Nagy v. Fmc Butner

• Decision Date: 21 July 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-6736.,03-6736.
• Citation: 376 F.3d 252
• Parties: Paul NAGY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FMC BUTNER, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

376 F.3d 252

Paul NAGY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FMC BUTNER, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 03-6736.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: June 2, 2004.

Decided: July 21, 2004.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Terrence William Boyle, Chief Judge.

ARGUED: Jeffrey Bromme, Arnold & Porter, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michelle T. Fuseyamore, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF: Richard Kornylak, Arnold & Porter, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Frank D. Whitney, United States Attorney, R.A. Renfer, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Civil Division, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Before WILKINSON, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge SHEDD and Judge DUNCAN joined.

OPINION

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether a district court may consider the value of a prisoner's claim when determining whether to dismiss it as frivolous under the in forma pauperis statute. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) (2000). Appellant Paul Nagy, an inmate at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Butner, North Carolina, claims that the institution's laundry service lost his twenty-five dollar sweat suit while it was being cleaned. Nagy brought an administrative claim to recover twenty-five dollars under the Federal Torts Claims Act (FTCA). See 28 U.S.C. § 2672 (2000). The Bureau of Prisons denied the claim finding no evidence of wrongdoing by the FMC staff. Nagy then filed a complaint against the FMC in federal court. Ultimately, the court dismissed his complaint as frivolous within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). On appeal, Nagy contends that the district court erred by dismissing his suit, and in particular by considering the de minimis value of his claim in reaching its conclusion of frivolousness.

We hold that the amount sought in an in forma pauperis suit is a permissible factor to consider when making a frivolity determination under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). Further the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Nagy's claim based in part on its de minimis value. We accordingly affirm the judgment.

I.

Nagy is a medical patient incarcerated at the FMC in Butner pending the restoration of his competency. On April 3, 2002, Nagy delivered a bag of clothes to the FMC laundry for cleaning. The laundry's practice is to place a tamper-proof security tie on inmates' laundry bags when they are turned in, and to remove the security tie when they are later picked up. When Nagy collected his laundry the day after dropping it off, however, the bag was empty and his clothes could not be found. According to Nagy's complaint, the security tie fell off during washing or drying. The FMC replaced Nagy's institutional clothing but not his private clothing, which was a sweat suit worth about twenty-five dollars.

Pursuant to the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. § 2672, Nagy filed an administrative claim against the FMC on April 17, 2002, seeking twenty-five dollars in compensation for the lost sweat suit. The Regional Counsel for the Bureau of Prisons denied his claim, explaining that the FTCA would compensate Nagy only for the loss of property resulting from the negligence, omission, or wrongful act of a Bureau of Prisons employee. Here, there was no evidence that the FMC institutional staff failed to abide by its normal procedure of placing a tamper-proof security tie on the laundry bag when Nagy turned in his clothes. The Regional Counsel also noted that, in the clothing exchange area, signs on each window warn that the FMC laundry service bears no responsibility for lost or damaged clothing.

Dissatisfied with this administrative determination, Nagy brought his FTCA claim in federal district court. He sought compensatory and punitive damages in the amount of $4,000, due to the loss of his sweat suit and the alleged "malicious" denial of his administrative claim. The district court granted Nagy's application to proceed in forma pauperis in December 2002, permitting him to pursue his claims without prepaying the filing fees. Pursuant to the provision for deferred fee payment in 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2), the court ordered FMC officials to deduct certain monthly payments from Nagy's prison trust fund account until the filing fee had been paid in full.

On January 21, 2003, the district court dismissed Nagy's complaint. The court first rejected Nagy's claim for punitive damages on the grounds that such damages are not recoverable under the FTCA. See 28 U.S.C. § 2674 (2000). Second, the court dismissed Nagy's claim for actual damages as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i), citing in particular the de minimis value of his suit for twenty-five dollars. While conceding that his claim for punitive damages was properly dismissed, Nagy challenges the district court's frivolity determination regarding his compensatory damages.

II.

We apply an abuse of discretion standard when reviewing a district court's decision to dismiss an in forma pauperis complaint under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). Denton v. Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33, 112 S.Ct. 1728, 118 L.Ed.2d 340 (1992); see also Nasim v. Warden, Md. House of Correction, 64 F.3d 951, 954-55 (4th Cir.1995) (finding a deferential standard of review faithful to statutory text and congressional intent).^* Nagy contends that deferential review is inappropriate because the district court adopted a new legal definition of frivolousness in dismissing his claim. Since we conclude that § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) permits district courts, as a matter of law, to consider the size of a claim as a factor bearing on frivolity, review of dismissal for frivolousness under an abuse of discretion standard remains appropriate.

III.

The progenitor of the current in forma pauperis statute permitted indigent litigants to bring suit without the payment of filing fees, upon a showing of economic hardship. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) (1994). The statute thus provided impecunious parties access to federal courts that they could not otherwise afford. See Adkins v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 335 U.S. 331, 342, 69 S.Ct. 85, 93 L.Ed. 43 (1948). See also Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 447, 82 S.Ct. 917, 8 L.Ed.2d 21 (1962) (in forma pauperis statute designed to ensure "equal treatment for every litigant before the bar").

Dispensing with filing fees, however, was not without its problems. Parties proceeding under the statute did not face the same financial constraints as ordinary litigants. In particular, litigants suing in forma pauperis did not need to balance the prospects of successfully obtaining relief against the administrative costs of bringing suit. See Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 324, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989). Permitting indigent litigants to avoid filing fees, therefore, risked encouraging suits that these fees might otherwise have deterred.

Mindful of this danger, Congress authorized district courts to dismiss in forma pauperis suits "if satisfied that the action is frivolous or malicious." See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d) (1994) (codified as amended at 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) (2000)). This authority was interpreted to confer broad discretion on the district courts to police in forma pauperis filings. See Denton, 504 U.S. at 33, 112 S.Ct. 1728. The frivolousness inquiry ensured that federal resources would not be wasted on "baseless lawsuits that paying litigants generally do not initiate because of the costs of bringing suit." Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 327, 109 S.Ct. 1827. Trial courts were charged with ensuring that the in forma pauperis mechanism, designed to promote equality of access to court, did not end up advantaging indigent litigants over their paying peers.

Despite the best efforts of the district courts to fulfill this mandate, in forma pauperis suits continued to proliferate, particularly those brought by prisoners. See Nasim, 64 F.3d at 954; id. at 957-58 (Wilkinson, J., concurring). The sheer volume of these suits placed severe pressure on the courts. See Free v. United States, 879 F.2d 1535, 1536 (7th Cir.1989).

In response to this problem, Congress added various provisions to the in forma pauperis statute, as part of the Prison Litigation Reform Act in 1996 (PLRA). The new provisions require that the district courts dismiss any "action or appeal" which "fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted." 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). Further, while the old statute merely permitted dismissal when the district court was "satisfied" that a suit was frivolous, the new language requires dismissal in similar circumstances. Lastly, in forma pauperis litigants are no longer able to avoid paying filing fees entirely — they must now pay these on a deferred basis. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b).

The PLRA amendments do not, however, assist the appellant. Indeed, they were designed to strengthen, not vitiate, the role of district courts. It is not correct to infer from the amendments, as the appellant suggests, that Congress intended to limit district courts' discretion when it added the "failure to state a claim" provision and the deferred payment mechanism to the in forma pauperis statute. The specificity of the language in § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) should not be mistaken for an implied directive to district courts to refrain from exercising their discretion, under other parts of § 1915, to dismiss meritless, abusive, or other baseless litigation. Neither should the introduction of a deferred payment mechanism be mistaken for an implied congressional intention that this mechanism would be a panacea for excessive in forma pauperis litigation. This court has indicated that the ability to dismiss frivolous complaints under § 1915 — an ability which Congress not only maintained but strengthened through the 1996 ...