Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01376/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01376-0/pdf.json

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

---

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1376

CHARLES SULTAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

JAMES FENOGLIO, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Illinois.

No. 12-cv-1229-MJR-SCW — Michael J. Reagan, Chief Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED DECEMBER 11, 2014*— DECIDED JANUARY 5, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Chief Judge. Charles Sultan, an Illinois inmate, asserts in this lawsuit that medical providers and other staff at 

the Lawrence Correctional Center forced him to live in un-

 * After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral 

argument is unnecessary. The appeal is thus submitted on the briefs and 

record. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2).

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
2 No. 14-1376

sanitary conditions and denied him medical care in violation 

of the standards required by the Eighth Amendment, as it 

applies to the states. More than a year after his suit was filed, 

and while the defendants’ motions for summary judgment 

were pending, the district court on its own initiative dismissed the case on the ground that Sultan had not paid the 

initial partial filing fee that the court had assessed pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1). We conclude that the court should 

not have taken this step, and we thus remand for further 

proceedings. 

At the time Sultan filed his complaint in December 2012, 

he moved to proceed in forma pauperis. As required by 28 

U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2), he attached a certified statement from his 

prison trust account showing the “funds available” and

charges made during the previous six months. The statement revealed that his account was more than $300 in the 

red. The district court granted Sultan’s motion and assessed 

an initial partial filing fee of $2.02. (Presumably the court settled on this number because it is approximately 20% of the 

average monthly deposits to Sultan’s account; he earns $10 

per month from a prison job. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1)(A).)

Apparently because Sultan’s account had less than zero 

dollars in it, the prison did not remit the required $2.02 to 

the district court. In November 2013, a magistrate judge entered a minute order directing Sultan to show cause why the 

action should not be dismissed for failure to pay. Sultan responded that he did not control his prison trust account and 

that it was the account administrator at Lawrence who was 

at fault for not forwarding payment. He also informed the 

magistrate judge that his daughter had tried to wire the 

money through Western Union. Sultan tendered an updated 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
No. 14-1376 3

statement from his prison trust account, a grievance he submitted to prison administrators complaining that staff had 

not complied with the district court’s order to send the fee, 

and a Western Union receipt showing payment of $2.25 to 

“District Court 49 3 03.” Telling Sultan that the responsibility 

for paying rested with him, the magistrate judge rejected 

Sultan’s response as “unavailing.” The judge also informed 

Sultan that the Western Union receipt did not qualify as 

proof of payment. He gave Sultan another 30 days, until 

February 3, 2014, to pay the fee. 

Before that deadline, Sultan filed a motion seeking 30 

more days to pay. He explained again that he could not control disbursements from his trust account (by then even 

more deeply in the hole), and he pleaded that he needed 

more time to request payment from that account. He later 

sent a copy of a form entitled “Offender Authorization for 

Payment” dated January 14, which had been returned 

stamped “insufficient funds.” Sultan’s account statement 

shows that indeed he lacked sufficient funds to pay the $2.02 

fee on January 14. On January 17, Sultan received a “payroll 

adjustment” of $9.52, but for unexplained reasons the account administrator did not apply that amount against Sultan’s deficit. For the next six weeks at least, $2.02 may have 

been available to send to the clerk of the court. 

The magistrate judge did not rule on Sultan’s motion until two days after the February 3 deadline. At that point he 

denied it on the ground that Sultan had not shown good 

cause for an extension. The next day the district court dismissed Sultan’s suit with prejudice for failure to prosecute. 

The court reasoned that Sultan had not “denied having the 

requisite funds.” Sultan timely moved for reconsideration, 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
4 No. 14-1376

which the district judge denied. The court mistakenly asserted that it could not rule on Sultan’s motion because he already had filed a notice of appeal from the dismissal. See

FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(4)(B)(i); Katerinos v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury, 

368 F.3d 733, 737 (7th Cir. 2004). In any event, it added, Sultan had not shown a manifest error “or any other ground 

justifying Rule 59(e) relief.” That very day, Sultan’s $2.02 

payment arrived at the courthouse. 

Sultan argues on appeal that the court abused its discretion by dismissing his suit. We agree with him. We begin 

with the fact that he is not entitled on his own to disburse 

funds from his prison trust account. This is a wellrecognized fact; prison trust “accounts” are not like bank accounts in which the depositor has the contractual status of 

creditor. See Thomas v. Butts, 745 F.3d 309, 313 (7th Cir. 

2014); Wilson v. Sargent, 313 F.3d 1315, 1320–21 (11th Cir. 

2002); Hatchet v. Nettles, 201 F.3d 651, 652 (5th Cir. 2000). Nor 

to our knowledge is there any rule of priority that requires 

state administrators to remit payments to a federal court before they satisfy an inmate’s debt to the prison itself. (We 

wondered in an earlier case whether the prison might be liable if it fails to comply with a judicial order under the Prison 

Litigation Reform Act. Lucien v. DeTella, 141 F.3d 773, 776 

(7th Cir. 1998); compare Hall v. Stone, 170 F.3d 706, 708 (7th 

Cir. 1999) (holding federal warden in contempt for failing to 

remit comparable payment). As we did in Lucien, however, 

we can reserve this question for another day, because we 

have a more straightforward way to resolve the present 

case.) We note, however, that there is actually a systemic 

problem in prison lawsuits like Sultan’s: the law requires the 

payor (the prison) to process a drawer’s request for payment 

to permit the drawer to sue the payor. No such conflict of 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
No. 14-1376 5

interest plagues ordinary commercial transactions. Even assuming that the prison is willing to put the court’s order for 

payment somewhere in the queue of Sultan’s creditors, it is 

entirely predictable that the prison will prefer to postpone 

Sultan’s ability to pursue litigation against itself. 

Sultan therefore should not be penalized because the 

prison administrators failed to forward the $2.02 as directed

by the court’s order. He did all that he could when he sent 

prison administrators a form requesting payment from his 

account, and he filed grievances when they took no action. 

See Wilson, 313 F.3d at 1321; Hatchet, 201 F.3d at 654. 

There is another, deeper problem with the district court’s 

action: it conflicts with the statute. Section 1915(b)(4) provides that “[i]n 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.” This 

court has addressed the meaning of that language as it applies to appeals, but the principles we articulated apply 

equally to cases in the district court:

If, when a prisoner files his appeal, the balance of his 

trust account is zero, the case proceeds despite the 

lack of payment. But when a prisoner does not adhere 

to the statutory system, a court may dismiss the appeal without regard to his ability (or inability) to pay. 

For example, if the prisoner does not furnish a statement of his trust account, we issue an order requiring 

him to do so within 21 days—with a warning that unless the information and requisite payment are forthcoming, we will dismiss the appeal for want of prosecution (but without relieving the prisoner of the obliCase: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
6 No. 14-1376

gation to pay up eventually, for that obligation is incurred, as it is for a solvent litigant, by the act of filing 

the notice of appeal). If the prisoner sends a trust account statement showing that even partial payment is 

not required, then the appeal proceeds under 

§ 1915(b)(4), but if the prisoner disdains to comply 

with the order, the appeal ends.

Robbins v. Switzer, 104 F.3d 895, 897–98 (7th Cir. 1997). A balance of minus $300 counts, for this purpose, as a balance of 

zero. When Sultan filed his complaint in December 2012, he 

had less than zero funds available. He complied with the 

remainder of the statute, however, by furnishing the certified statement of his trust account. See also Thomas, 745 F.3d 

at 312; Cosby v. Meadows, 351 F.3d 1324, 1327 (10th Cir. 2003); 

Taylor v. Delatoore, 281 F.3d 844, 850 (9th Cir. 2002). 

The district court might have thought that the moment 

Sultan had $9.52 in his account (January 17, 2014), it could 

demand that he turn over the $2.02 partial payment. But that 

position would be in tension with the statutory provision 

limiting the duty of prison administrators to forward payments from the account to “each time the amount ... exceeds 

$10 ... .” 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2). It is possible to read that language as addressing only the monthly payments following 

the initial partial payment. See, e.g., Wilson, 313 F.3d at 1320; 

Hatchet, 201 F.3d at 653; see also Roller v. Gunn, 107 F.3d 227, 

233 (4th Cir. 1997) (interpreting this part of the statute as a 

means of ensuring that prisoners need not “totally deprive 

themselves of those small amenities of life” as the price of 

suing). But such a narrow reading is not compelled by the 

language of the statute, and we can see no policy that would 

be served by refusing to apply it to initial payments. 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
No. 14-1376 7

Our view would be different if there were evidence that 

Sultan was intentionally depleting his trust account to avoid 

paying his filing fee. See Thomas, 745 F.3d at 312; Wilson, 313 

F.3d at 1321 n.7. If that were happening, the district court 

would be entitled to deny in forma pauperis status based on 

28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3). But Sultan appears to have spent his 

funds (and incurred charges) at the prison law library and 

for legal postage, which by regulation Illinois allows without 

a set limit. 20 ILL. ADMIN. CODE § 430.40(b); Turner-El v. West, 

811 N.E.2d 728, 734 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004). As we noted earlier, 

Sultan was earning about $10 each month from a prison job, 

but that money eventually went toward his legal charges, 

not for nonessential items. See Cosby, 351 F.3d at 1333–34 (affirming dismissal when prisoner spent funds at prison canteen instead of paying filing fee). We do not know why the 

account administrator did not forward $2.02 as soon as it became available, but we do not see evidence that Sultan frustrated payment. To the contrary, the record suggests that he 

explored several ways to comply with the court’s order. His 

grievance indicates that he may have thought that a withdrawal of the $2.02 already had been authorized. Yet after 

receiving the order to show cause, he submitted a new form

requesting payment in January 2014. Prison authorities returned that form stamped “insufficient funds” instead of 

sending the money to the court when Sultan’s paycheck hit 

the account three days later. Meanwhile, Sultan also had 

asked his daughter to pay the fee for him through Western 

Union, and although she initially may have filled out the 

paperwork incorrectly, the payment ultimately went 

through. Had the court given Sultan another 30 days as requested, the money would have arrived within that time. 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8
8 No. 14-1376

One matter remains. Sultan argues in his reply brief that 

it was an abuse of discretion for the district court not to recruit pro bono counsel. But Sultan waived this argument by 

omitting it from his opening brief. See Nationwide Ins. Co. v. 

Cent. Laborers' Pension Fund, 704 F.3d 522, 527 (7th Cir. 2013); 

Hernandez v. Cook Cnty. Sheriff's Office, 634 F.3d 906, 913 (7th 

Cir. 2011). In any event, Sultan’s motions for appointment of 

counsel were denied without prejudice, and he may renew 

his request for counsel after the matter is returned to the district court. 

Accordingly, we VACATE the dismissal and REMAND the 

case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

Case: 14-1376 Document: 45 Filed: 01/05/2015 Pages: 8