Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03746/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03746-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 

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In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 14-3746 

JOSEPH A. WILLIAMS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

ROBERT WERLINGER, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Wisconsin. 

No. 13-cv-819-bbc — Barbara B. Crabb, Judge. 

____________________ 

SUBMITTED JULY 22, 2015 — DECIDED AUGUST 5, 2015 

____________________ 

Before POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges. 

POSNER, Circuit Judge. History is rich in searches for the 

missing. The search for the Holy Grail, for Dr. Livingston, 

for Roald Amundsen, for Amelia Earhart, for Jimmy Hoffa, 

for the Fountain of Youth, for the lost continent of Atlantis—

and now for Robert Werlinger. 

Rule 4(c)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that “at the plaintiff's request, the court may order that 

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service be made by a United States marshal or deputy marshal or by a person specially appointed by the court. The 

court must so order if the plaintiff is authorized to proceed 

in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. § 1915 ... .” The plaintiff 

in this case, an inmate of the Oxford Federal Correctional 

Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, filed suit against a former 

warden of the prison, Robert Werlinger, on November 6, 

2013, seeking damages for violations of his constitutional 

rights. (Other defendants are named in the complaint, but it 

appears that the plaintiff is interested only in obtaining relief 

against Werlinger.) After screening the complaint pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the district judge allowed the plaintiff 

to proceed pro se against Werlinger under section 1915, 

thereby bringing into play the passage we quoted from Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 4(c)(3) and directing the United States Marshals 

Service to serve defendant Werlinger. 

That directive was issued in June 2014. The Marshals 

Service replied within days that it couldn’t serve Werlinger 

because he had retired the previous March and left no forwarding address. In August the district court, in the person 

of magistrate judge Peter Oppeneer, directed the Marshals 

Service “to make another attempt to serve the defendant. 

The marshal may attempt to locate defendant Werlinger by 

contacting the Federal Bureau of Prisons or conducting an 

Internet search of public records for the defendant’s current 

address or both.” The magistrate judge added that the Marshals Service would not have to reveal Werlinger’s address 

to the plaintiff. 

That was fine, but we are troubled by the magistrate 

judge’s further statement that “reasonable efforts do not require the marshal to be a private investigator for civil litiCase: 14-3746 Document: 20 Filed: 08/05/2015 Pages: 5
No. 14-3746 3 

gants or to use software available only to law enforcement 

officers to discover addresses for defendants whose whereabouts are not discoverable through public records." In support of this proposition he cited our decision in Sellers v. 

United States, 902 F.2d 598 (7th Cir. 1990)—a parallel decision 

as we’ll see—but there is nothing in it to suggest, as the magistrate judge in the present case could be interpreted as suggesting, that a perfunctory public records search is all that is 

required to comply with the duty imposed on the Marshals 

Service by Rule 4(3)(c). 

Just two days after the second directive the Service tersely replied: “Please refer back to former [response to direction 

to serve Werlinger]. Werlinger has retired from FCI Oxford. 

No forwarding info available. Was not able to locate using 

internet database searches.” Apparently satisfied with the 

response, the magistrate judge (a different one—Stephen L. 

Crocker) told the plaintiff that he was now on his own, and 

gave him a couple of months to find Werlinger through his 

own efforts, which he wasn’t able to do. So in November the 

district judge dismissed the complaint without prejudice. 

The district court should not have accepted the responses 

of the Marshals Service to the order to serve Werlinger. Not 

that the Service can be expected to do the impossible. If 

Werlinger changed his name to Siddhārtha Gautama and is 

now a monk of a Buddhist temple in Tibet, the Marshals 

Service probably couldn’t find him by efforts proportionate 

to the importance of finding him; and then the plaintiff 

would be out of luck. But as should be evident from our 

opinion in Sellers v. United States, supra, 902 F.2d at 602, the 

Service had to do more than it did to try to find the exwarden. It is most unlikely that Werlinger has emigrated, 

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turned into a witch’s familiar, or otherwise vanished. Probably he still lives in Wisconsin and probably he receives a 

federal pension—and, if so, the Bureau of Prisons must have 

a record of it and of the address to which his pension benefits are sent. The Bureau or the prison or both must have 

Werlinger’s personnel records, which would indicate his 

home address when he was warden. If he has since moved, 

the real estate agent who handled the sale of his house may 

know where he moved to. In all likelihood his successor as 

warden, or members of his staff at the prison, know his address, whether postal or email. It’s shameful that in response 

to the district court’s second directive the Marshals Service 

gave up looking for Werlinger after just two days. The Marshals are experts at tracking down fugitives. It should be a 

good deal easier to track down a retired federal prison warden than a master criminal on the lam. It was only three 

months before the search began that he’d retired. The district 

judge must apply more pressure to the Service to find him. 

All this is not to suggest that the Marshals Service is or 

should be the primary organ for finding and serving defendants in civil cases. Ordinarily the plaintiff, or his lawyer 

if he has one (Williams does not), bears the primary responsibility for seeking out the defendant and serving him. Only 

if diligent efforts by the plaintiff or his lawyer fail to find 

and serve the defendant should the district court order the 

Marshals Service to find and serve him. But this case is special because Rule 4(c)(3) provides that the judge must order 

the Marshals Service (or “a person specially appointed by 

the court,” but no such person was appointed) to serve the 

defendant if the plaintiff is authorized, as he was in this case, 

to proceed in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The 

district judge issued the order, but didn’t follow it up. And 

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No. 14-3746 5 

when later the magistrate judge prematurely allowed the 

Marshals Service to abandon the search and told the plaintiff 

that he would have to find Werlinger on his own if he could, 

and the plaintiff, being an unrepresented prisoner seeking 

an elusive quarry, couldn’t find him though he tried, the district judge dismissed the case. 

The dismissal, being premature, is reversed and the case 

remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The running of the statute of limitations shall be tolled, 

as explained in Sellers v. United States, supra, 902 F.2d at 602, 

while the Marshals Service redoubles its efforts to FIND 

WERLINGER! 

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