we'll hear argument next in case fourteen eight forty four bruce first assembles mr shelley mr chief justice and may it please the court or at least three reasons why the court should adopt what the courts of appeals have called the per prisoner approach under appeal or a section one nine hundred fifteen b to one the per prisoner approach best comports with the statutory text to the per prisoner approach is the only one consistent with the careful balance congress struck between deterring frivolous prisoner lawsuits and preserving their right to bring meritorious ones and three the per prisoner approach avoids anomalies and disincentives that congress could never have intended disincentives such as discouraging prisoner work by taking one hundred percent of their income month after month i'd like to of course start with the text the key sentence is in the key sense is the second sentence of some of subsection b two it says the following the agency having custody of the prisoner shall forward payments from the prisoner's account to the clerk of the court cingular each time the amount in the account exceeds ten dollars until the filing fees plural are paid the combination of that singular clerk of the court and filing fees plurals indicates the per prisoner approach because it means one clerk is to receive payments even when there are numerous filing fees filing fees the plural appears in the  art a filing fee includes a filing fee with the word filing in front of fee a filing fee includes all of the subsidiary costs to start up a case so a court of appeals for instance has a five hundred dollars docketing fee and a five dollars statutory fee and that partial filing fee that's paid upon the the filing of the appeal under subsection b one there's a twenty percent initial partial filing fee that would be assessed against the prisoner and that would be across the board that you only have to pay always have to pay that but the second filing fee the one from the court of appeals would line up so the first filing fee from the district court would be paid off first and then sequentially the court of appeals would be paid off but only twenty percent would be taken every month from the prison or you wouldn't take forty percent if you files a lot of cases he's never going to have to pay for i mean you know he files twenty cases that talk that you know that twenty percent will never will never come now but to get to the rest of your question justice scalia there are a number of other things in the statute that work in tandem with b to stop that kind of behavior so there's the initial partial filing fee here she's always going to have to pay that there's the three strikes rule which comes into being there's the ability of the district court or court of appeals to sue a sponte dismiss under the those cases that are frivolous all right so you say there are other disincentives but this was intended to be a disincentive was this not intended to be a disincentive it wasn't even this warning out that it's a very ineffective disincentive if the person keeps filing a lot of cases well it's not an ineffective disincentive because it creates months and months more of additional income being garnished so it lines up with the others none of them were anticipated to be wholly barriers to filing a lawsuit and this one adds with the others and creates a whole scheme where they're added disincentives but congress also wanted to make sure the meritorious cases would be broad and so it didn't want to be overwhelming and put in put too much on the scale to kill all of those case mr should we go back to the sentence that you were relying on because i have to admit i don't understand your read in the sentence as taking out some unnecessary words it says the agency shall forward payments to the clerk singular until the filing fees are paid and that makes perfect sense if the filing fees are all in one case go into a single clear but if you are right and what they mean is the filing fees are in multiple cases then it doesn't make sense to say that the agency show forward payments to the clerk the only way to make that sentance makes sense if the filing fees are in multiple cases is for congress is for the statute to have read the agency show forward payments to many clerks or to several clerks seriatim and that suggests not the per prisoner approach but the per case approach i think that's incorrect because i think what you should insert if necessary in front of the clerk  the court is the relevant clerk of the court so the prison officials are going to distribute to the relevant clerk o board and such that seems right that to make this sentence work the way you wanted to work and this is the sentence you're relying on to make it work the way you want  work you have to add some language utility you do not because there's still there's one clerk of the court and there's always going to be a clerk because every case the filing fee is paid to a clerk so there's always going to be vocal work of the court and and in most cases in all cases there's only one filing yeah i'm going to say you know what even as i look at this even if you add that language it still doesn't make sense the agency show forward payments to the relevant clerk until multiple filing fees are paid it's just it doesn't t sentence don't connect there while the filing fees plural it can't allow for the for the per case approach the opposite approach because filing fees we know means more than one and so it has to mean more than one because in the one in b three congress use this term of art to mean filing fee in compass is it's the thing that comprises all of the other fees and so i would say that the opposite side is the one that cannot make any textual sense out of that sentence because there's never more than one doesn't know that congress just things fears and a case fees in a case so then it makes perfect sense give the fees in a case to the clerk but if you are saying give fees and multiple cases to the clerk when it's not it's give with the purpose of dealing with individuals who file many cases but second of all the three strikes assume three strikes rule assumes numerous cases and i'd also point to section one hundred fifteen which has the statutory language the officers of the court sh issue and serve all process and perform all duties in such cases so there are references to more than one case in various places but even if it was written in a singular way in a way to deal only with one case that really doesn't prove anything against us it just means you've got to look the other statutory construction tools because it would just say that there's going to be an initial partial filing fee in every case and there needs to be installment payments in every case and we don't disagree with that we agree that the installment payments in every case and it's just a matter of when in the statute doesn't answer when necessarily right off the bat why the initial be the initial  even if you don't know i mean i can't get anything out of the second sentence to tell you the truth is i think that a prison is usually within a single district and so when you're worried about a multiple filer what he does is he files about fifteen cases in the same  t and therefore it's perfectly understandable why the congress would refer to multiple fees because they're going to be like ten of them if the people who are really worried about are what's at issue so i can't get anything out of the second sentence it's the first sentence is  seems to me both your strength and your weakness there it talks about after payments of the the initial partial filing fee ok it sounds of his talking about a case and so what do we do  is after the initial partial filing fee the prisoner shall be required to make monthly payments of twenty percent it's that's where you have the words the well first of all i don't think congress necessarily had in mind a prisoner who was filing numerous cases in the same court because if you look up to a two for instance it talks about the prisoner having to file a suit and a statement of his indigency and congress talked about it needed to be obtained the appropriate official of each prison at which the prisoner is or was confined and the government concedes that prisoners are moved around all the time and therefore there are numerous districts i mean it's exclusive short i mean just giving you an explanation as to why they might have used the partial filing fee is assessed the installment payments will also start to kick in they it's just a matter of do they line up or do they or do they come first so i don't think under that i don't think b b two and that first thing would answer the question it under our theory you also get a you also get an installment payment after the payment of the initial partial five feet but then charm soap one of your purposes why isn't the government's concession that no circumstance can a fee twenty percent be taken on to less it's above ten dollars why doesn't that take care of your problem because i don't think the government's position is allowed so if you take a situation where let's say eleven dollars was earned by the prisoner the the previous month and that's all that was in the account in that case you'd have to take under the statute you meet the statutory terms there's ten dollars and in the count and you have to take twenty percent shell is the word shall take twenty percent of there's over ten dollars well there's eleven dollars in there the government would say we're not going to take the twenty percent because it's going to send it under ten dollars so that they can't work out what the government i understand and correct me is i think they're saying that if you file the initial filing fee and you're down say dollars they can't say another ten twenty percent sure well that's that's how i understood their concession so that was their alternative position but even that one won't hurt our purposes argument because if you take a prisoner who is now let's say he has fifty five dollars in income and that's not that landis because if you earn thirty five cents an hour and you work a forty hour week you're fifty five dollars in that situation the first four incumbents this will take the lead in dollars each forty four dollars leaving you at eleven the last one is going to take the whole amount because you got a fifth encumbrance and you're over ten dollars so under even this alternative approach you take one hundred percent of the the statute says you take twenty percent if it exceeds ten dollars so if you have eleven dollars in there after death after the fourth one you have to take the fifth twenty percent they can't administer it that way i mean is there somebody who's administer way every circuit who has looked at it has described the per prisoner approaches one that as long as there's ten dollars in the account it's the trigger you can take the whole income and they're really doing that so far as i know yet what the b o p r says it is not i understand the state where many of the prisoners are are doing exactly that and we've started to see we started to district court cases where they went over what the states were doing and they drain it down to zero i mean the case as you can drain it down to zero  that's why they the second third and fourth circuits all got into this issue of of the constitutionality or the purposes because they said the prisoners are going to be left with a serious evil to me i mean what is their constitutional requirement the prisoners be given in prison there isn't i don't think they're given the essentials but the point of it is this if especially if the fact that they don't have any is their own fault if they keep piling  you'd be out of court you wouldn't be filing baseless it's because you got the three strikes eventually but mr bruce for it's had had six cases before he encourages first strike people and so that the constitutional dimension that the second third and fourth circuits  adopted goes to the point of you can't put the prisoner in the position of losing one hundred percent of the income that he works to earn at the hobson's choice to filing what may be a meritorious case they haven't said it's unconstitutional they've just said the statute leaves you scratching your head it's not a hobson's choice if he forfeits all except ten dollars that's going to be the difference whether he is ten dollars and is a key under no three yes yes and is this court has said and is congress statute which i think would make i would guess not in every case where this multiple thing is likely to arise is where files a frivolous case it's dismissed by the district court and then he takes an appeal ok there we have two and so the question is yes to get the filing fee that the next slot is going to be like twenty percent or forty percent or you should leave him with ten dollars given the purpose of the statute which is to stop these frivolous suits or at least make it a little tougher doesn't make sense say what i just said leave them with the ten dollars but you can take before the percent twenty percent for one court twenty percent for the now maybe  that make sense to me it makes sense at the moment but it would it would both leave him with the ten dollars but allow the clerks to collect twenty percent for the district court twenty percent for the court of appeals is that impossible to bring about i think it is given the statutory language i think given the fact that the prison officials shall forward payments each time the amount in the account is greater than ten dollars doesn't allow the prison official to say i'm going to use it as a floor as opposed to a trigger and while that might have been the way congress could have written it it did not and given the way congress did write it the best approach is that per prisoner approach that leave some money to the prisoner for things like i didn't realize the back end of this forget about the prisoner i'm thinking about the courts basically you're saying the last court that brings in over court gets more money than the other courts now they all get twenty they all get twenty percent but the way it should work is is there ten dollars in the account if there's ten dollars in one cent you then can take twenty percent twenty percent installment perhaps another twenty percent for cos that's a different issue but you for the filing fees you take a twenty percent installment and it goes down to say eight dollars at that point that's the end of it under the under the per prisoner approach that we espouse under the per case approach where the courts of appeals at least have understood it if there's ten dollars in able to investigate that we've cited to two district courts in our reply brief i think one from iowa one maybe one from another midwest state of maryland and iowa those two cases the way the court's decision reads it indicates that they're looking to see if there's ten dollars in one cent and then they're taking they're going down twenty twenty twenty and twenty and i would also note if you look at saluki third circuit torahs the fourth circuit and judge easterbrook decision and nuland they all talk about if there is more than the ten dollars you take one hundred percent if there's five filing fees i don't see how the bureau of prisons can do this as a matter of grace in the statute says what it says shall i don't i don't know why they think they can do they may have their own views on what's good policy but congress it seems to me is exactly the way you say i agree i agree with that the only possibility is that alternative approach they say where they stop after the first one goes below ten dollars but that one takes one hundred percent of the income and helps us in proving the per prisoner approach because in most cases where there's any any any job or wage income being earned by the prisoner you're going to take one hundred percent because the last twenty percent increment will be above the ten dollars and interpret it the other way stickley you say  you forward the twenty percent each time the amount in the account exceeds ten dollars well the instant you write that check it does not we're getting into the technicalities of banking which so i doubt it and i think you can read it the way i did if you're not too technical about it with just a seems consistent with language the fed have a position  through in order to defend this this idea or that idea and the government comes up with alternative ones that they're not even using to try to deal with the plural filing fees for instance but our approach is much simpler our approach is you read the statute the way it the way it states a shell you know shell the prison or you don't look to see if it the payment going to be under ten dollars afterwards but look to see if it's over as a trigger and then pay in addition you don't have a lot of other problems with our approach you just figure out which one last seven or so have not been filed essentially because he had had three strikes by the twelfth so there's really only twelve lawsuits were we're talking about that could have filing fees but the answer the question justice ginsburg of whether he's never going to pay those again i would go back to  five and say congress thought well they could be paid relatively quickly if the filing fees were lower but you touch on a question that isn't settled in the lower courts which is does the amount of time do at the end of when the prisoner sent when the prisoner sentence ends and the courts of appeals are divided about that with the fifth circuit saying yes it does come due and you have to come up with some kind of a plan with each of the clerks to which you all money and you shall pay it off other circuits say it is it does come due but it only comes due and you have to pay it if you're not in form a populous at the time the government seeks to collect it after your are out of release so i don't think it's correct to say at least as a matter of law it's settled as to whether these filing fees for ever go away once the prisoner prisoner leaves you just have to figure out which one was incurred first second third fourth but under their approach what happens after the fifth one you have five takes one hundred percent of income and at that point will the six one becomes our approach if you have six page thirty of their brief is that it's deferred deferred until one of them gets paid off and then you have to figure out well one of them got paid off so which one do you switch in and how much do you switch and that just the problems start to multiply when you pick the earliest i mean all of them all of them are owed would you pick the nearest court where you could you could pick the nearest court you could put the last one the most the most the most current but the way the courts of appeals have looked at it they've looked at in time the first and i don't think the government disagrees because at least when you get to the sixth one it's they treat that one is being deferred under their approach with the first five being paid is he on the hook for the filing fees here he is appeal of the district court case a second circuit appeal there were two cost awards from the district court in the court of appeals and there was a second appeal there were five incumbrances in one single piece of litigation so these incumbrances can add up quite quickly and you can get up to to check for three strikes and is relevant here to require full payment of filing fees on an instalment schedule so we're talking about here is subsection b which is the filing fee provision and it says first that and i have papers in or has to pay the full amount of each action or appeal talking about a single action or appeal and then it sets out an installment plan which is an initial payment and a monthly payment so we're at the point where petitioner agrees that the initial payment is for each case but that he says that the statute somehow shifts perspective to all of it inmates cases when it starts talking about the monthly payments and we just don't think there's any kind of clear explanation in the statute that does that we think the burden should be really on him to show a shift from a single case to all of the cases and it wouldn't make sense what petitioner says is that the word fees poor always means more than one case and we know from the text of the statute that that's not true because there are several places where congress says fees and it's referring to a single case so for example in subsection v three congress talks about the amount of fees permitted by statute for a civil action or an appeal in b one it talks about any court fees required by law for an action or p o similarly in a one in a two it talks about fees for a single action or a single appeal and to be clear we think that in this statute congress used fee in fees somewhat interchangeably in the way that people do out in the world that people would say attorneys fees and attorney feel ward fee shifting we're shifting all the fees that sort of thing that that's just common usage and that the single plural fees instep subsection be to just does not provide the kind of strong indication that would be necessary to overcome the real thrust of the rest of the statute which is that it's something that a court does for each of these cases that sets out this payment plan it does each of the other things that are set out in the statute mr harshly i don't think i'm not terribly persuaded by your deterrence argument i mean no statute pursues its purposes that  every cost and maybe congress decided they could they didn't need to take the last twenty three cents an hour the prisoner earned to promote the deterrence when they have all these other anti filing provisions in the law well this is the only provision that provides a financial deterrent there are other provisions like the three strikes provisions and cetera but this is the one and this is in the record where members of congress said it makes an inmate stop and think is this lawsuit worth the cost and then the mt albert congress is talking about ok they have to pay the filing fee certainly congress didn't focus i wouldn't think on whether it's well i assume they didn't focus on whether it's per case or per prisoner because it's really quite unclear we think that congress did make that decision when it wrote the statute from a perspective of a single case but i wanted to talk about that the first reading i the two struck me as different than one because in one you're talking about oh this is what the court should do we're going to you say this is what's required of the prisoner and it just says up to twenty percent now no one says required to but it immediately shifts that's what is required to pay the whole thing that's the important point but but to it says this is what's required of the prisoner monthly payments of twenty percent of the proceeding months income right two more and it seems to be more a prisoner focus than the case by case but it's linked to subsection b one this whole thing is talking about what happens in a specific case it starts by saying that when a civil action or an appeal is filed you shall pay the full amount of filing fee and here's the way to do it and s section b then trigger subsection c b one then trigger subsection b two we think judge srinivasan got this exactly right in the opinion for the d c circuit where he said that when you start reading b two it is triggered from b one and it continues the per case focus that it's about first we have an initial partial payment for one case and then we have monthly payments to pay off the balance of that case and then i'm not sure that's responsive to my point i guess what i was saying is i don't think it carries forward the case by case basis because it speaks only of what's required of the prisoner in a way that doesn't address case by case at all and that's why this is such a confusing statute we think the reason that we think it does just to be as clear as possible is because of the language that starts subsection b two which is after payment of the initial partial filing fee which is for one case then the prisoner is required to make monthly payments which is to pay the remaining amount because we know he has to pay the full amount for one case of and when it's are sent to the proceeding months income i mean i well i would think  least as reasonable as you're reading to say when you look at what is required of the prisoners twenty percent of his income that doesn't have anything to do case by case because what you would require of course is that he pay forty percent if there are two cases or sixty percent if there are three or all of it if it's above ten dollars and i think he would someone looking at them tsunamis only supposed to pay twenty percent of his income but this this part of the statute and all of the parts of the statute really are talking about the perspective of a single case and we think the twenty percent amount makes sense in that regard if one member of congress said and this was quoted in the d c circuit opinion the filing fee of twenty percent is small enough not to deter a prisoner with a meritorious claim but it's large enough to deter frivolous claims or multiple filings that the twenty percent essentially leaves room for multiple filings that you could apply it more than one time when a prisoner has a second case a third case as well you know what he doesn't get off the hook for the other ones it's just has to pay it further down you know it's like a mortgage of you get thirty years you have to pay it further down if you in fifteen years you have to it less and while it's not like he's getting off scot free right i understand your question but i think that there are a couple of problems with that one is that there's nothing in the statute that suggests that you would delay the payments and it doesn't make sense in terms of the statutory purpose to delay them as judge easterbrook subpoenaed for the seventh circuit said if you want to have a pay as you go system where there is an immediate cost to each individual case the person needs to have an obligation to start paying right away not five years in the future perhaps never will you know you have a twenty percent in every case right away right but that's a one time payment and it could be quite small and that's very different from having an ongoing monthly payment that starts right away and that you have to pay but i do want to address another another point that i think your question raised which is are prisoners ever going to be paying these amounts particularly where they have  filed numerous cases like the individual in this case and i think the answer is no for two reasons the first is a practical one the second one is a legal one i guess i'll start with a legal one that numerous courts that have considered this issue have said that once a prisoner is out in the world and is no longer a prisoner but wants to continue his case he can try to qualify for piece status and no longer have to make his payments so potentially he's not making those payments and regardless of how you would decide that legal you agree with that interpretation it's not something that we've taken a position on in this case we're going to i don't think it's fair to rely on it well then i i do think it's fair to rely on in the light of the fact that no one is collecting no one is that there's not any centralized mechanism to collect now and that's really the second point that i wanted to make which is regardless of how you would resolve that legal question and actually the reason that the administrative office has not so far as we know taken a position on that is because there are serious practical problems to collecting one of those problems when you when you look at the statute subsection b allows you to take money from the trust account so it's fairly easy to collect while the individual is in prison but once the person is out in the world court each individual court trying to collect the filing fees that are that the inmates the former inmates on the hook for is quite a difficult thing we have spoken with folks from the administrative office and tell us that there is not now any centralized system for trying to refer those obligations for treasury and i think you could imagine how cumbersome that would be so to think that potentially paying five years down the road or never paying is any kind of marginal deterrent i think would be wrong we think that congress knew that there were multiple filers out there and that if they were going to file more lawsuits they should pay more and just to be clear about what congress was saying here no one is precluded from going to court all congress was saying is something very reasonable which is if you have funds available and you continue filing more lawsuits and appeals you should have to pay you should have to contribute and we think that that makes complete sense mr harvey can i get back to the ten dollar rule and the below p policy with respect to this i think it was the chief justice who said that he didn't really understand and share his lack of understanding about how the b a p is actually doing this given the language of the statute the statute says you know shall forward payments each time the amount in the account exceeds ten dollars so that suggests to me that if you're looking at an account with ten dollars and one cent you make the next payment and i understand from your brief that that's not what the b o p is dylan and how can the be not doing that well a couple of answers first of all we think that that language that you cited can be read multiple ways as i think the discussion with justice breyer perhaps suggested that it could mean that there's a ten dollar floor or it could mean that you could start making payments at the ten dollars and then go below the ten dollars the v o p has long standing has taken the position of long standing position that you have a ten dollar floor that is not in any kind of regulation or published guidance the way that we do it is that we have a database that is basically for system for having money come in out of the accounts and we have had that ten dollar floor in there since that database was set up in two thousand and one but we think the statute could be read both ways and we think it is more consistent with congress's intention to leave the ten dollars and others are probably right but how can it be read that tell me how it can be read that you can't touch ten dollars in all cases ten dollars will always remain in the account how can you read it that way or because when it says exceeds ten dollars i think you could you could read it as that it can't that kind of the flipside that you can't go below the ten dollars or you could say that you could start to read the language really learn what language produces original write we think that it is when you say it exceeds ten dollars that that means that you can't there's the flip side of it that you can't go below ten be read both ways but this is if you disagreed about that we don't think that that issue resolves this case for in any way why can't you read it that way you forward the payment each time the amount exceeds ten dollars forwarding it consists of pressing an electronic bot and so the instant you press that button it does not exceed ten dollars and there we have so there is a way of construing the language which is consistent with the obvious purpose to me which is to leave this prisoner with at least ten dollars well that's what we think we think can be read multiple ways and so far as we know about the experience it has been ret read multiple ways there are cases in the courts of appeals that have read it one way versus the other to be clear though these cases are not ones that have gone through any detailed statutory analysis not even as much detail as this court's discussion and argument today but it just said an offhand line either you can go below the ten dollars or you can't they've kind of gone both ways on that in terms of experience we know from the second circuit case that cited in the briefs whitfield that new york did not go below the ten dollars i asked counsel of record for the states the states filed a brief on our side this case and the counsel of record is the solicitor general of michigan he said that michigan does not go below the ten dollars my friend on the other side has suggested it's all of the spine all of the states all of the prisons because some are going below the ten dollars i'm not sure that's true he said it's two cases one is there from maryland and from iowa one of the cases said that there was that it went below the ten dollars and in one case but it didn't say that that was the state policy  you know i don't know if it was in the second was an individual accounting clerk who had gone below the ten dollars and who had done it manually so i don't know that that represents any kind of policy either but if i could step back i think it is not necessary for this court to resolve the ten dollars should resolve the question presented because the question is just should an inmate who files more cases have to make monthly payments and just as just parent that equally to highlight why the court doesn't need to resolve the ten dollar issue to resolve this case this was not an issue that petitioner brief before the d c circuit it's not anything that the issue presented by the by the question of whether you use the per case or per prisoner approach i completely agree it's a problem either way however you resolve the question presented that would still be a separate question one that the courts of appeals have not considered any level of detail and i think others may too i find the issue that's before it's very difficult to resolve based on the statutory language is there any doctrine tantamount to the rule criminal statute that applies here because the thing that strikes me most is the extreme harshness of your position we're talking about earning twenty three cents an hour filing fees of three hundred fifty dollars five hundred five dollars and the money is used to for what phone calls to family and friends stamps for letters and to buy books and you're going to take the last you know whatever so that someone is in there for twenty years can even buy a book always seems very very harsh and you seem to be willing to interpret the ambiguity in the statute to save the last ten dollars but you're unwilling to interpret the i think at least i regard as the ambiguity in a way that allows them to keep that so they can pay for phone calls to their family well a couple of answers first of all we think that this is not this this question of a person having so little in their money money in their count only arises in the case they are talking about someone who has filed or more lawsuits which is not the ordinary case i mean it is a obviously a case to consider but at least in the b o p s experience the vast majority of people who have orders that are owed are for one lawsuit two lawsuits most of the court of appeals cases below are like that etc putting that to the side of course the statute never prevents a prisoner from bringing in meritorious case because of the safety valve provision we also interpret the ten dollar amount to leave money in the account there's also of course administrate of remedies which administrative exhaustion is required so that helps resolve any questions about making sure the claims are heard and in fact the b o p does have the discretion to allow phone calls etc to indigent prisoners also stamps etc etc so in terms of what you potentially perceive as harshness this only arises in cases where an inmate is filing so many cases that potentially a large portion of his income is being used to pay filing fees and really i doubt is that well if you're there for twenty years maybe you should let them buy a book right this again this situation there i think most prisons actually have libraries that books are available in the like the court has had some cases i'm sure a very good library well just to just to be clear you know this is a situation that only arises in fairly atypical situation we it's true that the statute does not specifically address the situation of a prisoner with five lawsuits or six lawsuits in orders etc but we think the reason is that it is and that the seventh circuit suggested in one of the early opinions after the p l o it was an act it is because congress thought that the streets three strikes provision was going to prevent all of these lawsuits but it lot of prisoners and amazon really make a lot of money overseas people i can't say you know the experience that we have in this case for example might be good to highlight which is pinson the individual who has filed more than one hundred cases gets regular deposits into his account had been using them to buy books and other materials those are in the joint appendix starting on pages fifty five fifty six etc so it shows that prisoners are able to even pinson who is held over one hundred cases is able to pay those amounts and just to just to clarify i think the court is thinking of a situation of you know a prisoner who has ten cents of income or ten dollars and is of income but we don't think that that is the typical situation pensions account at the time he filed shows that he received an average of i think was forty eight dollars a month of income i have asked the b o p s for statistics just because i was curious about what is the median income that's received what is the median deposit they said that for the past fiscal year the medium median income an inmate receives approximately one hundred twenty and twenty dollars a month so in fact with that if an inmate has twenty percent that he's paying towards filing fees he could pay them off at a reasonable rate and we think that that's just uniform and maybe is not statutorily authorized yes i think that i think that that is the implication of it and we think that that is what congress intended i am not sure if the court is interested in such information but we actually did go ahead and just look in our database to how many inmates have one order that they're paying as opposed to by orders that were paying and what we found just checking last week was that inmates there are nine hundred forty four inmates of the over two hundred thousand in the federal system who are paying on order and only sixty inmates of the over two hundred thousand who are paying on five or more orders or who have sick and then forty two inmates who have six or more years this actually is a very small problem at least federally and we would not want this very small tail to wag the dog of the statute that is clearly and clearly intended by congress to make sure that inmates who are filing frivolous lawsuits have a financial disincentive to do so and be clear about your policy and i think your adversary agrees always wipe out the ten dollars the ten dollars is not an impediment to the initial partial filing fee it is only in the second part of it so that and so the ten dollar floor starts once the account goes up you have to a bottom you have always ten dollars in your account but any dollar that goes into your account after that twenty percent has to be paid right but we think that it's over the ten dollars but we think that that there's you know that there's at least ten dollars in the counter would wait until there was ten dollars in the account so if i understand your question correctly we would wait until there was ten dollars in the account this is just i'm trying to take twenty percent let's say there's ten dollars and there's eleven dollars the one  dollar is paid to whom to assume there's five cases there we would if we can't pay all of the five cases we believe congress intended we would pay the old this lawsuit the oldest and i don't mean understand the statue and we think it makes perfect sense in terms of what congress wanted if you have money available and you continue to file more lawsuits and get orders entered that the inmate should have to pay for them so at the end of the day we think that the d c circuit got it right that both when you look at the specific text of this provision which is subsection b about filing fees but really the entire statute written from the perspective of a single case a checklist for a single case that congress wanted who are filing more lawsuits to pay more and we think that that makes sense and that also and i want this is i think is a partial answer for one of the prior questions of the chief justice in terms of interpretive canons and cetera that it's consistent with what this court did last term in the coleman case in the coleman case the court was considering the three strikes provision but recognize that that provision is written from the perspective of a single case a single action or appeal you could get a strike for the action you can get a strike for the appeal and the same thing we think is true for the filing fees you could all the filing fees for the action you could or the filing fees for the appeal and we think that that makes complete sense so unless there are further questions we would urge the court to affirm the decision of the d c circuit thank you counsel now you have four minutes remain chief justice first of all with respect to the the hypothetical that just a sort of my or asked in fact i think if the account had eleven dollars in it the government's position would lead to none of the clerks of the courts being paid because the first payment would take the the balance under ten dollars so that seems again as the number of justices of mention of the justice prior a perverse reading of the ten dollar rule but i also want to take on the idea that this is the only provision in the statute that provides for a financial effect on the prisoner when filing a lawsuit no as the chief justice mentioned the initial partial filing fee applies in every case no ten dollar rule no minimum so that is a an immediate financial incentive not to file a frivolous lawsuit because money is going to go immediately and if it doesn't go immediately it's a debt that gets paid sequentially much like the per prisoner approach would adopt would be to but be to then takes a longer term point of view be one is an immediate financial disincentive be two is the longer financial disincentive month after month with the installment payments i also want to take on the idea that fees and filing fee appear interchangeably in the statute they do not miss a mention the word fees but fees on adorned with the word filing in front of it appears differently than does the word filing fee the plural filing fees appears in exactly two spots b two and then in the cross reference to the cost section i believe that  section where it says that costs will be charged the same way as filing fees they both use the plural filing fee so this was purposeful congress use the plural filing fees only twice and that's because i think they were talking about the the numerous cases being paid to a single clerk and finally i'd like to say it is often been said that the measure of a society is not how it treats its outstanding citizens but how it treats its weakest here there's no it's criminals here there's no real reason to pile on to prisoners with this additional honor is financial incentive when the other aspects of the p l o are a do the work of deterring frivolous lawsuits along with the disincentive that's provided under the per prisoner approach we would ask that the court reversed the d c circuit thank you counsel the case is submitted