deprive the court of jurisdiction even when the pleading
included a request for damages and injunctive relief); cf. Tomer v. Me. Human
Rights Comm’n, 2008 ME 190, ¶¶ 14-16, 962 A.2d 335 (affirming the dismissal
of a Rule 80C action after concluding that, on its face, the petition did not seek
review of any final agency action).
[¶3] Just as was true in Mutty, no jurisdictional defect is apparent from
the record here. We therefore vacate the judgment dismissing Anctil’s
complaint and remand the matter to the Superior Court for the court to act on
Anctil’s application to proceed without payment of fees. See M.R. Civ. P. 91;
Mutty, 2017 ME 7, ¶ 13, 153 A.3d 775.
4
The entry is:
Judgment vacated. Remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Steve R. Anctil, appellant pro se
Kennebec County Superior Court docket number AP-2017-45
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY