Alexander v. Potts et al

Filing 41

ORDER denying 40 Letter request to compel defendants to provide him copies of his medical records. (cc: all counsel and via US Mail to Randy Alexander)(Griesbach, William)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

RANDY ALEXANDER,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 18-C-867

ALAN POTTS, et al.,
Defendants.

ORDER

Plaintiff Randy Alexander, who is currently representing himself and serving a state prison
sentence at Green Bay Correctional Institution, filed this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. On February 1, 2019, Alexander filed a letter with the court, stating that the defendants are
refusing to comply with his discovery request by not providing copies of his medical records. He
indicates that the defendants would not provide him copies of his medical records because he is
approved for a legal loan and should be able to purchase psychological and medical records with
his legal loan.
The court is not required to order that a defendant subsidize the litigation of prisoners or
indigent litigants. See Lindell v. McCallum, 352 F.3d 1107, 1111 (7th Cir. 2003) (“[A] prisoner has
no constitutional right to subsidy to prosecute a civil suit; like any other civil litigant, he must
decide which of his legal actions is important enough to fund.”); Goodvine v. Gorske, No. 06C0862,
2010 WL 3743522, at *2 (E.D. Wis. Sept. 22, 2010) (declining to compel defendants to produce
copies of plaintiff’s medical file because plaintiff had been granted access to the file); Stewart v.

Barr, No. 05-C-293-C, 2005 WL 6166745, at *2 (W.D. Wis. Nov. 30, 2005) (“[D]efendants have
no obligation to provide plaintiff with free copies of his medical records.”).
Alexander has failed to advise the court as to how many pages of his medical records he
wants copied or why. Depending on his health history, his medical file could contain hundreds or
even thousands of pages that have little or nothing to do with his claim. To shift the cost of
producing such records to the defendant in every case in which an indigent inmate asserts a claim
involving his medical care would be unreasonably burdensome. The court will not compel the
defendants to pay for an indefinite number of copies, as Alexander has reasonable access to his
medical records where he can review the documents and take notes of those records that are relevant
to his claim or use his legal loan to obtain the copies. Like any other civil litigant, Alexander must
decide whether and how to spend his own funds or funds from his legal loan account on the
discovery process to advance his claims.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Alexander’s request to compel the defendants to
provide him copies of his medical records is DENIED.
Dated this 4th day of February, 2019.
s/ William C. Griesbach
William C. Griesbach, Chief Judge
United States District Court

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