Jackson v. Florida Dep't of Corrections, 92827
| Decision Date | 18 November 1999 |
| Docket Number | 92827 |
| Parties | Supreme Court of Florida ________________________ DOUGLAS M. JACKSON, SR., Petitioner, vs. FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Respondent. [ |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
[November 18, 1999]
Douglas M. Jackson, Sr., petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, 3(b)(8), Fla. Const.
FACTS
Jackson is a prisoner currently serving a life sentence for multiple murders committed in 1981. On April 20, 1998, Jackson filed a petition for writ of mandamus against the Florida Department of Corrections ("the Department") seeking an order from this Court requiring that the Department pay him money for the duties and tasks he performs while incarcerated. On April 23, 1998, this Court granted Jackson's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. However, upon further review, it came to this Court's attention that Jackson had not complied with the requirements of section 57.085(7), Florida Statutes (1997), which provides in full:
A prisoner who has twice in the preceding 3 years been adjudicated indigent under this section, certified indigent under s. 57.081, or authorized to proceed as an indigent under 28 U.S.C. s. 1915 by a federal court may not be adjudicated indigent to pursue a new suit, action, claim, proceeding, or appeal without first obtaining leave of court. In a request for leave of court, the prisoner must provide a complete listing of each suit, action, claim, proceeding, or appeal brought by the prisoner or intervened in by the prisoner in any court or other adjudicatory forum in the preceding 5 years. The prisoner must attach to a request for leave of court a copy of each complaint, petition, or other document purporting to commence a lawsuit and a record of disposition of the proceeding.
Accordingly, on September 18, 1998, this Court vacated its earlier order granting in forma pauperis status to Jackson. This Court instructed Jackson that the denial was without prejudice to his filing another motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis, conforming to the requirements of section 57.085(7).
Jackson has filed a new motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis. In that motion, Jackson indicates that he has been adjudicated indigent at least twice in the last three years, but has not provided copies of any of the documents required in section 57.085(7). In the space provided for listing the prior cases, Jackson has inserted the following notation:
ANALYSIS
Jackson's answer is inadequate and does not justify his failure to comply with the statute and this Court's order.[1] Jackson has, until recently, been able to avoid the requirements of section 57.085,[2] Since the filing of the instant petition against the Department on April 20, 1998, Jackson has filed eleven additional petitions against the Department which are either still pending, were transferred, or were dismissed. See Jackson v. Department of Corrections, No. 93,227 (Fla. petition filed May 6, 1998)(pending); Jackson v. Singletary, No. 94,196 (Fla. petition filed Oct. 26, 1998)(pending); Jackson v. Department of Corrections, No. 94,195 (Fla. petition filed Oct. 26, 1998)(pending); Jackson v. Department of Corrections, No. 94,234 (Fla. petition filed Nov. 3, 1998)(pending); Jackson v. Department of Corrections, No. 94,271 (Fla. petition filed Nov. 9, 1998)(pending); Jackson v. Moore, No. 95,700 (Fla. petition filed June 1, 1999)(pending); Jackson v. Moore, No. 95,891 (Fla. Jul. 19, 1999)(transferred); Jackson v. Moore, No. 95,931 (Fla. Jul. 19, 1999)(transferred);Stridison [and Jackson] v. Moore, No. 95,992 (Fla. Jul. 23, 1999)(transferred); Jackson v. Moore, No. 96,321 (Fla. petition filed Aug. 19, 1999)(pending); Stridison [and Jackson] v. Moore, No. 96,382 (Fla. Aug. 31, 1999)(dismissed). In all likelihood, Jackson will have filed more petitions in this Court before this decision is published. and thus has not come to terms with the reality that maintaining an "active" pro se litigation practice is both time-consuming, and costly.
This Court is not at liberty to ignore the statutes enacted by the Legislature.
While formulating procedures for granting in forma pauperis status is the exclusive province of the Supreme Court pursuant to rulemaking authority vested in it by the Florida Constitution,[3] the existence of a right for indigents to proceed without payment of costs is a substantive one and is properly provided for by the Legislature. See Amos v. Department of Health & Rehabilitative Servs. 416 So. 2d 841 (Fla. 1st DCA), review dismissed, 421 So. 2d 517 (Fla. 1982).[4]
The right to proceed as an indigent is a statutory right created by section 57.081. See Kleinschmidt v. Estate of Kleinschmidt, 392 So. 2d 66 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)(asserting that the purpose of rule 9.430 was "not to expand the substantive right of an indigent . . . but merely to provide a vehicle for enforcement of the right" created under section 57.081). Further, prior to 1980, it had been held that section 57.081 only applied to trial courts, not appellate courts. See Lee v. City of Winter Haven, 386 So. 2d 268 (Fla. 2d DCA 1980); Hillman v. Federal Nat'l Mortgage Ass'n, 375 So. 2d 336, 337 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979). In chapter 80_348, Laws of Florida, however, the Legislature created a statutory right for an indigent person to gain access to Florida's appellate courts as well. See, e.g. Kleinschmidt, 392 So. 2d at 67. That substantive right was codified in what is now section 57.081(1), Florida Statutes (1997). However, due to the costly administrative problems caused by repeated frivolous inmate filings, the Legislature recently created a separate statute for inmate proceedings and removed a prisoner's absolute right to repeatedly proceed without payment of the filing fee and provided for only a limited right to proceed, under certain circumstances, without paying the fee in advance.[5] See 57.085, Fla. Stat. (1997). Further, even if a court determines that an inmate may proceed without prepayment of the filing fee, that inmate must contribute toward the costs of his or her lawsuit and ultimately pay for the lawsuit in full, if he or she subsequently becomes able to do so. See 57.085(5), Fla. Stat. (1997).
Although the photocopy requirements of section 57.085(7) present litigious prisoners with some procedural hurdles in seeking indigency status, the practical effect of the statute is merely that the more litigious a prisoner becomes, the more time-consuming and costly it will be for that prisoner to continue along the same path. If a prisoner has filed four or five prior lawsuits, it will require some effort on the prisoner's part to file another lawsuit (because he or she will have to obtain photocopies of the documents in those cases). Since Jackson has filed a large number of lawsuits in many courts, it is particularly cumbersome for him to continue at the same exhaustive pace.
In enacting section 57.085, the Legislature made express findings regarding the financial and administrative burdens that frivolous indigent prisoner lawsuits place on the state judicial system. See ch. 96-106, preamble, at 92-93, Laws of Fla.[6]
Subsection (7) of the statute attempts to ameliorate this problem by providing courts with a mechanism to review a prisoner's recent litigation history and determine whether to allow the prisoner the opportunity to again seek a waiver of prepayment of filing fees where that prisoner has already proceeded twice as an indigent in any court within the last three years. By reviewing the prisoner's prior filings, the court may be able to determine whether the prisoner has raised the same claims before or has repeatedly filed pleadings showing no possible entitlement to relief. Such filings are specifically listed as types of frivolous actions which are not permitted under the statute. See 57.085(9), Fla. Stat. (1997). Section 57.085 and the preamble of the act creating the statute also discuss the improper filing of malicious suits or suits intended only to harass public officers and employees. See 57.085(6)(d), Fla. Stat. (1997). An examination of the prisoner's prior pleadings could help a court determine whether the prisoner has previously filed those types of improper actions as well.
Thus, underlying section 57.085 is the concept that judicial labor should be spent analyzing meritorious matters and issues which have not already been reviewed by another court. This purpose is accomplished by allowing the courts to review the prisoner's prior pleadings. If the prisoner does not provide those pleadings, that purpose is frustrated.
Conserving judicial labor is further accomplished by increasing such litigants' commitment of time and resources since it is the prisoner's responsibility to keep appropriate records as to how many cases he or she has filed, the case numbers, the dispositions of those cases, and copies of the requisite documents from those cases. This being the case, strict enforcement of the statute may cause prisoners to consider more carefully whether to file a claim in court and to refrain from filing excessive, successive, or frivolous lawsuits.
This Court has recognized that "[t]he resources of our court system are finite and must be reserved for the resolution of genuine disputes." Rivera v. State, 728 So. 2d 1165, 1166 (Fla. 1998). The United States Supreme Court itself has restrained indigent petitioners who have abused the system in order to allocate the resources of the Court "in a way that promotes the interests of justice," In re McDonald, 489 U.S. 180, 184 (1989), and in a decision addressing adequate prison law libraries, it held that the constitutional...
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