Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-18-02816/USCOURTS-ca7-18-02816-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kendrick Butler
Appellant
Adam Deal
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted January 7, 2020

Decided February 19, 2020 

Before 

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 18-2816 

KENDRICK BUTLER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

ADAM DEAL, 

 Defendant-Appellee.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Central District of Illinois. 

No. 1:15-cv-1102-JBM 

Joe Billy McDade, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

This appeal raises the question whether the parties to a case reached an 

enforceable settlement agreement. Kendrick Butler, a prisoner in Illinois’s Pontiac 

Correctional Center, had filed a claim against correctional officer Adam Deal for using 

excessive force while handcuffing him. After the parties had engaged in some 

exchanges about possible settlement of the dispute, the district court held an 

evidentiary hearing and determined that they had done so. It then entered an order 

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

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No. 18-2816 Page 2 

enforcing the agreement it understood them to have reached. We conclude, however, 

that the court acted under a misapprehension of what terms could be on the table, and 

that it acted prematurely. We therefore vacate its judgment and remand for further 

proceedings. 

In the underlying action, Butler complained that Deal had inflicted unnecessary 

pain in the course of handcuffing him. Deal was putting handcuffs on Butler in 

connection with a scheduled cell transfer. But in so doing, Deal allegedly had ignored 

Butler’s protestations of pain caused by the impact of the handcuffs on a cyst on his 

right wrist and an injured left wrist; Deal had then twisted and tightened Butler’s cuffs 

until they cut off his circulation. Butler’s wrists were numb for two days afterward. 

Butler sued Deal under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deliberate indifference and excessive 

force in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court entered summary judgment in 

Deal’s favor on the deliberate indifference claim, but it allowed Butler to pursue his 

excessive force claim. 

 At the final pretrial conference on August 3, 2018, the court urged the parties to 

settle the claim. During a recess, the judge’s courtroom deputy apparently asked, on 

behalf of the parties, whether the court would be willing to waive Butler’s filing fee to 

encourage Butler to settle. (Butler was proceeding in forma pauperis and was thus 

entitled to pay his $400 filing fee in installments pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1).) The 

court said that it would do so. Neither party, at this juncture, called to the court’s 

attention the part of section 1915(b)(1) that says “[n]otwithstanding subsection (a) 

[which addresses litigation without prepayment of fees], 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.” The court indicated that it would waive the $400 fee in order to 

facilitate a settlement agreement. At that point, the court stated that the parties had 

until August 10 to file a notice of settlement with the court. 

The parties negotiated through the following week, but on August 10, counsel 

for Deal informed the court that they had failed to settle the case despite their best 

efforts. The court decided to look into matters more carefully, however, and so it 

scheduled a status conference for August 13, 2018, to explore the state of the settlement 

process. At that conference, the court shifted gears and decided to see whether a 

binding settlement agreement had already been entered, despite the parties’ position to 

the contrary. 

Deal’s lawyer, Mia Buntic, testified first. She said that Butler initially demanded a 

sum between $500 and $600, but after the court offered to waive the $400 filing fee, 

Butler agreed to drop his minimum to $300. Buntic then explained that she took the 

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No. 18-2816 Page 3 

$300 offer to Deal, who accepted on the understanding that the filing fee waiver was 

part of the package. But when she called Butler to tell him of Deal’s acceptance, Butler 

refused to approve the settlement, saying that he learned that he could likely settle for 

more money. For his part, Butler denied that his admitted reference to $300 was part of 

any settlement offer. 

The court, applying Illinois law regarding the enforceability of settlement 

agreements, determined that the case had been settled. It found that Butler had 

conveyed to Buntic that “in addition to waiver of the filing fee, his bott[om] line 

minimum was $300 to settle this case,” and that Buntic had obtained the approval 

necessary to settle the case. The court discredited Butler’s testimony that he believed he 

was still negotiating a settlement: 

Butler admitted during his testimony at the [] hearing, that he advised 

Ms. Buntic that he wanted between $500 and $600 in order to settle the case. 

Butler further admitted that he agreed to ask the Court to waive the filing 

fee in order to facilitate the settlement. When one combines the settlement 

payment of $300 with the balance of the filing fee of $400 owed by Butler in 

this case, that total amount exceeds the amount that Butler indicated for 

which he would be willing to settle this case. 

The court then sua sponte entered an order enforcing this agreement. 

On appeal Butler argues that the district court erred in enforcing the settlement 

agreement because the parties had different understandings of the terms discussed in 

the settlement negotiation. 

We agree with Butler that the essential terms of a settlement agreement must be 

definite and certain for it to be enforceable. See Lewis v. School Dist. #70, 648 F.3d 484, 

486 (7th Cir. 2011) (interpreting Illinois law). The problem with the terms here, 

however, is not the parties’ mutual misunderstanding, though it is troubling that 

neither party thought the case had been settled as of August 10. But the settlement 

discussions were conducted in part using a currency that was unavailable to the 

parties—Butler’s obligation to pay his filing fee. Nothing would have prevented Deal 

from promising to cover that, but that would have meant promising to give Butler $700 

($300 plus the $400 filing fee), not just $300. We have no reason to think that Deal would 

have accepted that arrangement. The statute, however, forbids outright forgiveness of 

the obligation to pay the filing fee. See Maus v. Baker, 729 F.3d 708, 709 (7th Cir. 2013) 

(addressing appellate filing fees under the same statute); see also Pinson v. Samuels, 

761 F.3d 1, 4 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Courts may allow a plaintiff proceeding in forma pauperis

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to pay the fee in monthly installments, but they lack statutory authority to waive the fee 

altogether. See Maus, 729 F.3d at 709. 

In passing the Prison Litigation Reform Act and eliminating the possibility that a 

prisoner might be able to litigate for “free,” Congress meant to create an incentive 

against bringing frivolous lawsuits. See 141 CONG. REC. S7524–25 (daily ed. May 25, 

1995) (statement of Sen. Dole). Although the financial burden of paying the filing fee in 

installments may not seem great, it takes a substantial bite out of a prisoner’s account, 

and this is just what Congress had in mind. See id. at S7525; Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 

521, 535–36 (2011). In sum, the district court did not have the authority to induce Butler 

to settle by foregoing the collection of the required filing fee. 

There is nothing on this record to support the idea that the different parts of the 

alleged settlement agreement are severable. If the parties agreed to anything, they 

agreed to a package deal: a payment of $300 from Deal to Butler, and the elimination of 

Butler’s $400 debt to the court. Since the court lacked authority to order the latter, the 

agreement as a whole falls apart. The filing-fee waiver is unenforceable, and in Illinois, 

if an “unenforceable term is an essential part of the contract, the contract is not 

severable and the entire contract is void.” Kepple & Co., Inc. v. Cardiac, Thoracic and 

Endovascular Therapies, S.C., 920 N.E. 2d 1189, 1193 (Ill. App. 2009). We conclude, 

therefore, that even if the district court was correct to determine that the parties had 

agreed to the $300 payment and the $400 fee forgiveness, it was not authorized to fulfill 

its part of that bargain. 

The judgment is VACATED and this case is REMANDED to the district court for 

further proceedings. 

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HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. The district court’s 

decision not to pursue collection of the filing fee is not a jurisdictional issue that we are 

obliged to raise ourselves on appeal. After remand, further efforts on this case by both 

defense counsel and the district court will impose costs on public resources that will 

quickly dwarf the uncollected filing fee in the district court. We should affirm the 

district court’s decision enforcing the parties’ settlement and putting this case to rest. 

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