Spearman v. Michigan, State of et al

Filing 15

ORDER DISMISSING CASE without Prejudice and Directing Clerk of the Court to Return Any Fees Collected from Plaintiff. Signed by District Judge Arthur J. Tarnow. (MLan)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
RUFUS L. SPEARMAN,

Plaintiff,

Civil Action No. 2:17-CV-12805
HONORABLE ARTHUR J. TARNOW
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

v.
MICHIGAN, STATE OF, et. Al.,
Defendants,
________________________________/

OPINION AND ORDER DISMISSING THE CASE WITHOUT PREJUDICE AND
DIRECTING DIRECTING CLERK OF THE COURT TO RETURN ANY FEES
COLLECTED FROM PLAINTIFF
I. Introduction
The Court has before it Plaintiff Rufus L. Spearman’s pro se case, in which
he seeks relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff is a state prisoner currently
confined at the Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, Michigan. For the
reasons stated below, the Court dismisses plaintiff’s action without prejudice to
him filing a properly filed complaint or complaints with respect to the constitutional
violations that he alleges in his complaint.
II. Background
Plaintiff has filed three hundred and sixty seven pages worth of pleadings,
including numerous exhibits. Plaintiff’s complaint and attached exhibits allege
violations occurring while plaintiff was incarcerated at the Huron Valley

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Correctional Facility, the Alger Correctional Facility, the Marquette Branch Prison,
the Chippewa Correctional Facility, the Baraga Correctional Facility, the
Woodland Correctional Facility, the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility, and the
Macomb Correctional Facility. 1 Four of these prisons (Chippewa, Baraga, Alger,
and Marquette) are all located in the Western District of Michigan. Plaintiff failed
to provide copies of his documents for service upon the named defendants.
III. Discussion
Plaintiff’s action is subject to dismissal for several reasons.
First, plaintiff’s complaint is subject to dismissal, because plaintiff has failed
to comply with the pleading requirements of Fed. R.Civ. P. 8. Fed.R.Civ.P.
8(a)(2) requires that a claim for relief contain “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” This rule seeks “to avoid
technicalities and to require that the pleading discharge the function of giving the
opposing party fair notice of the nature and basis or grounds of the claim and a
general indication of the type of litigation involved.” Chase v. Northwest Airlines
Corp., 49 F. Supp. 2d 553, 563 (E.D. Mich.1999)(quoting Wright & Miller, Federal
Practice and Procedure: Civil 2d § 1215). Similarly, Rule 8(e)(1) requires that
“Each averment of a pleading shall be simple, concise, and direct.” Plaintiff’s
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Some of the prisons are referred to by plaintiff only by their acronyms.
The Court learned the names of the actual prisons that correspond to these
acronyms through the Michigan Department of Corrections’ Offender Tracking
Information System (OTIS), which this Court is permitted to take judicial notice of.
See Ward v. Wolfenbarger,323 F. Supp. 2d 818, 821, n. 3 (E.D. Mich. 2004).
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lengthy and voluminous complaint is subject to dismissal for failing to comply with
the dictates of Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 (a). See Echols v. Voisine, 506 F. Supp. 15, 1719 (E.D. Mich. 1981), aff'd, 701 F.2d 176 (6th Cir. 1982)(Table); See also Payne
v. Secretary of Treas., 73 F. App’x. 836, 837 (6th Cir. 2003)(affirming sua sponte
dismissal of complaint pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2); “Neither this court nor the
district court is required to create Payne’s claim for her.”).
A second reason for dismissal of the action is that plaintiff appears to be
attempting to join together unrelated causes of action and defendants from nine
different prisons, only five of which are even located in the Eastern District of
Michigan. 2 Plaintiff’s attempt to join together a number of unrelated claims and
defendants into one action could thwart the purpose of the Prison Litigation
Reform Act (PLRA), which was to reduce the large number of frivolous prisoner
lawsuits that were being filed in the federal courts. See Riley v. Kurtz, 361 F. 3d
906, 917 (6th Cir. 2004). Under the PLRA, a prisoner may not commence an
action without prepayment of the filing fee in some form. See 28 U.S.C. §
1915(b)(1). These “new fee provisions of the PLRA were designed to deter
frivolous prisoner litigation by making all prisoner litigants feel the deterrent effect
created by liability for filing fees.” Williams v. Roberts, 116 F. 3d 1126, 1127-28
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It is unclear whether venue would even be proper in this district for those
alleged constitutional violations that occurred at the four prisons located in the
Western District of Michigan. Venue is in the judicial district where either all
defendants reside or where the claim arose. Al-Muhaymin v. Jones, 895 F. 2d
1147, 1148 (6th Cir. 1990); 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b).
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(5th Cir. 1997). The PLRA also contains a “three-strikes” provision requiring the
collection of the entire filing fee after the dismissal for frivolousness, etc., of three
actions or appeals brought by a prisoner proceeding in forma pauperis, unless
the statutory exception is satisfied. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). The “three strikes”
provision was also an attempt by Congress to curb frivolous prisoner litigation.
See Wilson v. Yaklich, 148 F. 3d 596, 603 (6th Cir. 1998).
The Fifth Circuit has discouraged “creative joinder of actions” by prisoners
attempting to circumvent the PLRA’s three-strikes provision. See Patton v.
Jefferson Correctional Center, 136 F. 3d 458, 464 (5th Cir. 1998).
“In light of the PLRA provisions ... to continue the practice of allowing
joinder of claims which are not in compliance with Rule 18 and Rule 20 [of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] would be to defeat, or at least greatly dilute, the
clear intent of the fee payment and three-strikes provisions of the statute.” Walls
v. Scott, 1998 WL 574903, * 3 (N.D.Tex. Aug. 28, 1998). Other courts have
reached similar conclusions. See Brown v. Blaine, 185 F. App’x. 166, 168-69 (3rd
Cir. 2006)(allowing an inmate to assert unrelated claims against new defendants
based on actions taken after the filing of his original complaint would have
defeated the purpose of the three strikes provision of PLRA); Shephard v.
Edwards, 2001 WL 1681145, * 1 (S.D. Ohio August 30, 2001)(declining to
consolidate prisoner’s unrelated various actions so as to allow him to pay one
filing fee, because it “would improperly circumvent the express language and
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clear intent of the ‘three strikes’ provision”); Scott v. Kelly, 107 F. Supp. 2d 706,
711 (E.D. Va. 2000)(denying prisoner’s request to add new, unrelated claims to
an ongoing civil rights action as an improper attempt to circumvent the PLRA’s
filing fee requirements and an attempt to escape the possibility of obtaining a
“strike” under the “three strikes” rule); Cf. Proctor v. Applegate, 661 F. Supp. 2d
743, 777 (E.D. Mich. 2009)(refusing to allow the joinder in a single multi-plaintiff
complaint of a variety of claims, because “[E]ach separate claim by each plaintiff
will require a particularized analysis regarding statute of limitations, exhaustion of
administrative remedies, and on the substance.”). Harris v. Spellman, 150 F.R.D.
130, 131-32 (N.D. Ill. 1993)(Permissive joinder was not available with respect to
two inmates’ pre-PLRA § 1983 claims which not only involved different
occurrences, but also raised different issues of law; allegedly similar procedural
errors do not convert independent prison disciplinary hearings into same “series”
of transactions or occurrences for purposes of permissive joinder).
Plaintiff’s complaint is also subject to dismissal because plaintiff has failed
to provide the requisite copies of his complaint for service upon the named
defendants, which undoubtedly was made more difficult by the length of the
complaint and the attached exhibits. An inmate bringing a civil rights complaint
must specifically identify each defendant against whom relief is sought, and must
give each defendant notice of the action by serving upon him or her a summons
and copy of the complaint. Feliciano v. DuBois, 846 F. Supp. 1033, 1048 (D.
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Mass. 1994). Where a plaintiff is proceeding in forma pauperis, the district court
must bear the responsibility for issuing the plaintiff’s process to a United States
Marshal’s Office, who must effect service upon the defendants once the plaintiff
has properly identified the defendants in the complaint. Byrd v. Stone, 94 F. 3d
217, 219 (6th Cir. 1996); Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(c)(2); 28 U.S.C. § 1915(d). Magistrate
Judge R. Steven Whalen, in fact, signed an Order of Deficiency requiring plaintiff
to provide the requisite number of copies of the complaint. The M.D.O.C. has a
policy regarding the copying of court pleadings, whereby an inmate’s prison
account is debited for the cost. See Laster v. Pramstaller, No. 2009 WL 482701, *
1 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 25, 2009). Plaintiff is not entitled to an order directing the
M.D.O.C. to make copies for plaintiff because he does not allege that he has
requested the prison where he is incarcerated to copy his pleadings, pursuant to
that M.D.O.C. policy. Id.
In light of the number of the deficiencies in this case, as well as the fact
that it is unclear whether plaintiff could even maintain an action for some of these
claims in this district, the Court will dismiss the action without prejudice.
Finally, because plaintiff is proceeding pro se and may not have intended
to bring a single action against all of these defendants, the Clerk of the Court is
directed to return any filing fees that they have received from plaintiff. See e.g.
Ahmad v. Grant, 2010 WL 2756499, at * 2 (E.D. Mich. July 12, 2010).

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Accordingly, the Court DISMISSES WITHOUT PREJUDICE that action
filed by plaintiff. The dismissal is without prejudice to plaintiff filing the proper
complaint or complaints in the appropriate district court or courts.

s/Arthur J. Tarnow
HON. ARTHUR J. TARNOW
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
DATED: December 13, 2017

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