McCollum, et al. v. California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation, et al., No. 09-16404 (9th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseThe California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR") had a paid chaplaincy program that employed Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American clergy. These chaplains served all inmates but other religions were also served by volunteer chaplains. A Wiccan volunteer chaplain and a small group of inmates challenged the paid chaplaincy program asserting that the Wiccan chaplain should be eligible for employment in the paid-chaplaincy program. The court held that the inmates failed to exhaust their claims or brought them in an untimely fashion and the chaplain was pursuing constitutional claims that were derivative of the inmates' claims rather than his own. Accordingly, the court held that the district court properly dismissed and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the Wiccan chaplains' claims because, for the most part, he lacked standing. The court agreed that the district court need not exercise jurisdiction over these derivative claims. The court also held that, although the Wiccan chaplain had standing to pursue his personal employment claims, and also constitutional claims for different treatment as a volunteer chaplain and retaliation, ultimately he could not prevail on those claims.
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