Stile v. Dubois et al

Filing 91

///ORDER granting 80 Motion for Summary Judgment. Strafford County's motion for summary judgment on Claim 9 is granted. So Ordered by Judge Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr.(gla)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
James Stile
v.

Civil No. 17-cv-406-JD
Opinion No. 2019 DNH 116

David G. Dubois, et al.
O R D E R
James Stile, who is a federal prisoner proceeding pro se,
brought claims that arose from an incident that occurred while
he was being held at the Strafford County Department of
Corrections (“SCDC”).

Strafford County moves for summary

judgment on Claim 9.

Stile did not respond to the motion.

Standard of Review
Summary judgment is appropriate when “there is no genuine
dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); see also

Thomas v. Harrington, 909 F.3d 483, 490 (1st Cir. 2019).

For

purposes of summary judgment, the court considers the facts in
the light most favorable to the plaintiffs and draws all
reasonable inferences in their favor.

Roy v. Correct Care

Solutions, LLC, 914 F.3d 52, 57 (1st Cir. 2019).

“An issue is

genuine if it can be resolved in favor of either party, and a
fact is material if it has the potential of affecting the

outcome of the case.”

Leite v. Gergeron, 911 F.3d 47, 52 (1st

Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

“A genuine issue

of material fact only exists if a reasonable factfinder,
examining the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences
helpful to the party resisting summary judgment, could resolve
the dispute in that party’s favor.”

Town of Westport v.

Monsanto Co., 877 F.3d 58, 64-65 (1st Cir. 2017) (internal
quotation marks omitted); Flood v. Bank of Am. Corp., 780 F.3d
1, 7 (1st Cir. 2015).

Background
Stile’s claims arise from the circumstances and events that
occurred on September 5, 2014, when he was taken from his cell
at the SCDC and transported to Portland, Maine, for a hearing in
his criminal case.

At that time, Stile was a federal pretrial

detainee who was in the custody of the SCDC pursuant to an
agreement with the United States Marshals Service.

Stile

alleges that the officers involved in moving and transporting
him used excessive force, which breached the agreement between
the Marshals Service and Strafford County.
The agreement between the Marshals Service and Strafford
County (“housing agreement”), which is Agreement Number 49-990104, was signed in November of 2010 by Raymond F. Bower,
Administrator, on behalf of Strafford County, and in December of
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2010 by Renita L. Barbee, Grants Specialist, on behalf of the
Marshals Service.

The housing agreement states that it “is for

the housing, safekeeping, and subsistence of federal prisoners,
in accordance with content set forth herein.”

Doc. 78-3, at *1.

It also provides for transportation for medical services and to
a United States Courthouse.

Id.

The housing agreement further

states that its purpose is to allow “the United States Marshals
Service (USMS) to house federal detainees with the Local
Government at the STRAFFORD COUNTY Jail 266 COUNTY FARM RD
Dover, NH

03820 (herein referred to as ‘the facility’).”

Doc.

78-3, at *3.
Strafford County provides an excerpt from the United States
Marshals Service FY 2014 Performance Budget President’s Budget,
Salaries & Expenses and Construction Appropriations, dated April
of 2013.

The excerpt provided states:

“The USMS is also

responsible for transporting prisoners to and from judicial
proceedings.”

Doc. 80-2, at 3.

The excerpt explains that some

jails will provide transportation for federal prisoners to and
from courthouses under the Intergovernmental Agreements such as
the housing agreement in this case.

Deputy United States

Marshals “arrange with jails to prepare prisoners for transport,
search prisoners prior to transport, and properly restrain
prisoners during transportation.”

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Id.

The excerpt shows that

the Marshals Service requested $254,166.00 for prisoner security
and transportation for 2014.

Discussion
Strafford County moves for summary judgment on Claim 9:
9. Strafford County and the United States Marshals
Service for the District of Maine entered an agreement
to house federal pretrial detainees at the Strafford
County Department of Corrections and to provide
transportation to detainees, including Stile, for
medical and court appointments. Stile was an intended
third-party beneficiary of that agreement. Strafford
County and the Marshals Service breached the agreement
when Stile was transported by officers who were not
trained or not properly trained in a cargo van that
lacked appropriate safety protections and minimum
comforts and did not comply with the requirements of
state and federal law, which caused Stile to be
injured.
In support, Strafford County contends that the claim fails
because Stile was not a party to the agreement and was not a
third-party beneficiary of the agreement.

Strafford County

relies on federal common law pertaining to third-party
beneficiary status to interpret the agreement.
Federal common law governs claims involving the
“obligations to and rights of the United States under its
contracts.”

Boyle v. United Techs. Corp., 487 U.S. 500, 504

(1988); see also Prairie Land Holdings, L.L.C. v. Fed. Aviation
Admin., 919 F.3d 1060,1062 (8th Cir. 2019).

On the other hand,

the Supreme Court has held that federal common law does not

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preempt state law when the issue is “whether petitioners as
third-party beneficiaries of the contacts [between the county
and the Federal Aviation Administration] have standing to sue
[the county].”

Miree v. DeKalb County, 433 U.S. 25, 29 (1977).

When a breach of contract claim “will have no direct effect upon
the United States or its treasury,” there is no need to apply
federal common law.

Id.

In this case, the Marshals Service was party, and Stile
brought the same breach of contract claim against it.

The court

has dismissed the claim against the Marshals Service, however,
for lack of jurisdiction.

Therefore, resolution of Claim 9

against Strafford County will have no effect on the Marshals
Service or the United States Treasury.
While it appears that state law should govern the
resolution of Claim 9 as to Strafford County, it also appears
that there is no material difference between the law of New
Hampshire and federal common law on the issue of third-party
beneficiary status.
Contracts.

Both follow the Restatement (Second) of

See South Shore Hellenic Church, Inc. v. Artech

Church Interiors, Inc., 183 F. Supp. 3d 187 234 (D. Mass. 2016)
(federal common law); Brooks v. Trs. of Dartmouth Coll., 161
N.H. 685, 697-98 (2011) (New Hampshire law).

Therefore, the

court will follow New Hampshire law, with appropriate references
to federal common law as may be necessary.
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Under New Hampshire law, “[a] third-party beneficiary
relationship exists if: (1) the contract calls for a performance
by the promisor, which will satisfy some obligation owed by the
promisee; or (2) the contract is so expressed as to give the
promisor reason to know that a benefit to a third party is
contemplated by the promisee as one of the motivating causes of
his making the contract.”

Brooks, 161 N.H. at 697.

That

relationship exists, however, only if the parties intended the
third party to have the right to enforce the contract, which
ordinarily must be expressed in the contract.

Id.; Sears

Roebuck & Co. v. S/S Lebanon LLC, 2017 DNH 185, 2017 WL 3913218,
at *3 (D.N.H. Sept. 6, 2017).
To establish a third-party beneficiary relationship,
performance under the contract must directly benefit the third
party, and it is not enough if the third party is only an
incidental beneficiary.

Brooks, 161 N.H. at 698.

A presumption

exists that even when third parties benefit from a government
contract they are merely incidental beneficiaries, who cannot
enforce the contract.

MacKenzie v. Flagstar Bank, FSB, 738 F.3d

486, 491 (1st Cir. 2013).

To overcome the presumption, a

plaintiff must show that “a different intention is manifested.”
Id.
Federal courts in New York have found under New York law
that federal detainees had third-party beneficiary status to
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enforce housing agreements between the Marshals Service and
county jails for providing medical care.

See Melvin v. County

of Westchester, 2016 WL 1254394, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 29,
2016)1; Zikianda v. County of Albany, 2015 WL 5510956, at *36-*37
(N.D.N.Y. Sept. 15, 2015).

In other cases, courts have found

that the housing agreements do not provide third-party
beneficiary status to the plaintiffs.

Murphy v. Cen. Falls

Detention Facility Corp.¸ 2015 WL 1969178, at *13 (D.R.I. Apr.
30, 2015); Cash v. United States, 2015 WL 194353, at *3 (Fed.
Cl. Jan. 13, 2015).

As noted by Strafford County, in Zeigler v.

Correct Care Sys., 2018 WL 1470786, at *4 (M.D. Pa. Mar. 26,
2018), the court cited cases from New Jersey and Pennsylvania in
which prisoners were found not to be third-party beneficiaries
of contracts to provide medical services to prisoners.
Here, the housing agreement includes no express or implied
intent that federal detainees at SCDC, like Stile, are able to
enforce its provisions against Strafford County.

The section of

the agreement pertaining to transportation of detainees from the
SCDC to a courthouse addresses the qualification of personnel to
provide transport services, the security for transport, how the
transport is ordered, to whom detainees are released, the

The Southern District of New York recently granted summary
judgment in favor of the county jail on the breach of contract
claim. Melvin v. County of Westchester, 2019 WL 1227903, at *15
(S.D.N.Y. Mar. 15, 2019).
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restraint of detainees during transport with handcuffs, waist
chains, and leg irons, and reimbursement.

Those requirements

are not for the benefit of the detainee, but instead are
intended to maintain the secure detention of detainees during
transport for the benefit of the Marshals Service.
In the absence of any intent to allow federal detainees to
enforce the housing agreements for purposes of transport, Stile
does not have third-party beneficiary status to enforce the
agreement through his breach of contract claim.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, Strafford County’s motion for
summary judgment on Claim 9 (document no. 80) is granted.
SO ORDERED.
______________________________
Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr.
United States District Judge
July 24, 2019
cc:

James Stile, pro se
Corey M. Belobrow, Esq.
Brian J.S. Cullen, Esq.
Michael T. McCormack, Esq.

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