Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-92-07040/USCOURTS-ca10-92-07040-0/pdf.json

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

---

F ILL D UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS , .. .J Stat.- Cc>urtqf APPffl~ 

Uniwu Tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

WILLIAM H. WARREN, JR., 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

TED WALLMAN, Warden, Mack H. Alford 

Correctional Center, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

JAN O 6 1993 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 92 - 7040 

(D.C. No . 87-21-C) 

( E. D. Okla. ) 

Before BALDOCK and SETH, Circuit Judges, and BABCOCK,** District 

Judge.*** 

**Honorable Lewis T. 

District Court for 

designation. 

Babcock, District Judge, 

the District of Colorado, 

United States 

sitting by 

Plaintiff-appellant William H. Warren, Jr., appeals the 

district court's order dismissing his civil rights claims, 42 

U. S . C. § 1983, as frivol ous under 28 U. S.C. § 1915(d). Plaintiff, 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the l aw of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

*** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 1 
proceeding prose and in forma pauperis, commenced this action 

initially alleging that prison officials were unconstitutionally 

censoring outgoing inmate mail. Plaintiff subsequently filed an 

amended complaint adding two new defendants, Sam Key and Michael 

C. Taylor, and alleging that all of the defendants had subjected 

him to unwarranted prison disciplinary action in retaliation for 

his filing the original civil rights complaint. 

The district court dismissed plaintiff's original complaint 

and that dismissal was affirmed on appeal. Warren v. Wallman, 

No. 87-2031 (10th Cir. Mar. 1, 1989) (unpublished). This court 

remanded the case to the district court, however, for 

consideration of the claims plaintiff asserted in his amended 

complaint. Id. , slip op. at 3-4. On remand, the district court 

ultimately dismissed these claims as frivolous under § 1915 (d ). 

Plaintiff appeals that dismissal. 

As an initial matter, plaintiff challenges the procedure 

employed by the district court in dismissing these claims. 

Previous to the§ 1915(d) dismissal, the district court had denied 

defendants' motion to dismiss these claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 

12 (b) (6), which the district court treated as a motion f or summary 

judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b). 

On appeal, plaintiff argues that the district court erred in sua 

sponte dismissing these claims as frivolous, in light of the 

court's earlier decision denying defendants summary judgment. 

The district court's order denying defendants summary 

judgment was not a final order. See generally Coopers & Lybrand 

v . Livesay. 437 U.S. 463, 467 (1978) (final order ends litigation 

2 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 2 
on merits and leaves nothing for court to do but exe cute 

judgment). A district court possesses the discretion to revise 

its interlocutory orders prior to entry of a final judgment. 

Riggs v. Scrivener. Inc . , 927 F.2d 1146, 1148 (10th Cir. ) , cert. 

denied, 112 S. Ct . 196 (1991) . Further, § 1915(d) dismissals are 

often entered by a district court sua sponte. See Neitzke v . 

Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 324 (1989). The district court, 

therefore, did not err procedurally in sua spont e dismissing 

plaintiff's claims as frivolous under§ 1915(d). 

Plaintiff next asserts that the district court nonetheless 

erred in determining that plaintiff's claims were frivolous. As a 

matter preliminary to our consideration of the merits of these 

claims, defendants argue that the district court should have 

dismissed plaintiff's claims asserted against Defendants Key and 

Taylor under Fed . R. Civ. P . 4 (j ) because plaintiff failed to 

serve the summons and amended complaint upon these defendants. 

Although the district court did not address this argument, 

defendants did raise this issue in their second motion for summary 

judgment. See Grie ss v. Colorado, 841 F.2d 1042, 1047 (10th Cir. 

1988) (appellate court is free to affirm on ground supported by 

record, but upon which district court did not rely) . 

Rule 4(j ) provides, in pertinent part, that 

[i]f a service of the summons and complaint is not made 

upon a defendant within 120 days after the filing of the 

complaint and the party on whose behalf such service was 

required cannot show good cause why such service was not 

made within that period, the action shall be dismissed 

as to that defendant without prejudice upon the court's 

own initiative with notice to such party or upon motion. 

3 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 3 
Plaintiff, with the district court's permission, filed the amended 

complaint on September 27, 1989. The record before this court, 

however, indicates that plaintiff never effected personal service 

of the summons and amended complaint upon these two newly added 

defendants. Plaintiff asserts that a copy of the amended 

complaint was mailed to the Oklahoma Attorney General, who had 

entered an appearance on behalf of the original defendant, Mr. 

Wallman. Assuming that the attorney general would represent 

Defendants Key and Taylor in this matter, mailing a copy of the 

amended complaint to the attorney general would still not be 

effective service of the amended complaint as required under Rule 

4. See Santos v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., 902 F.2d 1092, 

1094 (2d Cir. 1990 ) (service of party's attorney rather than party 

is not effective unless there is clear evidence that defendant had 

specifically appointed attorney to receive service of process on 

his behalf). 

Although plaintiff, as a prose litigant, is entitled to a 

liberal construction of his pleadings, see Haines v . Kerner, 404 

U.S. 519, 520 (1972), he is still obligated to follow the rules of 

procedure, Green v . Dorrell, 969 F.2d 915, 917 (10th Cir. 1992 ) , 

including Rule 4's requirements for the service of a summons and 

complaint. Cf. Jones v. Frank, 973 F.2d 872 (10th Cir. 1992) (this 

court affirmed district court's dismissal of pro se litigant's 

action under Rule 4(j) due to lack of proper service). Plaintiff 

has failed to show good cause why he did not serve the amended 

complaint upon Defendants Key and Taylor within 120 days of his 

4 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 4 
filing the amended complaint. Dismissal of plaintiff's claims 

asserted against these two defendants 

Rule 4(j), however, provides 

is, therefore, appropriate. 

that dismissal for lack of 

service is to be without prejudice. Because the district court's 

dismissal followed consideration of the merits of these claims, we 

must vacate that order and remand these claims with instructions 

to dismiss without prejudice as to Defendants Key and Taylor. 

Our determination that Defendants Key and Taylor were never 

properly made parties to this action leaves for consideration on 

appeal only the merits of plaintiff's retaliation claim against 

Defendant Wallman. Plaintiff asserts that the district court 

erred in dismissing this claim as frivolous. We will review a 

§ 1915 (d) dismissal only for an abuse of discretion. Denton v. 

Hernandez, 112 S. Ct. 1728, 1734 (1992) . A claim will be deemed 

frivolous under§ 1915(d) only if it lacks an arguable basis in 

law or fact. Neitzke, 490 U.S. at 324. 

An inmate does have a right to be free from conduct by prison 

officials taken in an effort to harass or retaliate against the 

inmate due to the exercise of his right of access to the courts. 

Smith v. Maschner, 899 F.2d 940, 947 (10th Cir. 1990) . A 

retaliation claim may be actionable even though purportedly 

retaliatory action taken by prison officials would otherwise be 

permissible. Id. at 948. 

Plaintiff alleged that, soon after he had filed the original 

civil rights complaint in this action, Defendant Wallman 

approached him in the prison yard and "stated that he had been 

receiving information that Plaintiff has been trying to juice the 

5 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 5 
youngsters into starting trouble." Amended complaint at 3. In 

subsequent pleadings, plaintiff also named Defendant Wallman as 

one of the prison officials who affirmed plaintiff's disciplinary 

conviction based upon the results of a drug test which he also 

challenges as retaliatory. 

These allegations are too vague and conclusory to be 

sufficient to state a claim arguably based in law or fact. See 

Frazier v. Dubois, 922 F.2d 560, 562 n.1 {10th Cir. 1990). 

Although plaintiff 

purportedly taken 

alleges additional retaliatory conduct 

by other prison officials, following Defendant 

Wallman's encounter with plaintiff in the prison yard, plaintiff 

fails to allege that Defendant Wallman personally participated in 

any of that subsequent conduct. A defendant cannot be liable 

under § 1983 unless that defendant personally participated in the 

challenged action. Meade v. Grubbs, 841 F.2d 1512 , 1528 {10th 

Cir. 1988). In light of plaintiff's vague and conclusory 

allegations asserted against Defendant Wallman, the district court 

did not abuse its discretion in dismissing this claim as frivolous 

under§ 1915{d). 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Oklahoma dismissing plaintiff's claims against 

Defendants Key and Taylor is VACATED and those claims are REMANDED 

to the district court with instructions to dismiss those claims 

6 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 6 
without prejudice. In all other respects, the judgment of the 

district court is AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

Bobby R. Baldock 

Circuit Judge 

7 

Appellate Case: 92-7040 Document: 010110155965 Date Filed: 01/06/1993 Page: 7