Tinker-Bey v. Meyers, TINKER-BE
| Decision Date | 11 September 1986 |
| Docket Number | P,TINKER-BE,No. 86-8026,86-8026 |
| Parties | Donaldetitioner, v. Hon. Kenneth J. MEYERS, United States Magistrate, Southern District of Illinois, Benton Division, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Appeal from Southern Dist. of Illinois, Magistrate Kenneth H. Meyers, judge.
Donald Tinker-Bey, pro se.
Frederick J. Hess, U.S. Atty., Benton, Ill., for respondent.
Before BAUER, WOOD and POSNER, Circuit Judges.
A prisoner at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois has asked us for a writ of mandamus to compel the magistrate who is handling his suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2671-2680, to proceed with greater dispatch. The suit was filed in July 1984, and the petition for writ of mandamus on June 19, 1986. In response to our inquiry of the magistrate what the status of the suit is, we are advised that on July 14, 1986, the United States filed a motion for summary judgment, to which the petitioner has not yet responded. The petition for a writ of mandamus is DENIED.
One feature of this case deserves public attention. The suit is for $150--the alleged value of two sweatshirts, one pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of pajama bottoms, allegedly lost when the petitioner was transferred into disciplinary segregation. No minimum amount in controversy is required to maintain a suit under the Tort Claims Act; nor is this the smallest such suit filed by an inmate at Marion in recent years. In one case the inmate alleged the loss of four very old shoelaces, a partially used jar of cream, a partially used tube of hair oil, and a five-year-old cardboard file folder held together with Scotch tape. After motions for summary judgment, dismissal, and discovery had been filed, the case was settled for $10. Another inmate sued for the value of an "Afro-pick" and refused a settlement offer of $2.
Marion is the nation's maximum security prison, and cell searches and transfers are frequent. Personal possessions are sometimes lost; and none of the usual inhibitions to bringing suits for trivial or imagined losses weighs on prisoners serving long prison terms. The result is that the federal district court for the Southern District of Illinois, already inundated by post-conviction and civil-rights actions brought by inmates at Marion, is also becoming the prison's lost-and-found department. Inmates should have a...
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Del Raine v. Williford
...Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee 81 (1990). See also Savage v. CIA, 826 F.2d 561, 563 (7th Cir.1987); Tinker-Bey v. Meyers, 800 F.2d 710 (7th Cir.1986). Until Congress acts on that recommendation, however, even the smallest claims concerning lost property must proceed using rule......
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Del Raine v. Carlson
...about prison discipline and the conditions of their confinement. Cf. Savage v. CIA, 826 F.2d 561 (7th Cir. 1987); Tinker-Bey v. Meyers, 800 F.2d 710 (7th Cir.1986); McKeever v. Israel, 689 F.2d 1315, 1324-25 (7th Cir.1982) (dissenting opinion). Of course there should be some control over th......
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Lucien v. Johnson
...complained before about the federal judiciary's becoming the lost-and-found department of the federal prison system. Tinker-Bey v. Meyers, 800 F.2d 710 (7th Cir.1986); Free v. United States, 879 F.2d 1535, 1536 (7th Cir.1989); and see Lori Carver Praed, Note, "Reducing the Federal Docket: A......
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Sellers v. U.S.
...Report of the Federal Courts Study Committee 81 (1990). See also Savage v. CIA, 826 F.2d 561, 563 (7th Cir.1987); Tinker-Bey v. Meyers, 800 F.2d 710 (7th Cir.1986). Until Congress acts on that recommendation, however, even the smallest claims concerning lost property must proceed using rule......