Floyd v. U.S. Postal Service, 96-3991

• Decision Date: 04 March 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-3991,96-3991
• Citation: 105 F.3d 274
• Parties: Dorothy FLOYD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Donald Harants, Postmaster, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 274

105 F.3d 274

36 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1330

Dorothy FLOYD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, Donald Harants, Postmaster,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 96-3991.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 2, 1996.

Decided Jan. 23, 1997.

Rehearing Denied March 4, 1997.

David A. Friedman (argued and briefed), Kathleen A. Pakes, Taustine, Post, Stosky, Berman, Fineman & Kohn, Louisville, KY, for plaintiff-appellant.

Dorothy Floyd, Cleveland, OH, pro se.

Marcia W. Johnson, Asst. U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney, Cleveland, OH, Barbara L. Herwig, Jacob M. Lewis (argued and briefed), U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Appellate Staff, Washington, DC, for defendants-appellees.

Before: MARTIN, Chief Judge, and ENGEL and COLE, Circuit Judges.

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Chief Judge.

This appeal involves the in forma pauperis scheme that has been revised by Congress in the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Pub.L. No. 104-134, Title VIII, 110 Stat. 1321--66 (PLRA). We are here faced with the question of whether 28 U.S.C.A. § 1915 (1996) allows individuals who are not prisoners to litigate a case without the payment of filing fees. Having reviewed the legislative history of the Act, applied the basic axioms of statutory interpretation, and used a little common sense, we conclude that § 1915 permits individuals who are not incarcerated to continue to proceed as paupers in federal court.

Section 1915(a)(1) provides:

Subject to subsection (b), any court of the United States may authorize the commencement, prosecution or defense of any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, or appeal therein, without prepayment of fees or security therefor, by a person who submits an affidavit that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner possesses that the person is unable to pay such fees or give security therefor. Such affidavit shall state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant's belief that the person is entitled to redress.

The quandary posed by the statute is what Congress intended by the phrase "prisoner possesses."

When the legislation was originally introduced, only minor changes were proposed to this paragraph of the statute. S. 866, 104th Cong. § 2 (1995) (enacted). Throughout the congressional debates, these minimal modifications remained unchanged. 141 Cong.Rec. S7525 (daily ed. May 25, 1995) (statement of Sen. Dole); 141 Cong.Rec. S14416 (daily ed. Sept. 27, 1995) (statement of Sen. Dole). Then, without explanation, the bill's conference report added the phrase "that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner possesses." H.R. Conf.Rep. No. 104-378, at 73 (1995).

Despite the use of the term "prisoner possesses," we conclude that a typographical error in the final version of the statute occurred and that Congress actually intended the phrase to be "person possesses." We reach this conclusion from several avenues.

First, the purpose of the PLRA, as reflected by its title, is to curtail inmate litigation. See H.R.Rep. No. 104-378, at 166 (1995) (the prison litigation reforms are intended to "discourage frivolous and abusive prison lawsuits"); see also Green v. Nottingham, 90 F.3d 415, 417 (10th Cir.1996). The emphasis of the title is prison litigation, not pauper litigation.

Furthermore, nowhere in the legislative history of the PLRA is there a modicum of evidence that Congress intended to prevent indigent non-prisoners from proceeding in forma pauperis in the federal courts. To the contrary, the legislation was enacted to require only prisoners to pay the entire sum of their fees and costs. 144 Cong.Rec. S7525 (daily ed. May 25, 1995) (statement of Sen. Dole). Congress expressly wanted to prevent "convicted criminals" from getting "preferential treatment" and to force prisoners to face the same "economic downside" as the "average law-abiding" citizen. Id. The thrust of the legislation was to impede inmates from initiating frivolous legal proceedings. Given the plethora of legislative history establishing that the PLRA was applicable only to prisoners, we conclude that Congress did not intend to prevent a non-prisoner from being able to proceed in forma pauperis in federal court.

The rules of statutory interpretation further support this conclusion. When interpreting a statute, we must first look at its text. United States v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U.S. 350, 356, 114 S.Ct. 1599, 1603, 128 L.Ed.2d 319 (1994). If the language of the statute is unambiguous, absent a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, the language of the statute is ordinarily conclusive. Reves v. Ernst & Young, 507 U.S. 170, 177, 113 S.Ct. 1163, 1169, 122 L.Ed.2d 525 (1993). However, in the rare case in which the literal application of the statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of the drafters, the intent of the drafters, rather than the strict language of the statute, controls. United States v. Ron Pair Enters., Inc., 489 U.S. 235, 242, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 1030-31, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989).

A literal interpretation of the clause "a prisoner possesses" in § 1915(a)(1) would call into question the application of the statute to non-prisoners as the word "who" and "such" create restrictive phrases implicating that only a prisoner can seek pauper status. The intent of Congress, however, was to eliminate pauper status only for incarcerated individuals. In addition, the phrase does not grammatically flow with the remainder of the paragraph. The paragraph uses the specific noun "prisoner" only once. Given the location of the word, the noun implies that the statute had clarified for the reader that the paragraph applied only to prisoners. However, the statute had previously used the general noun "person" to indicate that the paragraph applied to all individuals and not simply to prisoners. Immediately after the word prisoner, the statute reverts back to the general noun of person. Given the grammatical structure of the paragraph, the only logical conclusion is that Congress intended to use the phrase "person possesses" instead of "prisoner possesses."

The organization of the statute dictates this same conclusion. Section 1915(a)(1) uses the general term "person," with the exception in question. Subsection (a)(2) is more specific. This subsection begins with the phrase "[a] prisoner seeking to bring a civil action...." This subsection requires that an inmate must not only provide the same affidavit of indigency as all other individuals, but the inmate has the additional burden of submitting a certified copy of his prison trust fund account for a six-month period immediately proceeding the filing of the complaint. If Congress had intended paragraph (a)(1) to concern only prisoners, paragraph (a)(2) would be unnecessary. The two paragraphs would have been combined and would have simply stated that a prisoner would be required to file an affidavit of indigency and a trust account statement.

The PLRA also creates § 1915(b). This paragraph states that, notwithstanding § 1915(a), if a prisoner brings a civil action or files an appeal in forma pauperis, the prisoner is required to pay the required filing fees. Again, this section of the statute is restrictive and requires that only a prisoner pay the full filing fees. No mention of other individuals is made in this paragraph. Thus, the provision segregates prisoner litigation from legal actions brought by non-inmate indigent litigants. Given the several specific provisions in § 1915 that explicitly impose additional filing and financial burdens solely on prisoners, the only logical interpretation of the statute is that non-prisoners have the option to proceed in forma pauperis under § 1915(a).

Our conclusion is supported by other authorities. In its version of the statute, LEXIS places the word person in brackets before the word prisoner and then adds an explanatory note which states that "[t]he word 'person' has been inserted in subsec. (a)(1) as the word probably intended by Congress." 28 U.S.C.S. § 1915 (Law. Co-op., LEXIS 1996). In Leonard v. Lacy, 88 F.3d 181, 183 (2d Cir.1996), the court indicated the obvious error by stating "such prisoner [sic] possesses."

The United States argues that "all assets such prisoner possesses" means that only a prisoner must file an affidavit of assets. We disagree with this position as such an interpretation would create a needless conflict with Fed.R.App.P. 24. Further, if we were to accept the government's position, non-prisoners who were not truly paupers could avoid payment of the required costs and fees. Requiring all individuals to file an affidavit of assets assures the integrity of the indigency request.

Having concluded that non-prisoners are afforded the ability to seek pauper status in federal court and must file an affidavit of indigency, we next address the question of what information must be included in the affidavit. The statute requires, among other information, that the affidavit include "a statement of all assets" that the person possesses. Thus, the plain language of the statute requires that the individual list all of his or her assets. As Form 4 in the Appendix of Forms of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure satisfies this statutory mandate, we hold that all individuals seeking pauper status must file this form or an affidavit which contains the same information contained in this form. Failure to file this affidavit mandates that the pauper request be denied. We emphasize that the affidavit must be filed by both prisoners and non-prisoners seeking pauper status. Only prisoners, however, have the additional requirement of filing a prison trust account. See 28 U.S.C.A. § 1915(a)(2).

As the district court has certified that Floyd's appeal would not be taken in good faith, we must now address the case's procedural posture. The PLRA has changed the process for appeals which are not taken in good faith. The statute states...