Roman v. JeffesRoman v. Jeffes
BECKER, Circuit Judge.
This is a prisoner‘s civil rights case,
I.
In March, 1989, plaintiff filed a civil rights action in the district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, asserting violations of his constitutional rights. Named as defendants were various prison officials of the Lehigh and Northampton County prison systems, as well as Lehigh and Northampton Counties. Plaintiff asserted that his constitutional rights were violated because, upon his February 13, 1989 transfer from the Northampton County prison to the Lehigh County prison, he was permitted to bring only one bag of possessions with him and thus had to leave some legal materials behind at the Northampton County prisоn. Plaintiff requested the court to order the seizure of his legal materials from the Northampton County prison and to order the Lehigh County prison to allow him to keep all of his legal materials with him. Plaintiff moved to proceed in forma pauperis at the time he filed his complaint.
On May 2, 1989, the district court granted plaintiff in forma pauperis status under
Plaintiff timely filed a notice of appeal, аnd we granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal in order to determine the propriety of the Sec. 1915(d) dismissal in this case. Our review of a district court decision dismissing a complaint as frivolous is plenary. Wilson v. Rackmill, 878 F.2d 772, 774 (3d Cir.1989).
II.
Under
Neitzke identified two goals underlying the distriсt court‘s power to grant in forma pauperis status and dismiss under
In light of the Supreme Court‘s reasoning in Neitzke and the underlying purposes of Sec. 1915, we hold that the appropriate time to make a decision to dismiss a case pursuant to Sec. 1915(d) is before service of a complaint.6 Accord Williams v. White, 897 F.2d 942, 944 n. 1 (8th Cir.1990) (Section 1915(d) should be used to screen out frivolous claims only at the outset of litigation, before service).
In the instant case, the district court granted plaintiff leave to proceed in forma pauperis, dismissed the claims against the Counties of Lehigh and Northampton as frivolous pursuant to Sec. 1915(d), ordеred service of the complaint on the remaining individual defendants (various prison officials), and then, after answers were received, sua sponte dismissed the remaining claims as frivolous. However, for the reasons we have stated, we believe that once the district court made the initial threshold determination that some of the claims were not frivolous and that service should issue, the court should not have subsequently used Sec. 1915(d) to dispose of those originally non-frivolous claims. First, dismissing the case as frivolous after service on defendants does not serve the Neitzke goal of using Sec. 1915(d) to weed out frivolous claims at the outset. Second, the threat of Sec. 1915(d) dismissal at any time in the course of litigation accords disparate treatment to indigent litigants.7 It allows the district court effectively to bypass the procedural protections accorded any litigant, including litigants proceeding in forma paueris, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
We are mindful of the fact that many claims that survive the threshold determination of nonfrivolousness do not deserve extended discovery and an extensive trial on the merits. However, with a properly presented 12(b)(6) motion, the distriсt court can dismiss the case, if warranted.8 Moreover, there are times when a court may sua sponte raise the issue of the deficiency of a pleading under Rule 12(b)(6) provided that the litigant has the opportunity to address the issue either orally or in writing. See Bryson v. Brand Insulations, Inc., 621 F.2d 556, 559 (3d Cir.1980); Dougherty v. Harper‘s Magazine Company, 537 F.2d 758, 761 (3d Cir.1976). These methods of disposing of the case provide due process protections (i.e., notice and an opportunity tо respond), which in forma pauperis litigants are entitled to receive. Neitzke, 109 S.Ct. at 1834.9
III.
Although the foregoing procedural analysis constitutes sufficient grounds to reverse the district court‘s judgment, given the importance of guidance in this area and in the interest of judicial economy, we will evaluate the substantive basis on which the district court dismissed the complaint. Before service on the individual defendants, thе district court dismissed the claims against Lehigh and Northampton Counties on the ground that under
As Neitzke points out, the liberal pleading standard of Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520, 92 S.Ct. 594, 595, 30 L.Ed.2d 652 reh‘g denied, 405 U.S. 948, 92 S.Ct. 963, 30 L.Ed.2d 819 (1972), “applies only to a plaintiff‘s factual allegations.” Neitzke, 109 S.Ct. at 1834 n. 9. A fair reading of the factual allegations of plaintiff‘s complaint suggests that plaintiff could make out a claim based on a policy or custom theory of Sec. 1983 liability, not merely a respondeat superior claim. Responsive pleadings, thereforе, may enable the plaintiff to clarify his legal theories. Id. Thus, the district court erred in dismissing plaintiff‘s claims as if brought only under a theory of respondeat superior.
Construing the factual allegations of plaintiff‘s pro se complaint liberally, as we must under Haines, we believe that plaintiff has alleged that Northampton County allowed him to bring only one bag of personal possessions with him when he was transferred from Northampton County Prison to Lehigh County Prison and that Northampton County Prison informed plaintiff that unless he arranged for the removal of the remainder of his belongings within thirty days of his transfer, the belongings would be destroyed. Plaintiff further alleged that Lehigh County permitted him to bring only one bag of personal possessions with him when he was transferred from Northampton County Prison to Lehigh County Prison and that prison officials at Lehigh informеd him that he would be allowed to keep, in his cell, only those “legal materials” that pertained to Lehigh County cases.10
We cannot say that plaintiff‘s claims are themselves factually or legally frivolous. It is well-established that prisoners have a fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts. Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 821, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1494, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). Plaintiff asserts that he was deprived of his “legal materials” because the prisons would not allow him to carry all of his materials with him when he was transferred from Northampton to Lehigh County Prison and that he was subjected to further unconstitutional deprivation when Lehigh County Prison officials informed him that he would be permitted to keep only those legal materials which were relevant to his Lehigh County cases. Plaintiff is proceeding pro se in numerous lawsuits in different jurisdictions, and he argues that he is being deprived of meaningful access to the courts.
Although it is not clear what plaintiff means by “legal materials,” if he is referring to legal research notes, copies of orders issued in the cases in which he is involved or pleadings filed by opposing parties, it is clear that these materials are core materials, central to his right of access to the courts. An alleged deprivation of core legal materials is not a frivolous claim. See Peterkin v. Jeffes, 855 F.2d 1021, 1041 (3d Cir.1988). On the other hand, if by “legal materials” plaintiff means his personal store of pens, pencils and writing papers, he also must show “actual injury” in order for his complaint to proceed. Kershner v. Mazurkiewicz, 670 F.2d 440, 445 (3d Cir.1982). Plaintiff may have shown this injury if the voluminous additional materials he filed can be construed as exhibits to his complaint. These papers allege that withоut his legal materials he is unable to meet the court imposed deadlines for appeals in his various cases. This alleges sufficient actual injury to satisfy the Kershner requirement.
It is clear that prison regulations which impinge on inmates’ constitutional rights may be valid as long as they are reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987). The pertinent issue, however, is not whether the counties can show that the limit placed on plaintiff‘s access to the courts is reasonable, but whether the allegations in plaintiff‘s complaint are based on an indisputably meritless legal theory or on clearly baseless factual contentions. Wilson, 878 F.2d at 774. Even if plaintiff‘s claims later suffer dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), his allegations, in our view, are not clearly devoid of merit. Id. at 775, Neitzke, 109 S.Ct. at 1833. See also Abdul-Akbar, 901 F.2d at 334-35 (plaintiff‘s claim that corrections officers оrdered him to pack much of his legal materials and dispose of it is not frivolous).
After the individual defendants answered, the district court subsequently dismissed the remaining claims against these defendants as frivolous, concluding that the complaint raised the same issues being litigated in the class action suit of Vazquez v. Carver. We have reviewed the Vazquez complaint and conclude that the district court erred. The complaint in Vazquez seeks to litigate only issues regarding the allegedly heinous conditions of confinement at the Lehigh County prison, alleged disparate treatment of women and minorities, and an alleged lack of access to the law library. The Vazquez class action does not seek to litigate the issues of which plaintiff now complains, i.e., that the Northampton County prison kept some of his legal materials, that he was allowed to bring only one box of legal materials with him upon his transfer to the Lehigh County prison and that Lehigh County would permit him to keep only legal papers related to his Lehigh County cases.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.