Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05166/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05166-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 15, 1998 Decided June 12, 1998

No. 96-5166

Johnny Ray Chandler,

Appellant

v.

District of Columbia Department of Corrections, et al.,

Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 95cv01735)

Robert D. Wick, appointed by the court, argued the cause

as amicus curiae on behalf of appellant, with whom Alan A.

Pemberton was on the briefs.

Johnny Ray Chandler, appearing pro se, was on the brief.

Andrew J. Morris, with whom Jo Anne Robinson, Interim

Corporation Counsel, Charles L. Reischel, Deputy CorporaUSCA Case #96-5166 Document #359197 Filed: 06/12/1998 Page 1 of 12
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tion Counsel, Lutz Alexander Prager, Assistant Deputy Corporation Counsel, and Lawrence S. Robbins were on the brief,

for appellees. Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, entered an appearance for appellees.

Before Ginsburg and Tatel, Circuit Judges, and Buckley,

Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed by Senior Judge Buckley.

Buckley, Senior Judge: In this case we decide two issues:

first, whether section 804(d) of the Prison Litigation Reform

Act of 1995 applies to appeals pending on the date that the

Act took effect; and second, whether an inmate states a claim

upon which relief may be granted when he alleges that a

District of Columbia Department of Corrections officer

threatened to have him killed and that Department of Corrections officials failed to respond to his complaints concerning

the threat.

I. Background

A.Statutory Scheme

Section 804 of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995

("PLRA" or "Act"), Title VIII of the Omnibus Consolidated

Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-

134, s 804, 110 Stat. 1321-66, 1321-73 (1996), amended 28

U.S.C. s 1915 (1994), which authorized courts to waive the

payment of initial filing fees and to permit a plaintiff to

proceed in forma pauperis ("IFP") upon submission of an

"affidavit that he [was] unable to pay such costs or give

security therefor." 28 U.S.C. s 1915(a) (1994). Once permitted by a district court to proceed in that status, the plaintiff

was entitled to take an appeal IFP so long as the district

court did not "certif[y] in writing that [the appeal] [wa]s not

taken in good faith." Id. Because Congress had concluded

that prisoner litigants were abusing the statute by flooding

the courts with meritless claims, see Tucker v. Branker, __

F.3d ___, ___, 1998 WL 232792 at *1 (D.C. Cir. May 12, 1998),

section 804 established new standards for the grant of IFP

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status to prisoners, as opposed to other litigants. The PLRA

was signed into law on April 26, 1996.

As amended by section 804, section 1915 now provides that

a prisoner who wishes to initiate a court proceeding must

assume liability for the entire cost of the filing fee unless its

imposition would "prohibit[ ] [him] from bringing a civil action

or appealing a ... judgment." 28 U.S.C. s 1915(b)(1), (4)

(Supp. 1997). A prisoner seeking to proceed IFP must

submit a statement of all his assets as well as a certified copy

of his prison trust fund account for the six-month period

immediately preceding the filing of his complaint or notice of

appeal. Id. s 1915(a)(1), (2). If he qualifies for IFP, the

prisoner will be required to pay an "initial partial filing fee"

that is computed on the basis of the information in his

prisoner's account. Id. s 1915(b)(1). The prisoner is then

required to pay the balance in monthly installments. Id.

s 1915(b)(2), (b)(3). If, however, a prisoner has filed, while

incarcerated, three or more cases that have been dismissed

for being frivolous or malicious or for failing to state a claim

upon which relief could be granted, he may not proceed IFP,

id. s 1915(g), and must therefore pay the entire fee on filing.

An indigent prisoner otherwise subject to subsection (g) may

nevertheless proceed IFP when he is "under imminent danger of serious physical injury." Id.

B.Factual and Procedural History

In August 1995, appellant Johnny Ray Chandler, a District

of Columbia prisoner held at the Occoquan Correctional

Facility in Lorton, Virginia ("Lorton"), filed a pro se complaint alleging that Lorton officials had violated a number of

his constitutional rights. He sought both prospective injunctive relief and monetary damages. See 28 U.S.C. s 1983.

Coincident with filing his complaint, Chandler also moved to

proceed IFP. As liberally construed by the district court, his

complaint alleged that Corporal Brenda Brooks, a D.C. correctional officer stationed at Lorton, violated his Eighth

Amendment rights by threatening to have him killed and that

the Department of Corrections ("Department") violated both

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cess rights when it ignored his administrative complaints.

The district court granted Chandler's motion to proceed IFP

and later dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim.

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

Chandler timely filed his notice of appeal on April 22, 1996.

Although the notice is broad enough to reach the district

court's dismissal of both his Fifth Amendment and Eighth

Amendment claims, we will only address the latter because

Chandler's appellate brief fails to mention his due process

claim, which is therefore forfeited. See Terry v. Reno, 101

F.3d 1412, 1415 (D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 2431

(1997) ("We ... address only the arguments appellant[ ] h[as]

briefed").

On June 14, 1996, the Department filed a motion requesting

that we either summarily affirm the district court judgment

on the ground that Chandler had failed to pay his docketing

fee in violation of subsection (g) or order him to pay the fee.

We denied the motion for summary affirmance and consolidated consideration of the Department's alternative request

with the hearing on the merits of Chandler's appeal. We also

appointed an amicus curiae to present arguments on Chandler's behalf.

II. Analysis

A.Applicability of Section 1915(g) to Appeals Pending at the

Time of the PLRA's Effective Date

Congress did not specify the date on which the PLRA

would take effect. The Supreme Court long ago noted that,

absent a statutory instruction to the contrary, a bill becomes

law when signed by the President or, in the event he fails to

sign it, ten days following its passage by both houses of

Congress. See Louisville v. Savings Bank, 104 U.S. (14 Otto)

469, 476-79 (1881); see also U.S. Const. art. I, s 7, cl. 2.

President Clinton signed the PLRA on April 26, 1996; accordingly, it took effect on that date, which was four days

after Chandler had filed his appeal. We must now determine

whether subsection (g), which was added to section 1915 by

the PLRA, applies to appeals filed before April 26.

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As we explained above, section 1915 generally concerns the

procedures by which a plaintiff may proceed IFP. Subsection (g) states:

In no event shall a prisoner bring a civil action or appeal

a judgment in a civil action or proceeding under this

section [i.e., IFP] if the prisoner has, on 3 or more

occasions, while incarcerated or detained in any facility,

brought an action or appeal in a court of the United

States that was dismissed on the grounds that it is

frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which

relief may be granted, unless the prisoner is under

imminent danger of serious physical injury.

28 U.S.C. s 1915(g) (Supp. 1997).

If we assume for purposes of analysis that (as the Department maintains) Chandler, while imprisoned, has had at least

three prior claims dismissed for one of the reasons cited in

subsection (g), whether he is thereby prohibited from proceeding IFP will depend on whether the phrase "appeal a

judgment" means "file an appeal," as advocated by Chandler,

or "prosecute an appeal," as proposed by the Department. If

the Department is correct, subsection (g) applies to all appeals pending on April 26, 1996, and Chandler is foreclosed

from proceeding with his appeal without paying the applicable

fee. The circuits that have considered this question are in

conflict. Compare Adepegba v. Hammons, 103 F.3d 383,

386-87 (5th Cir. 1996) (holding that application of section

1915(g) to appeals filed prior to April 26 is not impermissibly

retroactive) with Cannell v. Lightner, --- F.3d ----, 1998

WL 227644 at *2 (9th Cir. May 8, 1998); Abdul-Wadood v.

Nathan, 91 F.3d 1023, 1025 (7th Cir. 1996) ("Section 1915(g)

governs bringing new actions or filing new appeals ... rather

than the disposition of existing cases."); White v. Gregory, 87

F.3d 429, 430 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 528 (1996);

see also Garcia v. Silbert, --- F.3d ----, 1998 WL 190514 at

*1 (10th Cir. Apr. 22, 1998) (holding that section 1915(g) does

not apply to suit pending before district court when the

PLRA took effect).

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We hold that because subsection (g) is applied at the time

that a prisoner files his appeal rather than throughout the

course of the proceeding, it is inapplicable to Chandler. The

parties' lengthy discussion of retroactivity is therefore irrelevant. While the phrase "appeal a judgment" may appear

ambiguous when examined in isolation, we must read those

words in the context of the rest of section 1915 (all of which

deals with proceedings IFP) in order to determine their

statutory meaning. See Jarecki v. G.D. Searle & Co., 367

U.S. 303, 307 (1961) ("The maxim noscitur a sociis, that a

word is known by the company it keeps, while not an inescapable rule, is often wisely applied where a word is capable of

many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unintended

breadth to the Acts of Congress."). Read in concert with the

rest of section 1915, "appeal a judgment" in subsection (g)

plainly refers to the initiation of an appeal. The Department's contrary reading suffers two fatal shortcomings: first,

it would be at odds with the meaning of the phrase as it is

used elsewhere in section 1915; and second, it would cause

subsection (g) to operate in different ways depending on

whether the prisoner was filing a complaint or an appeal.

First, subsection 1915(g) states that a prisoner may not

"bring a civil action or appeal a judgment" IFP if, while

imprisoned, he has had three cases dismissed for certain

enumerated reasons. 28 U.S.C. s 1915(g). Two other subsections use the same "bring a civil action or appeal a

judgment" formulation, see id. s 1915(a)(2), (b)(4), while a

third applies to prisoners who "bring[ ] a civil action or file [ ]

an appeal." Id. s 1915(b)(1) (emphasis added). The Department seizes on the distinction between the references to an

appeal in subsections (b)(1) and (g) to argue that Congress

intended the phrase "appeal a judgment" to refer to something other than the filing of an appeal. While superficially

seductive, this argument does not carry its weight.

Subsection (b)(1) provides that "if a prisoner brings a civil

action or files an appeal in forma pauperis, the prisoner shall

be required to pay the full amount of a filing fee." Id.

(emphasis added.) As the Seventh Circuit noted in Thurman

v. Gramley, 97 F.3d 185, 187 (7th Cir. 1996), the italicized

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words identify the dispositive events that trigger the obligation to pay the filing fee. We now compare that subsection

with subsection (a)(2), which states that "[a] prisoner seeking

to bring a civil action or appeal a judgment [IFP] ... shall

submit a certified copy of [his prison] trust fund account

statement...." Id. s 1915(a)(2) (emphasis added). Again,

the italicized words define the dispositive events that give rise

to an obligation. It should be self-evident that "appeal a

judgment" in this subsection is equivalent to "file an appeal"

because the reason a prisoner seeking to proceed IFP must

submit this financial information is to enable a court to

determine the minimum initial payment he will be required to

make in order to initiate his appeal. See id. s 1915(b)(1). If

there were any doubt as to the matter, it is put to rest by the

requirement in the balance of subsection (a)(2) that the

certified statement be "for the 6-month period immediately

preceding the filing of the complaint or notice of appeal ...."

Id. (emphasis added.)

The same conclusion is required by a careful reading of

subsection (b)(4), which provides:

In no event shall a prisoner be prohibited from bringing

a civil action or appealing a civil or criminal judgment for

the reason that the prisoner has no assets and no means

by which to pay the initial partial filing fee.

Id. s 1915(b)(4). Because an appellant is required to pay the

filing fee "[u]pon the filing of a[ ] ... notice of appeal," Fed.

R. App. P. 3(e), it should be obvious that "appealing a ...

judgment," in subsection (b)(4), refers to the initiation of an

appeal. This same conclusion is compelled by the interplay

between subsections (b)(1) and (b)(4) because the latter

serves to override the former's requirement that a prisoner

pay at least a portion of the fee at the time of filing.

In the absence of any provision of the statute mandating

such a contradiction, to read the phrase "appeal a judgment"

in subsection (g) to mean something other than what it means

in subsections (a)(2) and (b)(4) is nonsensical. As the Supreme Court has observed, "there is a natural presumption

that identical words used in different parts of the same act

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are intended to have the same meaning." Atlantic Cleaners

& Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433 (1932).

Second, subsection (g) states that a prisoner may not

"bring a civil action or appeal a judgment" IFP when he has

had three cases dismissed for any of the enumerated reasons.

28 U.S.C. s 1915(g). As Amicus argues, and the Department

does not contest, the phrase "bring a civil action" means to

initiate a suit. Cf. Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 833

(1985) (using the phrases "bring" a suit and "file" a suit

interchangeably); Dunlop v. Bachowski, 421 U.S. 560, 575

n.11 (1975) (same). In the prosecution of a civil action,

therefore, subsection (g) plainly applies only at the time an

indigent prisoner files his complaint with the district court.

The Department's reading of the phrase "appeal a judgment,"

however, would require continuous application of subsection

(g) throughout the prosecution of an appeal. Section 1915

does not otherwise distinguish between trials and appeals,

and the Department offers no reason why Congress would

have wanted to treat them differently in this instance. Because we can think of none, we conclude that Congress did

not intend so strange a result.

In light of the above, we hold that the phrase "appeal a

judgment" in subsection (g) refers to the initiation of an

appeal. Because Chandler filed his appeal prior to the effective date of the PLRA, he retains the IFP status he secured

before the district court and may so proceed before us. See

Fed. R. App. P. 24(a). We now consider the merits of his

appeal.

B.Adequacy of Chandler's Pleading that his Eighth Amendment Rights Were Violated

Chandler alleged in his complaint that Corporal Brooks

"made a threat against [his] life." Chandler Compl. at 3. In

papers submitted in his opposition to the Department's motion for dismissal, Chandler elaborated that Corporal

Brooks's threat had caused him "psychological damage" and

that his fear that it would be carried out caused him to have

"[n]ightmares and [to] wak[e] up in a frantic sweat." Furthermore, Chandler claimed that the failure of Lorton offiUSCA Case #96-5166 Document #359197 Filed: 06/12/1998 Page 8 of 12
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cials to transfer him to another facility, or otherwise to

respond to his administrative complaints, left him vulnerable

to attack and created an ongoing risk of injury. See Chandler Compl. at 4. At this stage of the proceedings, we must

"accept [Chandler's] factual allegations as true and draw all

inferences in [his] favor." Harris v. Ladner, 127 F.3d 1121,

1123 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (citations omitted).

The Eighth Amendment bars the infliction of "cruel and

unusual punishments." U.S. Const. amend. VIII. The Supreme Court has recognized two categories of prisoner cases

as actionable under the amendment: complaints regarding

prisoners' conditions of confinement, see, e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976) (holding that allegations of deliberate

failure to provide adequate medical care state a claim under

the Eighth Amendment), and those alleging excessive use of

force, see, e.g., Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986) (reviewing amount of force that prison guards may use to put down

riot). See also Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835 (1994)

(" 'application of the deliberate indifference standard is inappropriate' ... when 'officials stand accused of using excessive

physical force.' " (citations omitted)). To prevail in a case

alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement, a prisoner

must show that the government official "kn[ew] of and disregard[ed] an excessive risk to inmate health or safety," id. at

837 (1994); to state a claim of excessive use of force, the

prisoner must prove that a government official acted " 'maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing

harm,' " see Whitley, 475 U.S. at 320-21, and that the consequent injury was more than de minimis, see Hudson v.

McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1992). See generally Babcock v.

White, 102 F.3d 267, 273 (7th Cir. 1996) (discussing the

differing standards of proof applicable to these two causes of

action). Chandler has pled both deliberate indifference and

excessive force. See Chandler Compl. at 3.

The district court's memorandum opinion does not reveal

whether the court read Chandler's complaint to allege excessive force, deliberate indifference, or both. In articulating

the applicable legal standard, however, the court referred

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ment. See Mem. Op. at 7 (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. 825, and

Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 297 (1991)). The court stated

that "[a] verbal threat is not 'sufficiently serious' to qualify as

cruel and unusual punishment" and then held that Chandler's

complaint failed to state a claim because "one isolated threat

is not 'sufficiently serious' " to implicate Eighth Amendment

rights. Mem. Op. at 7. Because the court found Chandler's

failure to plead sufficient injury dispositive, it did not consider

whether, as alleged, the prison officials had been culpable of

threatening Chandler or failing to address his complaints

concerning those threats.

We exercise de novo review over the district court's dismissal of Chandler's claim. See Harris v. Ladner, 127 F.3d

1121, 1123 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Dismissal for failure to state a

claim is appropriate only if it "appears beyond doubt that the

plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which

would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41,

45-46 (1957) (footnote omitted).

We note at the outset that verbal threats, without more,

may be sufficient to state a cause of action under the Eighth

Amendment. See Hudson, 503 U.S. at 16 (Blackmun, J.,

concurring). As Justice Blackmun observed,

[i]t is not hard to imagine inflictions of psychological

harm--without corresponding physical harm--that might

prove to be cruel and unusual punishment.... [T]he

Eighth Amendment prohibits the unnecessary and wanton infliction of "pain," rather than "injury." ... "Pain"

in its ordinary meaning surely includes a notion of psychological harm.

Id. Although a verbal threat standing alone is generally

inadequate to state a constitutional claim, see Hopson v.

Fredericksen, 961 F.2d 1374, 1378 (8th Cir. 1992), such a

threat could violate the Eighth Amendment if the resulting

harm were sufficiently severe, see Freitas v. Ault, 109 F.3d

1335, 1338 (8th Cir. 1997) (recognizing that prisoner could

bring section 1983 action for physical and psychological harm

resulting from sexual harassment).

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Chandler's allegation does not fall into any of the categories

of verbal threat that courts have heretofore recognized as

potentially violative of the Eighth Amendment--namely, the

repeated threat of physical harm, see Doe v. Welborn, 110

F.3d 520, 524 (7th Cir. 1997) (stating that prisoner did not

show "the kind of extreme and officially sanctioned psychological harm that might support a claim for damages under the

Eighth Amendment"), sexual harassment, see Freitas, 109

F.3d at 1338, or a threat accompanied by conduct supporting

the credibility of the threat, see, e.g., Northington v. Jackson,

973 F.2d 1518, 1522 (10th Cir. 1992) (describing how parole

officer held gun to prisoner's head while threatening to kill

him). This case therefore raises an issue of first impression:

Do a prisoner's allegations that a guard threatened to have

him killed and that prison officials ignored his consequent

administrative complaints state claims upon which relief could

be granted?

Though novel, the facts underlying Chandler's complaint

are similar to those that confronted the Fourth Circuit in

Hudspeth v. Figgins, 584 F.2d 1345 (4th Cir. 1978). In that

case, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of a

prisoner's section 1983 suit alleging that a guard had threatened to have him killed because he had a suit pending against

the prison. The Fourth Circuit held that the combination of

the guard's threat and the prisoner's subsequent transfer

from unsupervised work to a work detail supervised by armed

guards sufficed to state a cause of action under section 1983.

See id. at 1348. In dicta, the court noted that if the guards

"intentionally plac[ed] Hudspeth in fear for his life if he

pressed his court actions[,] that would inflict such suffering as

to amount to unconstitutional punishment." Id.

Unlike the district court, we are not persuaded that the

injuries described in Chandler's complaint were necessarily

insufficient to state a claim under the Eighth Amendment. If

we credit his allegations, Corporal Brooks's threat put Chandler in imminent fear of his life because she was in a position

to carry it out. Depending on the gravity of the fear, the

credibility of the threat, and on Chandler's psychological

condition, the threat itself could have caused more than de

minimis harm and therefore could have been sufficient to

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state a claim of excessive use of force. These issues cannot

be resolved without more factual development. Furthermore,

the risk that Corporal Brooks's threat might be carried out, if

left unaddressed (a matter upon which the district court made

no findings), could amount to "a sufficiently substantial 'risk

of serious damage to [Chandler's] future health,' " Farmer,

511 U.S. at 843, to be actionable as an unconstitutional

condition of confinement. Finally, Chandler pleads with sufficient particularity that Corporal Brooks and the other Lorton

officials acted with intent to harm him or in knowing disregard of his mental anguish and risk of being killed. Further

inquiry may reveal that the correctional officers lacked the

necessary intent, but such a conclusion is unwarranted at this

stage of the litigation.

While the district court may conclude, upon further consideration of a more developed record, that Chandler's claims

lack the necessary factual or legal bases, it cannot be said

that his complaint "fail[s] ... to state a claim upon which

relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district

court's decision to dismiss Chandler's claim was therefore

premature, and its judgment must be reversed.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, 28 U.S.C. s 1915(g) does not

apply to Chandler's appeal. Furthermore, because the district court based its dismissal of the portion of Chandler's

complaint alleging Eighth Amendment violations solely upon

the erroneous premise that a verbal threat can "never"

violate the Eighth Amendment, its judgment is

Reversed.

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