Edmondson v. Fremgen
| Citation | 17 F.Supp.3d 833 |
| Decision Date | 22 April 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 13–C–613. |
| Parties | Jason EDMONDSON, Plaintiff, v. Diane FREMGEN, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin |
Jason L. Edmonson, Green Bay, WI, pro se.
Jody J. Schmelzer, Wisconsin Department of Justice, Madison, WI, for Defendant.
DECISION AND ORDER
Plaintiff brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Diane Fremgen, the clerk of the state courts of appeals. He alleges that Fremgen violated various of his civil rights when she froze his inmate trust accounts until filing fees had been paid in two of his state appeals. The Defendant has now moved to dismiss. For the reasons given below, the motion will be granted.
Wisconsin law, like federal law, allows indigent citizens to file civil actions without prepayment of the filing fee. But, also like federal law, Wisconsin law provides that the unpaid fee is not waived in its entirety but is collected over time, as funds allow. “The agency having custody of the prisoner shall freeze the prisoner's trust fund account until the deposits in that account are sufficient to pay the balance owed for the costs and fees.” Wis. Stat. 814.29(1m)(e). In effect, what this means is that the state will allow an indigent prisoner to file civil actions or appeals without pre -payment of the filing fee, but in return the inmate must essentially direct all of his future earnings and deposits toward the payment of those fees. The account is thereby frozen until the balance owed is paid. Id.
In April 2013 Edmondson filed two appeals in state court. Under state procedures, the Clerk of Court is empowered to determine whether an inmate meets the indigence requirement of the statute. Accordingly, Defendant Fremgen determined that Plaintiff was eligible and allowed his appeals to be filed without prepayment of the fee. In connection with those determinations, and in accordance with state law, she also ordered Edmondson's inmate trust account frozen until the filing fees were paid. Edmondson argues that this violated his right to access the courts, constituted an unconstitutional seizure, and denied his right to due process of law.
At the outset, I must address Plaintiff's motion to appoint counsel. Courts have no ability to “appoint” counsel in civil cases, but in some cases they are obligated to attempt to recruit counsel to assist civil litigants to ensure that they receive due process. “The decision whether to recruit pro bono counsel is grounded in a two-fold inquiry into both the difficulty of the plaintiff's claims and the plaintiff's competence to litigate those claims himself.” Pruitt v. Mote, 503 F.3d 647, 655 (7th Cir.2007). Here, the claims are quite intelligible and factually straightforward: the Plaintiff is complaining that his money was taken and his account was frozen. Claims like this are analyzed under well-known constitutional frameworks. Federal courts are well-versed in addressing such claims; in fact, such claims are usually addressed without counsel. Second, Plaintiff has revealed an above-average ability to litigate on his own behalf. His filings are neatly typed and his arguments are cogent. In short, it is hard to imagine how outside counsel would have made a material difference to this action. The motion will therefore be denied.
Turning to the merits, I first note that it is difficult to envision how freezing his account violated Plaintiff's right to access the courts, given that it was part of the process that allowed his appeals to be filed in the first place. “Lindell's ability to proceed by having deductions for the filing fee made from his prison account provides him meaningful access to the courts.” State ex rel. Lindell v. Litscher, 2003 WI App 36, 260 Wis.2d 454, 461, 659 N.W.2d 413, 417 (Wis.Ct.App.2003). Plaintiff suggests that not having the ability to spend money in his account prevents him from copying legal materials and the like, but those are the sorts of impairments that countless indigent litigants face. Open access to petition the courts does not mean an unrestricted right to spend money doing legal research. It simply means an inmate must be afforded access to materials crucial to his claim. Campbell v. Clarke, 481 F.3d 967, 968 (7th Cir.2007) () Here, Plaintiff does not even allege that the Defendant, by allowing his appeals to proceed, somehow injured his ability to access the courts.
Plaintiff also argues that the state's procedures for withdrawing his funds were improper because he never agreed to them. He signed a form indicating that he authorized the agency to withdraw payments each time the account exceeds $10 until the costs are paid in full. He asserts that this form did not suggest that the state had the ability to freeze his account.
But that is what the statute itself provides. In essence Plaintiff's complaint is that the Defendant followed state law. But state law is the source of any property rights Plaintiff might have had in his trust...
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