[NOT FOR PUBLICATION–NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 99-1304
THOMAS V. DUFIELD,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
COMMISSIONER, NH DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
____________________
No. 99-2244
MARC ADAMS; DARREN F. STARR;
CHARLES W. DRENAS, JR.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
PAUL E. BRODEUR, COMMISSIONER,
NH DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Steven J. McAuliffe, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Boudin, Circuit Judge.
Thomas V. Dufield on brief pro se.
Darren Starr, Marc Adams and Charles Drenas on brief pro se.
Philip T. McLaughlin, Attorney General, and Nancy J. Smith,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, on brief for appellees.
November 1, 2000
Per Curiam. In appeal no. 99-2244, appellants Marc
Adams, Charles Drenas and Darren Starr appeal from the
district court's grant of summary judgment in appellees'
favor. In their action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, appellants
complained that, pursuant to a policy limiting bulk mail,
appellees were denying them bulk rate catalogs which they
had ordered and which were addressed to them without
providing notice thereof. They claimed that this violated
their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In appeal no.
99-1304, appellant Thomas Dufield objects to the district
court's denial of his motion to join the appellants' civil
rights action.
After careful review of the parties' briefs and the
record, we affirm the grant of summary judgment in
appellees' favor on the First Amendment claim in appeal no.
99-2244, essentially for the reasons given by the district
judge in his Order dated September 30, 1999. Although the
district court apparently believed (erroneously, as we read
the record) that appellants were given notice when bulk rate
catalogs were rejected, we nonetheless conclude that no
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abridgment of appellants' due process rights occurred.
Appellants' claim founders because they have not shown that
they have a liberty interest grounded in the First
Amendment.1 Even if appellants have a First Amendment right
to receive catalogs which they have ordered and which are
sent to them (a matter that we do not decide), appellees
have not infringed that right. They permit appellants to
receive all catalogs that are sent by first-class mail. For
legitimate penological reasons, they reject only catalogs
which are sent by bulk rate mail. As the Supreme Court has
said, the loss of "cost advantages" achieved by a particular
method of mailing "does not fundamentally implicate free
speech values." See Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners'
Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 130-31 (1977) (emphasis in
original).
Our affirmance of the judgment in appeal no. 99-
2244 essentially moots appellant Dufield's claims.
1Because appellants cite Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396
(1974), overruled in part on other grounds by Thornburgh v.
Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989), and other First Amendment cases in
support of their due process claim, we infer that they are
asserting a due process claim based on the liberty component of
the Due Process Clause. See id. at 418 (indicating that an
inmate's interest in uncensored communication, "grounded as it
is in the First Amendment, is plainly a 'liberty interest[.]'").
To cinch matters, appellants have not assigned error to the
district court's rulings denying their claims for deprivation of
property without due process.
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Moreover, the record discloses no abuse of discretion by the
district court in denying his motion to intervene.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment in appeal no. 99-1304.
The district court judgments underlying the above
appeals are affirmed.
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