Dahl v. Lieberg et al

Filing 9

ORDER Adopt Report and Recommendation 6 Report and Recommendation.(Written Opinion) Signed by Chief Judge John R. Tunheim on June 8, 2017. (DML)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA
JAMES DONALD DAHL,

Civil No. 17-621 (JRT/BRT)

Plaintiff,
ORDER ADOPTING THE REPORT
AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE
MAGISTRATE JUDGE

v.
MICHAEL JEVON LIEBERG and
JANELLE PROKOPEC KENDALL,
Defendants.

James Donald Dahl, No. 124796, MN Correctional Facility, 1101 Linden
Lane, Faribault, MN 55031, pro se.

Plaintiff James Donald Dahl filed the instant action on February 27, 2017,
asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against state prosecutors. (Compl., Feb. 27,
2017, Docket No. 1.)

On April 3, 2017, United States Magistrate Judge Becky R.

Thorson issued a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) recommending that the
complaint be dismissed without prejudice under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(b) for failure to
prosecute. (R&R at 2, Apr. 3, 2017, Docket No. 6.) The Magistrate Judge made this
recommendation in response to Dahl’s explicit refusal to pay the filing fee for this case,
which is mandatory pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915(b)(1). (Id. at 1-2.)
Since the magistrate judge filed the R&R, Dahl submitted a letter to the Court.
(Letter to the Clerk’s Office/Judge Becky Thorson, Apr. 7, 2017, Docket No. 7.) In the
letter, Dahl reiterates his refusal to pay the filing fee and generally argues that the
requirement that he pay the filing fee is unconstitutional because it limits his right to

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access the courts. (Id.) The Court liberally construes the letter as an objection to the
R&R. 1 However, the constitutionality of the PLRA’s filing fee requirements is wellsettled. See Lefkowitz v. Citi-Equity Grp., Inc., 146 F.3d 609, 612 (8th Cir. 1998) (“[T]he
PLRA’s prisoner filing fee requirements . . . do not deny prisoners constitutionally
guaranteed access to courts.”); accord Murray v. Dosal, 150 F.3d 814, 818 (8th Cir.
1998). Therefore, the Court will overrule Dahl’s objections and adopt the R&R.

ORDER
Based on the foregoing, and all the files, records, and proceedings herein, the
Court OVERRULES plaintiff James Donald Dahl’s objection [Docket No. 7] is
OVERRULED, and ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge
[Docket No. 6.] IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Dahl’s Complaint [Docket No. 1] is
DISMISSED without prejudice.

LET JUDGMENT BE ENTERED ACCORDINGLY.
DATED: June 8, 2017
at Minneapolis, Minnesota.

____s/
____
JOHN R. TUNHEIM
Chief Judge
United States District Court

1

Dahl also submitted one additional filing to the Court, styled “A Modest Proposal,”
which is a generalized request that a state statute be held unconstitutional. (A Modest Proposal,
Apr. 17, 2017, Docket No. 8.) Dahl did not mark this document with the case number for the
instant action, and it appears that by sending the document, he intended to garner signatures of
support for his position with regard to the state statute, along the lines of a petition. Because this
document does not relate to the subject matter of the instant action in any way, the Court declines
to construe the document as an objection to the R&R.
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