Singleton v. Smith & Ross

• Decision Date: 03 November 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-3421,99-3421
• Citation: 241 F.3d 534
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2001) Alphonso Singleton, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lee Edward Smith and Eric Ross, Defendants-Appellees. Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 534

241 F.3d 534 (6th Cir. 2001)

Alphonso Singleton, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Lee Edward Smith and Eric Ross, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 99-3421

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: November 3, 2000

Decided and Filed: March 2, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus: No. 94-00850, Edmund A. Sargus, Jr., District Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] David A. Goldberger, ACLU OF OHIO FOUNDATION, INC., Columbus, Ohio, Anne M. Doyle, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW CLINICAL PROGRAMS, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellant.

Joshua T. Cox, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, CORRECTIONS LITIGATION SECTION, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellees.

Before: KEITH, BOGGS, and COLE, Circuit Judges.

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

OPINION

Following a negative jury verdict in his civil trial, costs were imposed against appellant Singleton pursuant to the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 28 U.S.C. § 1915(f). Singleton appeals an order that denied him relief from costs of $3857.35, arguing that imposition of the costs was a misapplication of the PLRA and interpretive case law. In the alternative, he argues that such an application would be an unconstitutional burden on his access to the courts. In the second alternative, he claims that use of this provision of the PLRA would be impermissibly retroactive, as his case was filed prior to the effective date of the statute. Singleton seeks to have the judgment of costs reversed on grounds of legal error or the unconstitutionality of the relevant provisions of the PLRA. Alternatively, if his retroactivity claim succeeds, he seeks a remand for assessment of possible relief based on indigency in accordance with now-superseded procedures outlined in Weaver v. Toombs, 948 F.2d 1004, 1014 (6th Cir. 1991). We find Singleton's retroactivity claim to have merit and remand for further proceedings.

I

The merits of Singleton's complaint are not at issue here, but may be useful for context. Singleton, an Ohio prisoner, is a diagnosed asthmatic who was incarcerated in the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio in 1994. He claimed to have requested a nonsmoking environment and been denied it. Indeed, he said the defendants, who are corrections sergeants, told other inmates to "smoke him out" because he was "an asshole." Singleton claimed that his asthma was worsened as a result of the cigarette smoke to which he was exposed by defendants' alleged acts of commission and omission. In 1994, Singleton filed a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming deliberate indifference sufficient to constitute a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Summary judgment for defendants was denied and, following much wrangling, the case proceeded to trial in March 1998. Directed verdict motions were also denied and the case proceeded to a jury, which, following deliberation, ruled against Singleton. Smith and Ross then moved to recover from the appellant the costs they had incurred for the depositions taken from Singleton and his witnesses, and for the depositions taken from the defendants and their medical expert. The PLRA was held to govern the imposition of the costs, which were taxed against Singleton. The State of Ohio, which defended the action against the corrections sergeants, stands to receive the award.

Specifically, costs were assessed for: (1) the defendants' deposition of the plaintiff-appellant on January 31, 1996; (2)the defendants' depositions of the defendants-appellees on November 14, 1997; (3) the defendants' depositions of four inmates on January 1, 1998; (4) the defendants' depositions of two other inmates on February 13, 1998; (5) the defendants' deposition of Singleton's medical expert on February 19, 1998; and (6) defendants' two depositions (one a video deposition) of their own medical expert on March 2, 1998. Singleton does not challenge the necessity of these costs or present legal challenges to any of them individually.

These depositions began after Judge Beckwith (then handling the case) denied a defense motion to reconsider the magistrate judge's report and recommendation denying summary judgment. This occurred on January 11, 1996 and was followed by an order to file a written statement on readiness to proceed to trial (January 16, 1996). Singleton's deposition was noticed to the court the next day and taken two weeks later. The depositions of the corrections officers were not noticed.

When Singleton identified his witnesses is not apparent in all cases from the record before us. In a notice filed January25, 1996, he identified Timothy Slone (deposed on 2/13/98) and also mentioned his writ writer, Darryl Blankenship (deposed 1/1/98). In a notice filed on June 6, 1996, Singleton identified Troy Harshey (deposed 2/13/98), Slone again, and his old cell mate Howard Boddie, Jr. (deposed 1/1/98).

At the conclusion of the trial, the defendant presented a Bill of Costs for $6263.39. The clerk of the court disallowed some costs, and assessed Singleton $4339.75. On plaintiff's motion to re-tax costs, the trial judge apparently was willing to consider indigency as a factor favoring denial of costs. The judge noted, however, that pursuant to his interpretation of our rule in Talley-Bey v. Knebl, 168 F.3d 884, 886 (6th Cir. 1999), any award would not be subsequently challengeable on the basis of inability to pay. After considering several factors and disallowing one of the clerk's assessments as unauthorized, he awarded $3857.35 to the defendants. Singleton's complaints are not directed at the particular calculations that led to this figure but attack the equitable, statutory, and constitutional grounds for taxing him with so large a sum.

Singleton is an indigent (a fact not disputed by defendants) who was granted in forma pauperis status to file his suit. His average monthly balance in his prison account in the months up to his filing was $21.18. Singleton is serving a 15-to-75-year sentence.

II Standard of Review

We review a district court's award of costs for an abuse of discretion. Jones v. Continental Corp., 789 F.2d 1225, 1233 (6th Cir. 1986). "Abuse of discretion is defined as a definite and firm conviction that the trial court committed a clear error of judgment." Bowling v. Pfizer, Inc., 102 F.3d 777, 780 (6th Cir. 1996) (upholding the award of attorney's fees). Singleton's second argument addresses the constitutionality of the PLRA. We review de novo a challenge to the constitutionality of a federal statute. See United States v. Brown, 25 F.3d 307, 308-09 (6th Cir. 1994). Whether the PLRA, by its terms, may be retroactively applied in this case to govern the taxation of costs is a question of statutory construction subject to de novo review. See Glover v. Johnson, 138 F.3d 229, 249 (6th Cir. 1998).

The effective date of the PLRA is April 26, 1996. Our orders pursuant to the PLRA became effective on March 1, 1997.See In re Prison Litigation Reform Act, 105 F.3d 1131, 1139 (6th Cir. 1997).

The Facial Constitutionality of 28 U.S.C. §§1915(f)(1),1915(f)(2)(A)

Singleton claims that the imposition of large financial burdens resulting from his unsuccessful litigation unconstitutionally denies him access to the courts in violation of the First Amendment. This argument is foreclosed by our previous ruling in Hampton v. Hobbs, 106 F.3d 1281, 1284-85 (6th Cir. 1997). There, in evaluating the fee provisions of the PLRA, we found that "prisoners asserting civil claims in federal court have never been guaranteed a 'free ride.'" Id. at 1285. As discussed above, the PLRA itself has provisions that prevent assessments from being so burdensome that they would stop a prisoner from being able to bring suit. 28 U.S.C. §1915(b)(4) (prisoner can file suit even if he has no assets at all). Although the issue here involves costs, rather than fees, and the costs are substantial, any litigant would be presumptively liable for these costs. The partial lifting of the subsidy previously enjoyed by prisoner-litigants does not deny them access to the courts, except that, like all poor persons, their access is restricted because they must weigh the risks and rewards of trying their claims in court. See Weaver, 948 F.2d at 1008; Hampton, 106 F.3d at 1286 (noting that PLRA forces prisoner to confront the same considerations as other civil litigants); see also Roller v. Gunn, 107 F.3d 227, 232 (4th Cir. 1997) (upholding cost provisions of the PLRA); McGill v. Faulkner, 18 F.3d 456, 460 (7th Cir. 1994) (stating that imposing costs against indigent prisoner makes them "like anybody else").

Singleton's discussion of the caselaw on these points is inapposite, dealing with cases such as Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 104,115 (1943), which invalidated on First Amendment grounds special burdens on Jehovah's Witnesses' distribution of religious literature. The function of the challenged provisions of the PLRA is not to place special burdens on the prisoners, but to put them in the same position as other litigants, nor does it in fact prevent them from performing the protected activity (here, litigating claims), as the invalidated fees effectively did to the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Singleton also points out that a side effect of the cost provisions is that they will affect more heavily those with strong but ultimately unsuccessful claims. Frivolous litigants, whose claims are dismissed early on, will impose fewer discovery costs such as depositions on the other side, and will therefore be liable for fewer costs when the other side prevails. Singleton argues that this operates as a greater deterrent to the better claims, ¹ and that cost provisions that do this effectively deny access to the courts. However, this cost-strength relationship is again true of all litigants and points out the fundamental weakness of Singleton's broader attacks on cost taxation. Costs of the sort considered here are not intended as punitive (therefore...